Privacy Policy

General

This policy explains what information we gather when you visit the College web site, and explains how that information is used.

It is important for you to appreciate that the College web site provides extensive links to other independent sites, both within the University and elsewhere. This policy applies only to direct accesses to the College web site - URLs starting http://www.sid.cam.ac.uk/. You will need to consult the appropriate information on other sites for information on their policies.

Any changes to this privacy policy will be posted on this page.

Data collected

In common with most web sites, this site automatically logs certain information about every request made of it. This information is used for system administration, for bug tracking, and for producing usage statistics. The logged information may be kept indefinitely.

Relevant subsets of this data may be passed to computer security teams as part of investigations of computer misuse involving this site or other computing equipment in the College. Data may be passed to the administrators of other computer systems to enable investigation of problems accessing this site or of system misconfigurations. Data may incidentally be included in information passed to contractors and computer maintenance organisations working for the College, in which case it will be covered by appropriate non-disclosure agreements. Otherwise the logged information is not passed to any third party except if required by law. Summary statistics are extracted from this data and some of these may be made publicly available, but those that are do not include information from which individuals could be identified.

[You should appreciate that a log is a record of what a server sees, not necessarily what was initially sent. If a request is sent via a proxy the log file will show the proxy's address. If someone has forged your address the log file will show your address].

A number of fill-in forms are provided on this site. The pages containing these forms include information on how data submited on them will be processed and used.

This site may use web "cookies" as part of user authentication (login) and to store information needed by other facilities. From time to time this site will be running Google analytics, which uses cookies for tracking visitors to the site. This is to gain more complete data on site use and will support the ongoing web review.

Logged data

The following data is automatically logged for each request:

The name or network address of the computer making the request. Note that under some (but not all) circumstances it may be possible to infer from this the identity of the person making the request. Note also that the data recorded may be that of a web proxy rather than that of the originating client
The username, when known during authenticated (logged in) access to the site
The date and time of connection
The HTTP request, which contains the identification of the document requested
The status code of the request (success or failure etc.)
The number of data bytes sent in response
The contents of the HTTP Referrer header supplied by the browser
The content of the HTTP User-Agent header supplied by the browser

Logging of additional data may be enabled temporarily from time to time for specific purposes. In addition, the computers on which the web site is hosted keep records of attempts (authorised and unauthorised) to use them for purposes other than access to the web server. This data typically includes the date and time of the attempt, the service to which access was attempted, the name or network address of the computer making the connection, and may include details of what was done or was attempted to be done.

Use of Personal Data Collected from College Members

Sidney Sussex College Members are advised that any personal data supplied to the College will be held and used according to the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998. The information gathered may be used to send you Sidney Sussex or Cambridge University publications; to notify you of benefits, services, fundraising appeals and events and for the charitable purposes of the College.

When using third parties for large-scale mailings, Sidney will only use companies where the data is held in accordance with the Data Protection Act and is not held beyond the period necessary to fulfil the mailing or used for any other purpose other than that identified by the College.

You may opt out of receiving further communications from the College by writing to the Membership and Development Office or by emailing development@sid.cam.ac.uk.

Data Protection

You can find out more about our Data Protection Policy.