Privacy Policy
A privacy policy is a legal agreement or a statement that entails how a website or a company gathers, handles, and processes its customers’ or visitors’ data. Privacy policy fully describes whether the information collected is kept confidential or shared with a third party. By updating the policies from time to time, many websites or companies ensure the consistency of their privacy policies.
Personal data
In the privacy policy, personal data is any information or data about an individual from which they are recognized, either; from that data or from any information to which a company or a website has or is likely to have access. An individual’s nature of interaction with sites matters a lot when it comes to providing data. Below are examples of personal data an individual may give to a website.
• Name, email address, telephone number, passport number, and any other information relating to them;
• Level of income, educational background, and employment experiences;
• Payment associated information including credit card and bank account information, and credit card history;
• Information about an individual’s use of the website and its services including membership details, cookies, and IP addresses; and
• information about the interaction with the website or services such as connection information, device potential, stats on page views, and bandwidth.
How is personal data collected in the privacy policy?
Privacy policy agreement makes users know the type of information acquired from them. Many websites may collect an individual’s data in the following methods, where individuals provide the information voluntarily:
• When an individual gives out forms that relate to the site’s services or products;
• When a customer interacts with the website’s customer care officers;
• When a person creates an online account with the website;
• When the website’s marketing agents and representatives contact an individual and get a response;
• When a person responds to a website’s request for more personal data;
• When using some of the website’s services such as the subscription service;
• When an individual request to be contacted by the website;
• When a person requests to be added either in an email or other mailing list;
• When a user responds to the site’s initiatives and motives;
• When an individual submits their job applications or any other application;
• When entering into tenancy agreements with a website;
• When a website receives references from business partners and third parties, for example, in the case of an individual being referred by them.
When submitting personal data, one should ensure that the information is complete, correct, and valid. Contradicting information might result in the inadequate provision of products and services that one had requested.
The purpose of the collection and use of personal data
What are the motive for the collection, use, and disclosure of an individual’s data? This question is common since many users want to know the purpose of this. Websites have several reasons for collecting, using, and disclosing personal data. Some of these purposes include:
• To respond to questions, complaints, and requests.
• To verify an individual’s identity.
• Investigating and preventing crime such as money-laundering and fraud, and also inspecting and running other trading risks.
• To manage reviews, audits, and examination of the site’s internal processes.
• To advance business’ resourceful transactions.
• To enforce and protect a website’s legal rights and duties.
• Coordinating any personal data taken that relates to you.
Also, other websites depending on the type of relationship with a user, may use and disclose a user’s data for the following reasons:
• If a user has a subscription account with the site, the site uses personal data to perform various tasks such as processing the user’s application for an online subscription, maintaining their account, verifying, and processing payments.
• If a user accesses a site’s job search services, personal information here is used to maintaining the user’s account with the website, sending updates and job alerts that the user might have requested and also solving complaints.
Additional purposes for taking of personal data
Websites and companies use personal data to provide additional information, such as:
1. Providing users with services and products that benefit them, including reward plans, promotion, and loyalty.
2. Facilitating market research and discovering user’s location, developing and improving products, and improve marketing programs.
3. To send users details of goods, special offers, services, and rewards.
4. Manage competitions and running lucky draws, including announcements of results of these competitions where necessary.
How information is protected and stored
Some website’s privacy policy, such as Caffe Nero’s privacy policy negotiation, says that a user account details are protected by a password and gives steps to make sure unauthorized users do not access the account. The website also ensures as much security as possible by taking various steps. However, it is not a guarantee that the steps will completely cub unauthorized access.
In conclusion, all website owners and companies should play a huge role in protecting the personal information of users, and providing a policy that informs users on how their data will be processed and stored.