Privacy Statement for Grand Valley State University

LAST UPDATED JULY 12, 2018.

Grand Valley State University has created this statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses our practice for gathering and disseminating information for this site.

This Privacy Statement applies to any and all content, services, applications, and forms accessible through our primary website, gvsu.edu. Throughout this Statement, "GVSU," “university,” “our,” and "we" refers to Grand Valley State University. "You" or "Users" refers to you and everyone who uses, subscribes to, publishes through, submits content through, or visits gvsu.edu.

Our primary website contains links to other websites. GVSU is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these other websites.

By using our site, you expressly consent to the information handling practices described in this notice. Your use of our site and any personal information you provide therein are subject at all times to this Privacy Statement.

1. The Information GVSU Collects:

• Information You Provide: You may provide to GVSU certain demographic information (often called "personally identifiable" information), such as your name, email address, postal mailing address, and telephone numbers. You may provide us with this information if you use certain applications or forms, or otherwise use the features and functionality accessible via our site. For example, you provide content to us when you make program inquiries, apply to attend the university, complete web forms, register for events, or make purchases through our site.
• Payment Information: We collect certain payment and billing information when electronic payment is made through our site. For example, we ask you to designate a billing representative, including name and contact information. You also provide payment information, such as payment card details, which we collect via secure payment processing services.
• Your User / Network ID: Select areas of our site will require authentication prior to access; authentication will require the entry of usernames/network IDs paired with users’ passwords.
• Cookies and Automatically Collected Information: We automatically collect certain types of data when you use our site. This automatically collected information may include your IP address or other device address or ID, web browser and/or device type, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after you use our site, the pages or other content you view or otherwise interact with on our site, and the dates and times that you visit, access, or use our site. We also may use these technologies to collect information regarding your interaction with email messages, such as whether you opened, clicked on, or forwarded a message. This information is gathered from all users, and may be connected with other information about you.
• Third Party Web Beacons and Third Party Buttons: We may display third-party content on our site. Third-party content may use cookies, web beacons, or other mechanisms for obtaining data in connection with your viewing of the third party content. Additionally, we may implement third party buttons (such as “like” or “share” buttons) that may function as web beacons even when you do not interact with the button. Information collected through third-party web beacons and buttons is collected directly by these third parties, not by GVSU. Information collected by a third party in this manner is subject to that third party’s own data collection, use, and disclosure policies.

2. The Way GVSU Uses Information:

Data is retained in accordance with University policy and as required under applicable U.S. laws and regulations. How we use the information we collect depends in part on which portions of our site you use, how you choose to interact with them. Below are the specific purposes for which we use the information we collect about you.

• GVSU uses the information that you provide or that we collect to operate, maintain, enhance, and provide all of the features and services found throughout our site.
• We may use your email address or mobile number, or other contact information provided by you for communications to respond to inquiries submitted, for customer service purposes, or to collect additional information needed for business purposes.
• We use all of the information that we collect to understand the usage trends and preferences of our users, to improve the way our site works and looks, and to create new features and functionality.

3. When GVSU Shares Your Information:

• GVSU does not share personally identifiable information about you with other organizations for their marketing or promotional use. Please be aware, however, that any personally identifiable information that you voluntarily choose to display on any publicly available portion of our site or applications therein, such as when you may publish your public profile information, becomes publicly available and may be collected and used by others without restriction.
• We may disclose some limited user information to affiliated companies or other businesses or persons to: provide website hosting, maintenance, and security services; fulfill orders (including payments); conduct data analysis and create reports; offer certain functionality; and assist GVSU in improving our site and creating new features. We generally contractually require that these parties process such information in compliance with this Privacy Statement, authorize only a limited use of such information, and require these parties to use reasonable confidentiality measures.

4. Your Choices and Access to your Personal Information

• If you decline to share your personally-identifiable information with GVSU, we may not be able to provide to you some of the features and functionality found on our site.
• To protect your privacy and security, we take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access to portions of our site. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING THE SECRECY OF AUTHENTICATION CREDENTIALS AT ALL TIMES.
• While in the European Union (EU) you will be able to exercise your rights as a data subject described in Article 15-22 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): right of access to your personal data, right to correct that data, right to have the data erased, right to restrict processing, right to data portability, right to object to processing, right to withdraw consent, the right not to be subject to automated decision-making, and the right to lodge a GDPR-related complaint with an EU Supervisory Authority. Please note that the university is subject to federal and state laws, including but not limited to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, that may require that we request, process, retain, and report on certain types of data. These legal obligations may also affect actions we would be permitted to take in response to a request to exercise your GDPR data rights, especially the right to have your data erased.
• Grand Valley State University will honor a student’s request to remove the student’s name, phone, email or other contact student information collected through the admissions, recruiting or lead process.

5. Our Commitment to Data Security:

• The university has put in place reasonable physical, technical, and administrative safeguards designed to prevent unauthorized access to or use of information collected online.
• We limit access to your data to those who have a business need to know. We have put in place procedures to deal with suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
• Please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot and do not guarantee that information about you will not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or administrative safeguards.

6. International Visitors:

• GVSU campuses are located in the United States and use computer systems, servers, and databases located in the U.S. If you reside outside the U.S., your data will be transferred to, stored in, and processed in the U.S.
• Legal basis for processing: If you are an individual in the European Economic Area (EEA), we collect and process information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable EU laws. The legal bases depend on the portions of our site that you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use your information only where:
  • We need it to provide you with services requested or to respond to application or inquiry;
  • You give us consent to do so for a specific purpose; or
  • We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.
  • If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place. Where we are using your information because we or a third party (e.g. your employer) have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer using our site.

7. Changes and Updates to this Privacy Statement:

• This Privacy Statement may be revised periodically without further notice to you and this will be reflected by the "LAST UPDATED" date found at the top of this page. Please revisit this page to stay aware of any changes. In general, we only use your personal information in the manner described in the Privacy Statement in effect when we received that personal information. Your continued use of our site constitutes your agreement to this Privacy Statement and any future revisions.

8. GVSU Contact Information:

• Please contact us with any questions, inquiries, or complaints.