Copyright and data protection statement

Privacy Policy

X-Polli:Nation is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and complying with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation. This policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us through your use of our website, will be processed by us.

We are committed to processing information in a transparent manner and the aim of this document is to provide you with sufficient information for you to be able to understand what we are doing with your data. If you are unsure how we are handling information about you or you think we could improve our privacy information then please let us know. The X-Polli:Nation privacy policy includes information on the following:

Summary

The X-Polli:Nation pages are maintained by researchers from the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University,in partnership with other charities and research organisations Your personal data will be held by the Open University and will not be passed on to third parties unless we are required to do so by legal, judicial, or governmental mandate. Fully anonymised data collected through the tool will be used to understand how it is being used, both to improve the tool in the future, and to publish scientific papers about it. Such fully anonymous data can also be shared with other researchers

The X-Polli:Nation project is a collaboration between the Open University, the University of Aberdeen, Imperial College London, Learning through Landscapes, St Alban’s CoE primary school (Havant) and the Natural History Museum of Maremma. The species identification tools are based on those we developed for BeeWatch, an online citizen initiative that collects data on UK bumblebees. BeeWatch was co-ordinated by the University of Aberdeen in partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT), Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society (BWARS) and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).

The Open University is the data controller in relation to the processing activities described below.

What data we keep and why

If you choose to register, you create an account and provide us with your: This is the only personal data we collect. When you use our tool we further record: We are very careful about personal data. The only personal data we collect is your user name and password, which is stored in encrypted form. You do not need to reveal any other personal information and you can use a guest login to avoid sharing even this.

Scientific data about how you interact with the site is carefully stored on Open University Computer Systems. We may make such scientific data available in anonymised form (i.e. without the user names) to other institutions and researchers to further research, education and our national understanding of biodiversity and conservation issues. In no situation will your user names or passwords be shared in this process.

Cookies

Like many other websites, X-Polli:Nation uses cookies and similar technologies to keep you logged in, to obtain an overall view of visitor habits and visitor volumes, and to provide you with useful and relevant information about your user activity. Cookies are files which store information on your hard drive or browser which enables our software to recognise that you have visited the Site before. Cookies can make it easier for you to maintain your preferences on X-Polli:Nation.

How we secure and store data

All data is stored on password protected Open University servers. The connection to the site is encrypted and authenticated using a strong protocol (TLS 1.2), a strong key exchange (ECDHE_RSA with P-256), and a strong cipher (AES_256_GCM).

How long we keep data for

We keep your username and password as long as the website is active, and for up to 1 month after it ceases to be active.

Other ways we may share your personal information

We may transfer your personal information to a successor body if the ownership of X-Polli:Nation were to change. We may also transfer your personal information if we’re under a duty to disclose or share it in order to comply with any legal obligation, to detect or report a crime, to enforce or apply the terms of our contracts or to protect the rights, property or safety of our users. However, we will always take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

If you have any questions or any concerns then please do get in touch with us - we are more than happy to answer any questions you may have. You can email us using the Give us feedback link on the top right of the page.