Users of the University's website
The Privacy Notice for Users of the Website should be read in conjunction with the overall Privacy Notice.
This section outlines the information that we collect when you visit the Website and explains how the information we collect is treated. By using the Website you consent to the collection and use of your personal information (where provided) in accordance with this privacy statement. The statement is subject to change. If we make any substantial changes, we will notify you by posting a prominent notice on this Website or, if appropriate, by emailing you.
The Website may contain links to and from the websites of third parties. If you follow a link to any of these websites, these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies and the way in which they manage their data. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these third-party websites.
Information we collect
Where you use our Website we will collect and process the following personal data about you:
- Information you give us: this is information that you give us when e.g. completing a web form or buying a product from the University’s online shop, or by corresponding with us e.g. reporting a problem. The information you give us may include your name, title, age, gender, address, email address, phone number, credit card details, records of communications sent to you by the University, or communications received from you.
- Information we collect about you: every time you use our Website we collect certain information about you, including your IP address, location, browser type, referral source, length of visit, number of page views, full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) and navigation around our Website. This information is collected by the cookies we use. Please see our cookies section below for further information.
- Information we receive from other sources. This is information we receive about you if you use any of the other services we provide, for example an Open Day. In this case, we will have informed you when we collected that data if we intend to share those data internally and combine it with data collected on the Website. We will also tell you for what purpose we will share and combine your data. We are working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies).
How we use the Personal Data we collect
We use personal data held about you in the following ways:
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Purpose of Processing |
Legal Basis |
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The personal data provided by you on our online enquiry web forms will be used for the purposes of processing your enquiry e.g. dealing with a complaint, sending you a prospectus by post or email, reporting faults etc. |
Consent. You have the right to withdraw consent at any time without prejudice by contacting study@stir.ac.uk. If you do withdraw consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on your consent before your withdrawal. |
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Any personal data you provide us in relation to joining the University as a student may be passed to our partners, QSES Enrolment Solutions Ltd. |
Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. We may not be able to process your application to study with us if you do not provide us with the necessary information. |
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To supply you with goods and services ordered via our online shop or to allow you to book events via our online shop/booking system. |
Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. We may not be able to supply you with the goods/services or allow you to book an event if you do not provide us with the necessary information. |
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To allow you to log into and use our My Portal system, an online service focussed on our students. |
Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. We may not be able to provide you with access to our My Portal System if you do not provide us with the necessary information. |
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To process payments you make via the Website for e.g. tuition fees, invoices, goods/services/events. |
Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. We may not be able to process your payments if you do not provide us with the necessary information. |
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Provided you have consented at the point of us collecting your personal data/submitting the enquiry or prospectus web form, we may use your personal data to communicate to you relevant marketing information about the University and the University’s goods and services by mail, email, SMS, telephone, or targeted advertising on social media and other online platforms such as on Google. This may include information on:
If you no longer wish to receive marketing information, please email study@stir.ac.uk. You will also be given the opportunity to opt out of receiving marketing information on each piece of marketing information we send to you. |
Consent. You have the right to withdraw consent at any time without prejudice by contacting study@stir.ac.uk. If you do withdraw consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on your consent before your withdrawal. |
Who do we share your personal data with?
The University shall not sell or otherwise transfer your personal data to any third parties except as set out in this privacy policy which includes the following circumstances:
- We may share your personal data with our partners at QS Enrolment Solutions Ltd and our joint venture partners, INTO University of Stirling if necessary for student recruitment purposes.
- Where you have signed up for an event or requested services that are provided by a third party we may need to share your details with the third parties concerned in order to provide the services requested.
- We use service providers to store and in some cases process personal data on our behalf (for instance Mailchimp used for communication purposes). This is done in accordance with data protection legislation and where necessary consent will be sought.
- If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of the University, our students, or others. This includes exchanging information with third parties for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
How long we keep your data for?
As a minimum, the University will retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to process and handle your enquiry, your request to purchase goods, services or book an event or pay outstanding invoices. If you consent to us using your personal data for marketing purposes, we shall retain the minimum amount of information necessary to market to you until you withdraw your consent. If our processing relates to student recruitment, we shall retain the information collected for as long as is necessary to fulfil that purpose.
Once personal data is no longer necessary, we shall securely remove it from our systems.
Storage of your information
Transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. The University will do our best to protect your personal data, although we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to the Website.
Any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use appropriate organisational and security measures to prevent unauthorised access to your personal data.
Storing and transferring information outside the European Economic Area
The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). It may also be processed by staff or by partners operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers, agents, or partners. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing.
Countries outside the European Economic Area do not always have the same data protection obligations as we do. However, we will take steps to ensure that your information is used by third parties securely and in accordance with the terms of this privacy policy.
Passwords
Where you have been provided with (or where you have chosen) a password which allows you to access certain parts of the Website, you are responsible for keeping the password safe and confidential. You must not share a password with anyone.
IP addresses
The Website does not automatically capture or store personal data from visitors to the Website, other than to log your IP address and session information. We keep logs of the University's web server activity. The University uses log files to analyse usage of our Website, and we may archive them in an anonymous format for historical records. Session information that we analyse includes the time and duration of your visit to the Website, the files requested, and the browser used.
We may collect information (where available) about your IP address, operating system and browser type. This is data about users' browsing actions and patterns. It is used to inform improvements to the Website, for system administration, and to assist in providing the most relevant content to suit your requirements.
Our log files include IP addresses that are anonymised. This information will only be accessed by authorised persons of the University or its partners.
For example, when we read an IP address for a student from India it will allow us to provide tailored information relating to scholarships relevant to students from India. Or, if we read an IP address for a student from China it may allow us to provide information about visa applications relevant to students from China, etc. Tailored information improves the user experience on our Website.
Cookies
Our Website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of the Website. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is stored on your device.
Cookies may remain on your computer either for the duration of the session or they can be stored for longer. You can configure most standard web browsers to refuse cookies – see changing your cookie settings.
Why and how we use cookies
There are several reasons why cookies may appear in your browser when you visit the Website.
Some cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms.
Other cookies enable us to measure and improve the performance of the Website or allow third-party providers to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites.
These cookies are placed on your device either by the University or by the third parties whose services we use as part of the Website.
The following categories of cookies are used on the University’s Website www.stir.ac.uk, and we may use some or all these cookies on stirlinguni.cn.
These lists of cookies were last reviewed on
Necessary cookies controlled by the University of Stirling on the Website
The University's Website does not automatically capture or store personal data from visitors to the site, other than to log your anonymised IP address and session information. Our Website cannot function properly without these cookies, and they can only be disabled by changing your browser settings.
These necessary cookies are required for the following activities, which have been identified as necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party.
- Session cookies are used to ensure that you are recognised when you move from page to page within one site and that any information you have entered is remembered. Without this cookie, every page you visit would treat you as a new visitor. Session information includes the time and duration of your visit to the site, the files requested, and the browser used.
- Cookies are also used to provide access for staff and students to secure webpages on the University Portal and the print shop.
- Anonymised IP information may be used to determine your general location to provide personalised information relevant to that location, for example highlighting relevant scholarship or funding opportunities.
Performance cookies controlled by the University of Stirling on the Website
We use anonymised analytics cookies from Google Analytics and Siteimprove to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use this information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. These cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from, what parts of a webpage are viewed most, and the pages they visited. You can opt out of Google Analytics across all websites http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
The University also uses Hotjar, an analytics and feedback tool which helps us to improve the usability of the Website. Hotjar anonymously records users' mouse movements and interactions across the site and helps us understand the behaviour of our website users through tools such as heatmaps, recordings and surveys. You can opt out of Hotjar across all websites.
Marketing cookies controlled by the University of Stirling on the Website
We use marketing cookies to help us improve the relevancy of advertising campaigns you see.
Social media platforms set cookies for advertising or remarketing purposes: enabling us to serve more tailored advertising as well as helping improve our site for users.
We also use cookies for advertising. Advertising companies use cookies to keep track of the ads you have seen, or the ads that your browser has been exposed to. These cookies serve purposes such as measuring interactions with the advertising on a domain and preventing the same advertising from being shown to you too many times.
Opting out won’t stop you seeing adverts, and you will continue to see them, but they won’t be tailored specifically to you.
Third-party cookies controlled by other software used on the Website
These cookies are set by third-party software that is used on the Website and they are not controlled by the University. For example, we use a chat service provided by LiveChat, and LiveChat sets cookies to enable functionality of the LiveChat software on the Website.
Most cookies set by these products will be purely functional, but some may be for advertising or tracking.
These may include, but are not limited to, the list below.
Changing your cookie settings
Most web browsers allow some control of many cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit https://ico.org.uk or www.allaboutcookies.org.
To control interest-based advertising from certain third-party advertising partners, you can learn more about opting out of receiving interest-based ads at optout.aboutads.info and https://thenai.org/opt-out.
You can also opt out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on, and opt out of interest-based Google ads using Google’s Ads Settings.
In regions where GDPR laws apply, and your own browser settings have not blocked cookies automatically, our Website visitors are offered the ability to manage consent to Performance and Marketing cookies using a Cookie Control Tool on this Website. Following your initial interaction with the Cookie Control tool, your settings can be accessed and changed again at any time via the cog icon in the bottom left of your browser.
Online transactions
All payment transactions are handled securely. Areas of the Website that process online payments make use of, and transfer data to, third party software and service providers.
All third-party software and service providers that we use are compliant with the relevant Payment Card Industry standards.
For online donations, the contact details of the individual who has made the donation is held securely within the Development and Alumni Relations Team for the purpose of thanking them, to reclaim tax and to renew gifts.
Contact information
If you have any queries or concerns about the website or the way cookies are used please contact webteam@stir.ac.uk
If you have any queries about privacy or the way your personal data is handled please use the contact details in the University’s overall privacy notice where you can also find further information about your data subject rights.