The University of Santa Monica recognizes that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. We are committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of individuals that visit our website. This policy describes the privacy practices of the University of Santa Monica, (“USM,” “University,” “we,” or “us”) regarding the collection and use of personal or corporate information that you provide to us through the website located at universityofsantamonica.edu or any affiliated websites in the universityofsantamonica.edu, gousm.edu, and ronandmaryhulnick.com domains (“Website”), however this website is accessed and/or used, whether via personal computers, mobile devices, or otherwise, and other interactive features, applications, or downloads that are operated by us that are available through this website and post this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”). Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Policy apply only to information gathered online through the website. They do not apply to information that you may submit to us offline or to websites maintained by other companies or organizations to which we may link. This notice describes our Privacy Policy in effect as of January 28, 2020.
This Privacy Policy explains how USM collects, uses, or otherwise processes information, including information that personally identifies you (“Personal Information” as further defined below) and how you can control the collection, correction and/or deletion of such information when you use our Website.
USM may modify the provisions of this Privacy Policy from time to time. The new provisions will be effective as soon as they are posted. Your continued use of the Website following the posting of changes will mean that you accept those changes. Please check this page periodically to ensure that you are aware of any changes. If you have registered on our mailing lists, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of significant changes to this policy or the way we collect or use Personal Information at the email address you provide to us. It is your responsibility to provide and maintain an accurate and up-to-date email address.
By visiting our Website, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Website.
To contact USM about privacy issues, to report a violation of the Website’s Privacy Policy, or to raise any other issue regarding the Website, please send an email to the webmaster at [email protected].
What is Personal Information?
Personal Information is information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (“Personal Information”). An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as a name, identification number, location data, online identifier, or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity of that natural person.
We do not consider Personal Information to include information that has been anonymized or aggregated so that it can no longer be used to identify a specific natural person, whether in combination with other information or otherwise.
Types of Information We Gather
USM collects Personal Information from you under the following circumstances:
Personal data collected (“Personal Data”) may include the following:
In addition, when you interact with the Website, our servers may keep an activity log that does not identify you individually (“Non-Personal Information”). Generally, we collect the following categories of Non-Personal Information:
We may collect certain demographic data such as age, gender, and five-digit zip code as part of collecting Personal Information.
We collect and store certain device information about your computer, mobile device, or other device that you use to access the Website. This information may include IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language, and other transactional information.
We automatically log certain usage information about your use of the Website. This information includes a reading history of the pages you view. We may use this information to provide you a more customized experience on the Website.
We collect and store additional “traffic data” such as time of access, date of access, software crash reports, session identification number, browser types, access times, and referring website addresses.
We collect and store your search terms and search results when using the search function on the Website.
We also collect and store certain other information regarding our users’ use of the Website so that third parties may provide us reports and analysis regarding usage and browsing patterns of the Website.
How We Use Information We Gather About You
We use the information we learn from you to help us personalize and continually improve your experience on the Website. We use your Personal and Non-Personal Information in the following ways:
For editorial purposes.
To respond to your inquiries.
To process and evaluate your application for enrollment, financial aid, or employment.
To communicate with you about changes to our policies.
To personalize content and experiences on our Website, including providing you recommendations based on your preferences.
To send you newsletters, mailings, and information about USM programs, workshops, and special events by email or other another medium.
To optimize or improve our products, services, and operations.
For research and development.
To detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be illegal.
To perform statistical, demographic, and marketing analyses of users of the Website and their usage patterns.
To otherwise manage our organization.
How We Share Your Information
Except as disclosed below, we don’t sell, barter, give away, rent, or permit anyone outside of USM to use or access your Personal Information.
We occasionally use third-party agents, affiliates, and partners to perform functions such as marketing, analytics, providing requested services, providing customer service, etc. on our behalf. These entities have access to the Personal Information needed to perform their functions and are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of any Personal Information collected from the Website. They are restricted from using, selling, distributing, or altering this data in any way other than to provide the requested services to USM.
We may also use or disclose your Personal Information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) conform to applicable law or comply with legal process served on us or the Website; (b) protect and defend our rights or property, the University or our users, students, or partners; and (c) act under emergency circumstances to protect the personal safety of us, our affiliates, agents, or users of the Website or the public.
We will use or disclose the Non-Personal Information as we determine in our sole discretion.
When We May Share Your Personal Information
We may share your Personal Information and other data:
Consent to Transfer
The Website is hosted and operated in the United States. If you are registering or paying from outside of the United States, your Personal Data will therefore be transferred to and processed in the United States where the privacy laws may not provide an equivalent level of protection to those in your home country. By using the Website, and providing us with any information, you consent to the transfer of your information to, and its processing in, the United States.
Retention of Your Personal Information
We will keep your Personal Information in respect of financial transactions for as long as the law requires us to for tax or accounting purposes (which may be up to seven years after a particular transaction).
If you request that we stop processing your Personal Information for the purpose of marketing, we may in some instances need to add your details to a suppression file to enable us to comply with your request not to be contacted.
In respect of other Personal Information, we will retain it for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, taking into account guidance issued by each applicable regulatory authority.
European Economic Area citizens and residents: Legal basis for use of your information & controls and choices
The laws in the European Economic Area and some other jurisdictions require us to provide Users, to the extent those laws apply to such Users, with the following as a legal basis for our use of your information:
Cookies and IP Addresses
We use “Cookies” in order to personalize your visit to our Website and enhance the experience by gaining a better understanding of your particular interests and customizing our pages for you. A cookie is a message given to a web browser by a web server which is then stored by the web browser in a text file on your computer. Each time the browser requests a page from the server, this message is sent back, which enables the user to be identified. We also collect your IP address when you visit the Website to better understand how to serve our clients.
We may use the information provided by cookies and IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the Website, or for research and marketing purposes to help us better serve our clients. No information which personally identifies you will be collected through the cookies. You can set your browser to notify you before you receive a cookie so you have the chance to accept it and can set your browser to turn off cookies. Since we use cookies to make your Website visit more graceful and user-friendly, please be aware that refusing cookies may not allow you to take full advantage of some of our Website features.
We may occasionally use Web beacons and embedded scripts. Web beacons are small graphic images (also known as “1×1 GIFs” or “clear GIFs”) or other Web programming code that may be included in Website pages and email messages. Web beacons or similar technologies may be used for a number of purposes, including (without limitation) to count visitors to the Website, monitor how users navigate the Website, count how many emails that were sent were actually opened, or to count how many particular articles or links were actually viewed. An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about users’ interactions with the Website, such as the links users click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto a user’s computer from our Web server or a third-party service provider, is active only while the user is connected to the Website, and is deactivated or deleted thereafter. For more information about how we use Web beacons and embedded scripts, please contact us at [email protected].
If you would like to change your cookies settings:
Links
The USM Website may contain links to other websites belonging to partners, other organizations, and other sites of interest to our users (e.g., Vimeo). USM does not control the privacy practices of these other websites. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy will not apply to such other websites.
Public Areas
Please remember that any information you share in any public areas, such as message boards or feedback sections, becomes public, and therefore, this Privacy Policy does not apply to any information you choose to make public. Please be careful about what you disclose, and do not post any Personal Information that you expect to keep private.
Security
USM protects your Personal Information with several security measures. In addition to normal precautions such as physical security and firewalls, we have strict internal security policies that govern the use of data collected on this Website. Nevertheless, please understand that while we try our best to safeguard your Personal Information once we receive it, no transmission of data over the Internet or any other public network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. To dispose of Personal Data, we may anonymize it, delete it, or take other appropriate steps. Data may persist in copies made for backup and business continuity purposes for additional time.
Individuals Under 18
This Website may attract individuals younger than 18 years of age (“Minor” or “Minors“). USM may collect the email address and age of Minors in order to send them newsletters and engage in other limited activities. If you are a Minor, and you wish to provide us with your Personal Data for any other purposes, such as to participate in a program, workshop, special event, or activity, you must read this Privacy Policy with your parent or guardian and may not provide your Personal Data without obtaining first your parent’s or guardian’s prior consent. If we are notified or otherwise learn that a Minor has submitted Personal Data to us through our Website or otherwise other than under the conditions set forth above, we will delete that Minor’s Personal Data. This Website is not targeted to children under the age of 14. If you are under 14, please do not use this Website. Children younger than 14 years of age may only surf the Website and use its features, but we do not knowingly collect data of users younger than 14 years of age, except as provided directly by the child’s parent or guardian.
Published in the United States
The Website is published in the United States and is subject to laws of the United States. If you are located in a country outside the United States and voluntarily submit Personal Information to us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this Privacy Policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. USM will not be liable under any circumstances for damages resulting from use of information collected from visitors to the Website.
Information Sharing and Disclosure to New Owners
We may change our corporate organization while providing the Website. We may also sell certain assets associated with the Website. As a result, please be aware that in such event we may transfer some or all of your Personal Information to a company acquiring all or part of our assets or to another company with which we have merged. In such event, your Personal Information may be subject to a different privacy policy which we will make available on our Website.
Privacy Questions and Complaints
If you have any questions regarding this policy, if you would like to change your preferences, opt out of receiving email messages and newsletters from USM, or if you believe that USM has erroneous or incomplete information about you, please email us at [email protected].
Your California Privacy Rights
California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits customers of USM who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of their Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to [email protected].
European Economic Area Citizens and Residents Rights:
If you are a European Economic Area citizen or resident, you have the right to access, correct, request deletion, or request restriction of our usage of your Personal Information as required by applicable law. We also take steps to ensure that the Personal Information we collect is accurate and up to date.
You also have a right to submit a complaint to a supervisory authority for data protection in the country where you live, where you work, or where you consider that a breach of data protection has occurred – although we hope that we can assist with any queries or concerns you may have about our use of your Personal Data.
Additional Questions Regarding this Privacy Policy
If you have additional questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:
OR:
Privacy Matters
USM
Attn: Webmaster
2118 Wilshire Boulevard, #105
Santa Monica, CA 90403