We take the privacy of your information very seriously. By using our website, you are deemed to have consented to the collection and use of the personal information that you provide in the ways described below.

Personal data we collect

ESRC is the data controller (under the Data Protection Act 1998) of any of your personal details that we may hold.

We may collect information about you when:

• you register on our website
• you update your information on the website
• you contact ESRC directly to update your information
• we (or agents acting on our behalf) contact you, or any institution or research body that you belong to
• we gather survey data on outputs produced from our research awards.

We may collect general information about you (such as IP address, operating system and browser) as you browse the site. You can find further information in our terms and conditions.

How we use your personal data

We may use personal data we collect to:

• administer the ESRC website, and personalise content to reflect your interests
• send you email alerts that you have requested
• capture information relevant to our research awards
• analyse usage of our website
• allow you to use interactive features of the service
• send you communications such as service announcements
• assist our award holders to administer their awards.

To obtain a copy of the information we hold about you, please email webteam@esrc.ac.uk

Information we provide to third parties

We do not generally provide any personal information about users of our website to third parties or other users. We will only provide details of a person to others if this supports appropriate communication and collaboration between users.

We may need to disclose personal, business or trading details should we need to pursue action against a user who violates our terms and conditions, copyrights, intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights. We may also disclose such information to any government, law enforcement or regulatory agency that properly requests it.

How we keep our systems secure

We have security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. These security measures include firewalls, data backup procedures and where appropriate, encryption and secure internet transactions. Despite these measures, "perfect security" on the internet does not exist.

Protection of your login names and passwords

If you believe that the security of your login (username and password) has been breached, you should email webteam@esrc.ac.uk immediately. We may keep certain personal details on our system to allow us to identify you in the event that you forget or lose your username or password.

Our data protection registration

We are on the Data Protection Register. Our registration number is Z8694438.

Use of cookies and IP addresses

Cookies are small files which our website will transfer to your hard disk at your request (for example, so that you do not automatically need to re-enter your username and password in order to access areas of the site restricted to registered users).

We use cookies to keep track of your username should you wish to login automatically, and in some circumstances to keep track of any personalised features associated with you.

We also use 'session cookies' to maintain your website use during a session. Session cookies are not stored on our server or on your computer, and are removed shortly after your browser session ends. If you disable or restrict session cookies, you may not be able to make full use of our website.

Our website does not use third party cookies, and we do not pass cookie information to any third party.

For more information about cookies, including how to manage and reject them, see the All About Cookies website.