Privacy Policy
Heriot-Watt University will be what’s known as the ‘Data Controller’ of your personal data processed in relation to your use of this website. This privacy notice will explain how Heriot-Watt University will process your personal data. This notice does not cover the links within this site to other non-University sites nor the content of external internet sites.
Why we need to use your personal data
We are collecting your personal data in order to provide this website to you. We will only collect data that is necessary for this purpose.
What personal data we collect
Log files
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. Session information includes the time and duration of your visit to the site, the files requested, and the browser used. This information will only be accessed by authorised persons of the University or its agents. The information will be retained by the University or its agents and will only be used for the purpose of (a) managing the site system, (b) the identification of broken links, and (c) for statistical and audit purposes.
Web forms
You may occasionally be asked to provide personal information to gain access to specific services within the website. The processing and retention of this information will be explained at the point of collection.
Cookies
We may store information about your visit using cookies (small files of letters and numbers which are sent by us to your computer or other access device when you visit our website) which we can access when you visit our corporate site in future. We do this for the following reasons:
- recognising your preferences so you don’t need to re-enter them on every visit
- monitoring site performance and content popularity
In addition, some third-party services featured on our site may also use cookies for similar reasons.
By using our site, we assume that you’re happy to use cookies but if desired, cookies can be disabled through your browser settings – please view your browser’s options or help pages for more information.
We use first-party cookies to store user preferences and provide statistical analysis, while third-party services use cookies to store settings and provide additional functionality.
On some pages, we may display social media feeds and buttons which may set a number of third-party cookies on your device depending on whether you are logged in to those services. For more information, see the Privacy Policies of LinkedIn, X (formerly known as Twitter) and ORCID.
Google Analytics
This is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. which uses cookies to show us how visitors found and explored our website, and how we can enhance their experience. It provides us with information about the behaviour of our visitors e.g. how many visitors we’ve had, how long they stayed on the site etc. This service may set up to five cookies from our site, all of which contain anonymous data.
More information on the use of cookies for Google Analytics can be found at Google Analytics Cookie Usage on Websites and Safeguarding your data.
Embedded content from other websites
Pages on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Legal basis for processing your data
We must have a legal basis for processing all personal data. In this instance, the legal basis is:
- Contract (to provide this website to you)
- Consent (for cookies)
Who do we share your data with
Information you provide to us via the website, for example applications for funding or completing the ‘contact us’ form will be stored by Tay Health Tech on the Heriot-Watt University OneDrive and Dropbox storage systems. Your information may be shared with Tay Health Tech staff based at the University of Dundee, for which we have entered into a Data Sharing Agreement.
How long do we keep it for
Your data will be retained by the University for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purpose. After this time, data will be securely deleted.
What are your rights?*
You have the right to:
- be informed as to how we use your data (via this privacy notice)
- access or request a copy of the data we hold about you (see below)
- opt out of specific types of processing
- ask us to remove your data from our records (see below)
- withdraw consent, where it is used as a legal basis for processing.
You can request access to the information we process about you at any time. If at any point you believe that the information we process relating to you is incorrect, you can request to see this information and may in some instances request to have it restricted, corrected or, erased. You may also have the right to object to the processing of data and the right to data portability.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please submit your request via tayhealthtech@hw.ac.uk, or contact dataprotection@hw.ac.uk.
*Please note that the ability to exercise these rights will vary and depend on the legal basis on which the processing is being carried out.
Complaints
If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact the University Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter.
Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@hw.ac.uk
If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) https://ico.org.uk/