Any information you provide about yourself to University of Manchester Students’ Union will only be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy, detailed below.

This Privacy Policy outlines the kinds of personal information we collect, how we use personal information, who we share it with and your rights regarding the personal information you provide to us. Please note, this Privacy Policy does not apply to websites or services operated by third parties.

Our Principles

Our policy can be summarised in one sentence: we will not share any individual user details (including your email address) to any third party without your consent.

At the University of Manchester Students’ Union we collect different types of information about our members and website users for the following main reasons:

• To provide membership and support services to students at the University of Manchester
• To provide an interactive, personalised web site
• To provide membership facilities for activity groups and sport clubs
• To provide booking facilities for events
• To provide voting facilities to members for elections run by the University of Manchester Students' Union
• To provide a security mechanism whereby we can restrict content to certain groups of users
• To enable the purchase and delivery of goods through our online shop
• To analyse and improve the services we offer
• To allow us to send you marketing communications about content, products, events and promotions by us and third parties that you might be interested in, should you opt-in

What information do we collect?

We have a data sharing agreement with the University which allows us to automatically collect information about students when they register with the University. This information includes names, gender, dates of birth, student email addresses, course details, demographics and residence. We use this data solely for the purposes of providing our services to students. We may collect additional information from you when registering with some of our services, for example next-of-kin information.

When visiting our website we will automatically collect basic information about you provided to us by your web browser. Information collected includes your IP address (from which we can identify your Internet Service Provider and location), the page you are visiting, the web browser and operating system you are using, the date and time you accessed our website and the web address of the website that linked you to our website.

In addition to the above, we use the Google Analytics service, and various third-party advertising providers on this website. These services will collect additional information about you, such as the pages you visit, the capabilities of your device and the time you spend on the website. We will use the information provided by Google Analytics to help us maintain this website, to ensure the website is working properly, and to help us make our site more accessible and useful.

We use Hotjar to help us understand how users navigate around individual pages on our website and to create surveys to gather user feedback. Find more information on cookies and data privacy from the Hotjar website.

We will not normally collect any sensitive personal information from you, and in any event, will request your express consent to do so.

Who will have access to your information?

You have control over who is able to access specific items of information. Your information will not be visible to anyone else using this site. Your information will be visible to Union staff responsible for administering membership and this website for the purposes of providing our services and resolving account issues. Should you join an activity group your details and next-of-kin details will be made available to the group committee.Visitor information collected by Google Analytics may be used by Google for the purposes of enhancing their products and providing you with personalised services. You can opt out of Google Analytics collecting information about you on this website and other websites by using the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Extension. [https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/]

We may also disclose personal information about you to comply with applicable laws and when requested to do so by law enforcement agencies or government bodies.

Cookies

Cookies are used on this website for functional, analytical and advertising purposes.

A cookie is a small piece of information which is sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Cookies do not damage your computer, and by themselves cannot be used to discover the identity of the user.

You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie; and you may block cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser. Please note that if you restrict all cookies you may not be able to access all or parts of our website. Unless you have configured your browser to refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies as soon you visit our websites.

What is a Cookie?

Cookies are small files that websites send to your computer when you visit. They enable a website to remember who you are. These cookies store and sometimes track information about your website usage.

Information from cookies may include information relating to your use of our websites; which pages you visited, information about your computer, such as your internet (IP) address; browser type (such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge or Firefox) and geographic data.

Third Party Cookies

Cookies which are used by others are called "Third Party cookies". Third Party Cookies enable third party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website (e.g. like advertising, interactive content and analytics). The parties that set these third-party cookies can then identify your computer both when you visit our website and also when you visit other websites that use the same third-party cookies.

Type of Cookies on This Website:

Advertising and sharing cookies: We use these cookies to make advertising messages more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions such as ensuring that the same advertisement does not continuously appearing. They ensure that advertisements are properly displayed, and in some cases select advertisements that are based on your interests.

What Cookies do we use?

Facebook – Facebook Custom Audiences

Ways in which you can Refuse or Control Cookies

You cannot refuse cookies that are strictly necessary to deliver the website to you. However, you can block or delete strictly necessary cookies and all other cookies by changing your browser settings, as described below. Performing this action may result in some or all features of the website not working as intended.

The "Help" section on the menu bar of most internet browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie and how to disable cookies altogether. 

To find out more about cookies and about using your browser settings to control cookies please visit: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/. 

What else you should know about privacy

Remember to close your browser when you have finished your user session. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a Library or Internet Café.

You as an individual are responsible for the security of, and access to, your own computer.Please be aware that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information over the Internet that this information can be collected and used by others.

Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your usernames, passwords and any account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you are using the Internet.

Our pages may contain links to other websites, and you should be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices on other websites.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and all changes will be posted here. Where the changes are significant, we may also choose to email all our registered users with the new Privacy Policy.