Information trails
It is now an unavoidable fact of life that when you enter and move through the Internet, you leave a trail of information about you that others can collect, store, and sometimes use. Whenever you visit this site, you leave information which we collect and do use; the aim of this page is to inform you about the information we collect, why we collect it, and what we will do with that information. The type of information we collect from your visit(s) to this site depends on where in the site you actually visit. The table below lists the information we collect within each zone of the site. At the bottom of the table is a list of information that we could, but DO NOT collect about you. If you have any reservations about the data being collected each time you visit the site, or you would like more information about this data collection, please do not hesitate to contact the Site Coordinator.  | ||
| What data are collected? | Where in the site | Why are these data collected? |
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| Your name | On all pages within the MEMBERS ONLY ZONE and, if you log into the MEMBERS ONLY ZONE and then move to any other page on the site. | When you log into the MEMBERS ONLY Zone, the computer checks your membership ID number and password against your details held in a database. If your membership ID and password are verified, the computer stores your name in a type of cookie for use throughout the site (e.g. for inserting into responses to interactive tools). We collect this information because (i) we want to know whether our site is being used at all, (ii) we want to know who amoungst our members is using our site, (iii) whether members are visiting very infrequently (implying that the site is not providing a useful service) or vice versa, and (iv) at a later date, we will examine whether there is any correlation between the use of our support site and overall industry performance. Notes: 1. If you only visit the pages outside of the MEMBERS ONLY Zone (i.e. you do not log into the MEMBERS ONLY Zone), we will know that a visitor is on the site, but we won't know that that visitor is you. In other words, we can't put a name to the visitor.
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| The make and model of your browser (e.g. Netscape, Internet Explorer) and operating system (e.g. Windows 98, NT, Macintosh PowerPC) | Every page visited | Some of interactive tools we have or are intending to use on our site require browsers of particular types and versions. Some of our exercise could cause early version browsers to fail on our pages. We need to know how many people are still using such versions. We will use these data to make our site 'browser friendly'. |
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| The date and duration of your visit | Every page visited | We want to know when people are visiting our site so that we can identify the best 'idle' (unvisited) times during the day or week during which we can perform site maintenance without or minimising disruption to our users. By identifying the most busy or active periods of use on the site, we can better coordinate release of news items and important messages to our members. We will use the information on duration of visits to help us identify which pages are holding our users attention (and by implication, are proving useful to them), and conversely, those pages whose content is not holding attention.
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| The date of your last visit | The home page only | We don't so much collect this information, but we do use it. When you visit our home page, a cookie is sent to your computer from our computer. In that cookie is the time of your visit to our page and a date at which this information becomes invalid (i.e. of no use to our computer; the date is December 31, 2000). Our computer uses this information to decide whether to display new news items to you on the home page. If there has been no new news since the date of your last visit to the site, then a picture is displayed. If new news has been posted, the news headline will appear on the home page. |
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| Your email address | When you subscribe to our newsletter or 'ask' the site to send you your password. | Whenever you engage either of these services, a copy of the automated email sent to you is also sent to the webmaster. We are not so much as collecting your email address, but noting that the online service is being used.
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| Your country of origin | Every page | This information is collected by default: we use it only insofar that it is interesting for us to see what interest is being shown in our site by overseas visitors. |
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| Information about your activity on the site that we could, but DO NOT, collect | ||
| Who sends us feedback | There are two FAQs through which you can send us feedback about the site. If you send us feedback through either of these FAQs, we will not be able to identify you by name at all PROVIDED you have not logged into the MEMBERS ONLY Zone first. If you have logged into the MEMBERS ONLY Zone before you send us feedback, we will be able to match the timing of your visit to the FAQ page with that of any feedback we receive from it. So, if you want to give us feedback with complete anonymity, do so (through the FAQ page) during a visit to the site at which you DO NOT log on into the MEMBERS ONLY Zone. | |
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