Privacy Policy

2nd Oct 2009

At redbrickonline.co.uk we col­lect dif­fer­ent types of infor­ma­tion about our users for three main rea­sons:
1. To help us to mon­i­tor and improve the ser­vices we offer.
2. To pro­vide per­son­alised ser­vices unique to indi­vid­ual users.
3. To use anony­mous details about our users to sell appro­pri­ate adver­tis­ing space on the site. This might mean show­ing an adver­tiser how many users we have on the site; it does not mean shar­ing an individual’s details with an adver­tiser. Where we col­lect reg­is­tra­tion infor­ma­tion from an indi­vid­ual, we will never share that individual’s infor­ma­tion with a third party, includ­ing an adver­tiser, with­out that user’s explicit per­mis­sion.


Our prin­ci­ples
We are absolutely com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing your pri­vacy. Our pol­icy can be sum­marised in one sen­tence: we will not share your infor­ma­tion with oth­ers with­out your prior con­sent. We have also estab­lished the fol­low­ing prin­ci­ples:


1. We will con­tinue to invest in high-quality secu­rity and do our utmost to pro­tect user pri­vacy through the appro­pri­ate use of the lat­est secu­rity tech­nol­ogy.


2. We will respect your email pri­vacy. You will not receive unso­licited mar­ket­ing emails from Redbrickonline.co.uk. We will, how­ever, email you occa­sion­ally with infor­ma­tion or queries about your reg­is­tra­tion, your sub­scrip­tion account or post­ings, for exam­ple, with reminders, warn­ings or copy­right requests.


3. We will not pass on any indi­vid­ual user details (includ­ing your email address) for third party use unless we have your prior con­sent.


4. We always ensure that con­trac­tors we use in con­nec­tion with the run­ning of the web­site and ser­vices (for exam­ple host­ing providers) are sub­ject to strict con­trac­tual oblig­a­tions. They are only able to process data on our behalf and in accor­dance with our prin­ci­ples and instruc­tions and not for any other inde­pen­dent pur­pose.


5. Oth­er­wise, we will only share anony­mous aggre­gate sta­tis­tics about our users, sales and traf­fic pat­terns with our adver­tis­ers.


6. Our site is acces­si­ble via the Inter­net and so may poten­tially be accessed by any­one around the world. Other users may access the site from out­side the Euro­pean Eco­nomic Area. This means that, where you choose to post your data on the site, this could be accessed from any­where around the world and there­fore a trans­fer of your data out­side of the Euro­pean Eco­nomic Area may be deemed to have occurred. You con­sent to such trans­fer of your data for and by way of this pur­pose. Where we or our con­trac­tors trans­fer data out­side of the Euro­pean Eco­nomic Area this is only ever done with the rel­e­vant pro­tec­tions required by law in place.
Changes to pri­vacy pol­icy


Should we elect to change our pri­vacy pol­icy we will post the changes here. Where the changes are sig­nif­i­cant, we may also choose to email all our reg­is­tered users with the new details.


Updat­ing your per­sonal infor­ma­tion
We offer a ‘My Pro­file’ page, where you can update your per­sonal infor­ma­tion at any time. You can get to this page from most pages on the site — sim­ply click on the ‘My details’ link at the top of the screen when you are signed in.
What infor­ma­tion do we col­lect?
We col­lect infor­ma­tion on our users as fol­lows: through cook­ies, through reg­is­tra­tion and where you choose to dis­close data in post­ings. 


The min­i­mum infor­ma­tion we need to reg­is­ter a user is an email address, a pass­word and a coun­try. UK and US users will also need to pro­vide a postcode/zipcode. We will ask fur­ther ques­tions for dif­fer­ent ser­vices, includ­ing com­pe­ti­tions. Unless stated, all reg­is­tra­tion ques­tions are com­pul­sory.
We also ask some fur­ther, vol­un­tary ques­tions so we can gain a clearer under­stand­ing of our users. Your responses help us to sell appro­pri­ate adver­tis­ing space and so keep the site free. They also enable us to per­son­alise ser­vices for our users. We do not share this infor­ma­tion with third par­ties unless you have specif­i­cally con­sented to this.


How do we pro­tect cus­tomer infor­ma­tion?
We invest in high-quality secu­rity and do our utmost to pro­tect user pri­vacy. UK Data Pro­tec­tion Leg­is­la­tion means we fol­low strict secu­rity pro­ce­dures in the stor­age and dis­clo­sure of infor­ma­tion which you have given us, to pre­vent unau­tho­rised access.


Will we dis­close the infor­ma­tion we col­lect to third par­ties?
We will not sell, trade or rent your per­sonal infor­ma­tion to oth­ers unless you have given us your per­mis­sion. With your per­mis­sion we will only share your infor­ma­tion with care­fully cho­sen, rep­utable and trust­wor­thy third par­ties.


Also, we may pro­vide aggre­gate sta­tis­tics about our cus­tomers, sales, traf­fic pat­terns and related site infor­ma­tion to rep­utable third-party ven­dors, but these sta­tis­tics will include no per­son­ally iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion.


redbrickonline.co.uk fol­lows the rel­e­vant legal require­ments and uses all rea­son­able pre­cau­tions to ensure only respon­si­ble third par­ties see the infor­ma­tion, how­ever we are not respon­si­ble for any breach of secu­rity or any actions of any third par­ties who receive the infor­ma­tion.
Please note that we reserve the right to access and dis­close indi­vid­u­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion to com­ply with applic­a­ble laws and law­ful gov­ern­ment requests, to oper­ate our sys­tems prop­erly and to pro­tect both our­selves and our users.


Any data proces­sors with access to your data in pro­vid­ing ser­vices on our behalf are sub­ject to con­trac­tual restric­tions to ensure that your data is pro­tected, and not used inde­pen­dently by such third party.


Adver­tis­ing and affil­i­ate links
Our edi­to­r­ial con­tent on redbrickonline.co.uk is not influ­enced by adver­tis­ers or affil­i­ates, nor is it pro­duced for the pur­pose of pro­mot­ing goods or ser­vices, except where clearly branded as a ‘spon­sored fea­ture’. How­ever we do use affil­i­ate link ser­vices on redbrickonline.co.uk from which we may earn rev­enue.


Legal infor­ma­tion under the Data Pro­tec­tion Act 1998
For the pur­poses of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act 1998, the Data Con­troller for www.redbrickonline.co.uk is Uni­ver­sity of Bir­mim­ng­ham Guild of Stu­dents. Any queries regard­ing GOS’s use of data and data poli­cies should be addressed to the Head of Cus­tomer Rela­tion­ship Management.