Privacy Notice

Data Protection, Privacy and IT Security Notice

Date: 25th May 2020

Our NETpositive Software forms the basis of a range of Tools that are offered free at the point of use by Tool Providers for their stakeholders (End Users). We take privacy concerns very seriously and are committed to protecting the data End Users share with us as they interact with our Tools.

This statement explains the Data Protection, Privacy and IT Security practices which apply to the NETpositive Software we operate; references to "we" or "us" are NETpositive Futures Ltd.

For the purposes of academic research, and software development, data will also be securely transferred to our project partners, the Stockholm Environment Institute (http://www.sei.org) who will treat this data in strict accordance with the terms of this privacy notice, UK Data Protection Legislation and the General Data Protection Regulation.

Our aim is to safeguard End Users' privacy whilst providing a personalised and valuable service to the Tool Providers (e.g. Universities, Purchasing Consortia, Police Forces, Local Authorities, Industry Groups, Industry Clients) who have offered them for free to their stakeholders.

We want to be transparent about what happens to information provided to us and so here we explain how we collect information, what we do with it and what controls users have.

Your acceptance of this Policy

By using our Tool, you consent to the collection and use of information by us in accordance with our Privacy Notice. If you do not agree to this Notice, please do not use our Tool. We ask users to tick a box on registration to explicitly consent to this Notice.

If, at any time, you wish to know what information we hold about you, or your company, or wish to remove or modify the data we hold about you, please contact our data controller, Sandra Pickering at: admin@netpositivefutures.co.uk

If you believe at any time that we are in breach of any data protection laws or good practice, please contact us, which in no way affects your right to also raise your concerns with a supervisory authority.

What information do we collect?

We collect the information on the basis of informed consent, that you provided at the time of registration. We collect two kinds of information about our users that is necessary to achieve the ambition of the NETpositive Software – that of promoting sustainable development, social value and a response to climate change:

a.   Personal Information which includes:

i.  the IP address of the computer used to access the Tool (the location of the computer on the internet), pages accessed, and files downloaded, analysed using Google Analytics. This helps us to determine the number of individuals using the Software, how many people visit on a regular basis, which pages are most popular, and which pages are least popular. This information doesn't tell us anything about who users are or where they live, it simply allows us to monitor and improve our service.

ii. your freely-provided email address, as supplied by you at registration, which acts to identify the account you hold on our system and will be used to provide you with updates about the NETpositive Tool and its content, in order for us to stimulate the regular use of the Tool. Your email may be shared with the Tool provider.

b. Organisational information provided freely by the Tool user and through interactions with Tool content such as name, business email address, user department and other demographics, including:

- selection, ranking and status of Issues and Actions;

- user-submitted content related to customised Issues and Actions;

The information is needed to provide users with their customised Action Plan and also enables us to conduct research on the actions being taken by tool users. This both supports the provision of the Tool (by providing stakeholder information to the Tool provider) and also enables us to improve our Tool content in future. We do not conduct profiling or automated decision making on the basis of supplied data.

The Tool is hosted on Heroku servers which are located in Republic of Ireland, and any personal information collected by the Tool (as identified above) is stored on these servers. Additional services offered by Heroku in conjunction with the hosting of data. Heroku is owned by SalesForce, and you can read about their data processing compliance status with respect to the GDPR here: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/gdpr  and https://www.salesforce.com/gdpr/overview/

We take back-ups of the data hosted on these servers, which is also forwarded to our research and software development partner, the Stockholm Environment Institute. All back-ups are securely stored on password protected and encrypted machines.

How is the information used?

Any organisation data End Users provide will be used and recorded by us in accordance with current data protection legislation and this Privacy Policy. We use information provided by End Users to:

  • fulfil requests made by End Users themselves (e.g. to modify or delete information about End Users)
  • record any contact we have with End Users
  • prevent or detect fraud or abuses of our Tool and enable third parties to carry out technical, logistical or other functions on our behalf
  • to provide the listed Tool Providers with information relating to how their stakeholders are interacting with Tool content. This is to help them gain a better understanding of their stakeholder’s activity (in relation to Tool content). Occasionally, and only where the purpose is to prompt users to update information or to raise awareness of activity relevant to the purpose of the Software, email addresses may be used by Tool Providers to provide information to End Users e.g. notification of events and activities hosted by Tool Providers or prompts to update Action Plans in line with contract management arrangements.
  • NETpositive Futures Ltd will not use email addresses for any marketing purposes and will not use this information for the purposes of ‘spam’.

We may disclose aggregate statistics about our site visitors, in order to describe our services to prospective partners, and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics will include no personally identifying information.

We may disclose personal information if we receive a complaint about any content you have posted or transmitted to the Tool if required to do so by law.

We reserve the right to use aggregate, anonymised, data from the Tool, which may be used by us in project reports, promotional/marketing material, and other forms of dissemination.

Aside from provision of data to Tool Providers, as described above, no information containing personally identifying information will be sold or otherwise disclosed to external parties.

Retention Period for Data

Any data you provide will be retained by us for a period of 7 years following the date of your last log-in. This allows us to fulfil our role of providing longitudinal analysis of the activities of organisations in delivering sustainable development and social value. After this period, your data will be removed from our databases.

Links

Our sites contain links to other sites. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites even if you access them using links from our websites and recommend that you check the policy of each site you visit.

In addition, if you linked to our Tool from a third-party website, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners or operators of that third-party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third-party site and contact its owner or operator if you have any concerns or questions.

Security

We place great importance on the security of all personally identifiable information associated with our users. We have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised personnel have access to user information.

Use of cookies

In simple terms a cookie is a small piece of information sent from our website to your computer to help us to identify you quickly. Any information gathered by the use of cookies is compiled on an aggregate, anonymous basis.

Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your hard drive to store and sometimes track information about you. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you should be able to change your browser to prevent that. You should read the information that came with your browser software to see how you can set up your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, this should then give you the opportunity to decide whether to accept it. However, you may not be able to take full advantage of the Tool if you do so. Cookies are specific to the server that created them and cannot be accessed by other servers, which means they cannot be used to track your movements around the web.

Further information about cookies can be found at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's website www.allaboutcookies.org.

The following cookies are used to ensure the functioning of the Tool:

From Google analytics:

__utma – (2-year expiry) This cookie keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site pertaining to the cookie, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred.
__utmb – (refreshed on each page load) and __utmc – (expires end of session). Working together to calculate how long a visit takes.
__utmz – (6 months expiry) Keeps track of where the visitor came from.

see http://www.morevisibility.com/analyticsblog/from-__utma-to-__utmz-google-analytics-cookies.html for more info.

From django:
csrftoken – (1 year expiry) Refreshed for each form. Used to combat Cross Site Request Forgery - i.e. submitting bogus form data.
sessionid – (2 weeks expiry) This maintains the user's login.

Where is the information stored?

Information which you submit via our Tool is sent to servers hosted by Heroku https://www.heroku.com/policy/tos located in Republic of Ireland. This is necessary in order to process the information and to provide you with access to additional resources provided through the Tool.

We will periodically download user responses from the Tool for analysis and research purposes. These will be stored securely in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Periodically data will be passed to Tool Providers to allow them to undertake research and help us improve the Tool.

Information submitted by you may be communicated in anonymous aggregated form by us to the offices of our partner, the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Changes

We may make changes to this Policy from time to time. If we change our Privacy Policy, we will post the changes on this page. If the change in our Privacy Policy affects the use of your personal information we contact you by email to seek your consent to the use.

Your rights

Any personal information submitted via our websites or by text is treated in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the GDPR. To find out more about your entitlements under this legislation, visit: https://www.gov.uk/data-protection and  https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

If you would like to review or revise information you have previously provided to us online, you may do so by emailing info@net-positive.org

You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998 and GDPR. If you would like a copy of the information held on you or if you have any questions relating to this Privacy Policy or how we use the personal information we have about you, please write to:

NETpositive Futures Ltd

31 Ings Lane

Brompton-by-Sawdon

Scarborough

YO13 9DR

Last updated: 14 June 2022