Overview

This privacy policy sets out how ipVA uses and protects any information that you give us when you use this website:

• Browsing this site collects no more data about you than most other websites.
• We may collect other information from you, such as through registration for special site features or signing up for our newsletter.
• This privacy policy will be reviewed, and may be revised, from time to time. You should revisit it regularly to keep up to date with our policies.

User identification

Browsing this site doesn’t reveal your identity publicly, though see Private Logging later in this document for more information. You may choose if you wish to provide more information to us.

Your use of this site may be linked to an IP address. These numbers could potentially be traceable to identifying information about you, whether it is your home ISP or the University or Work account where the IP address is registered. Your IP address could potentially be used in conjunction with other data to identify you. If you are concerned about attempts to match your IP address to your identity, you may wish to use an anonymous browsing service.

When posting a comment, registering on the site, or signing up for a service, a name, email address, and other personal information may be required, and we will log your IP address.

Parts of our site may allow for comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks. Comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks are published, and except in very limited circumstances, will be a permanent part of this site. If you decide to comment, link, or pingback to a post, you must keep this in mind.

Cookies

Our site uses cookies. This is a convenience for you and allows us to tailor our web applications to you by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Declining cookies may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

You may wish to clear these cookies and the browser cache if you wish to refrain from revealing any identifying information, especially if you are using a public or shared computer. Your browser may also allow you to refuse all cookies, including for this site. Please consult your browser documentation for more details.

Private logging

Any time you visit a page on the Internet, you send quite a bit of information to the server, including your IP address. The webservers that host this site and statistics software or services that we use maintain access logs with the information that you send. This information is used to provide site statistics and to get an idea of popular pages and what sites link here, as well as where our visitors come from and how frequently they visit. We do not intend to use these logs to directly identify legitimate users of this site.

The data logged may be used by us to solve technical problems with the site and, in cases of abuse of this site, to investigate the abuse. We may also use this data for internal purposes in order to improve this site and broadly analyse trends among our visitors. Logging this information and analysing our site statistics may necessarily involve this information being used or collected by third parties, such as through use by a web statistics providers such as Google Analytics.

Again, if you are concerned about attempts to match your IP address to your identity or about the information you may reveal when you visit this site, you may wish to use an anonymous browsing service or investigate ways to limit the information shared about you through the tools you use to visit this site.

Other information about you and how it may be used

We may also request from you the following information:

• name and job title;
• contact information including email address;
• demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests; and
• other information.

We use this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular:

• For internal record keeping;
• To improve our products and services;
• To send promotional email using the email address which you have provided and authorised for the receipt of promotional email;
• To contact you for market research purposes by email, phone, fax or mail if you have authorised us to do so; and
• To customise the website according to your interests.

Data release policy

Our policy is to only release the data we collect in the following circumstances:

• As required by law, such as in response to a valid request from law enforcement;
• To designated third parties to resolve or investigate abuse complaints;
• When the information is related to spiders or bots (usually this is when investigating technical issues and limited to server logs);
• For abusive users, we may release information to assist in attempting to block the abusive user or to complain to that user’s Internet Service Provider or to legal authorities;
• If necessary to defend legal claims against us by third parties; and
• When we deem it necessary to protect the property or rights of the users, or of this website.

Note that we may use third party statistics software and services such as Google Analytics to track use of our site for statistics reasons. We may also use third party software and services to provide additional features and services, such as RSS-to-email, email newsletters, RSS statistics, and other aspects of this site. Some of these sites and services may require that information about you is collected elsewhere.

Information security

We make no guarantee that the information that you provide us will be secure. However, in order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place physical, electronic, and business procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Email

Some services on this site may require you to provide an email address. If you are concerned, you may wish to get a free email account through the web or attempt to use a remail service.

Data Protection

You have the right to access information held by others about you under the Data Protection Act 1998. For more information about your rights under Data Protection law, please see the ICO's site.

You may request details of personal information which we hold about you. A small fee will be payable. If you would like a copy of the information held on you please write to:

Data Protection Officer
IP Value Added Limited
Medius House
2 Sheraton Street
London W1F 8BH

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to us as soon as possible, at the above address.