This Facilities website and its sub sites are managed by STFC which is part of UK Research and Innovation.
This privacy notice explains how we use any personal information we collect about you when you use these websites.
What information do we collect about you?
We collect personal information about you (e.g. your name, contact details, organization, and preferences) when you register with us or request to use our services. We also collect information when you voluntarily complete user surveys and provide feedback. Website usage information is collected using cookies.
When you request a particular service we may collect more personal information about you in order to process the request e.g. date of birth if you request a Federal ID.
How will we use the information about you?
We collect information about you to process your application to use our facilities, book your accommodation and travel, manage your account and, if you agree, to email you about various topics you have said you are interested in.
Manage which mailing lists you are subscribed to
We use your information collected from the website to personalize your repeat visits to our website e.g. we collect which facilities you use or want to use so we only show you the relevant aspects of our systems.
If you agree, we shall show your name, organization and department to fellow registered users when they search for you so they can add you to their proposal or visit.
Manage who we share your name and organization with
If you give consent to be searchable and then withdraw this consent, you will not be able to be added to new proposals after this time but we will still need to use this information to process existing proposals.
When a proposal and visit is submitted, if you have been added as an experimenter or contact, then your name, organization, and email address will be included in the confirmation email sent to all those on the proposal and visit. Only your name and organization will appear on the proposal PDFs sent out to the facility access panels.
Sometimes we will need to share your contact details and print them on documents required for safety reasons e.g. your email and phone number on Experimental Risk Assessments you create. In these cases you will be asked to confirm/update them.
We ask you for emergency contact details when you are due to visit us in person for an experiment. (Hopefully we won't ever need to use these!) We suggest asking a contact at your organization who will then be able to contact the relevant people.
Manage your emergency contact details
To secure and give you access to your experimental data, we also share your information programmatically with other internal systems such as with our data cataloguing systems (e.g. https://data.isis.stfc.ac.uk). Our Federal ID system is shared with Diamond Light Source Ltd so, if you have a Federal ID, then the data associated with that account (your name, organization, date of birth) will also be shared with Diamond Light Source Ltd.
If you have requested special funding, we share information with relevant projects and bodies for reporting on funding e.g. Newton Fund, Laserlab Europe, Wellcome Trust, Diamond Light Source Ltd, within UK Research and Innovation
If you have put in an expense claim then we share your information with UK SBS in order to process you request/claim. UK SBS is the organization STFC uses for its finance and accounting. Similarly, if you have requested funding for consumables on an experiment at a partner organization e.g. ILL we share your information in order to process your request/claim.
Occasionally we share information about submitted proposals with other scientific facilities to help manage consistency of access.
Responses to the following questions on submitted proposals may be made publicly viewable:
- Title
- Abstract
- PI and Co-I names and institutions
- Technique and instrument applied for, and no. days applied for
- Technique and instrument allocated, and no. days allocated
Occasionally we share anonymized data with similar scientific bodies to help develop strategy across the community e.g. to establish overlap of users between different facilities or scientific techniques. This may also include sharing anonymized equal opportunities data.
We don't sell your information to third parties.
Your information may be shared with other organizations outside of STFC, only to enable administration and delivery of the services you requested or for the lawful, disclosed purposes of STFC. For example we will share information with taxis, hotels, airlines etc. as is necessary to deliver the travel and accommodation services your requested; we will share proposal details with organisations outside of STFC for proposal review or other purposes as part of internationally-funded programmes.
To meet the Research Councils' obligations for public accountability and the dissemination of information, certain details (e.g. name, experiment title and non-technical summary) may be made available on the Research Councils' web sites and other publicly available databases, and in reports, documents and mailing lists.
To prevent/detect spam and/or flag to us inappropriate use of our systems we store your IP address in our logs for up to 14 months.
Access to your information and correction
We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up-to-date.
It is important your name and organization is correct so we can show this information on proposals you are on and can address you by name in correspondence such as letters informing you of success/regret of your application.
We collect your email address so you can login and we can contact you about the status of your experiment.
We collect a phone number (work or mobile) so we can contact you about your proposal or experiment if we don't think you will be able to receive an email in time (e.g. about changes to travel or accommodation arrangements).
It is important we have an up-to-date status for you as this enables us to produce statistics for our funding partners to show the makeup of our user base so we can offer the most appropriate services.
Manage your details
You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email or write to us. We may make a small charge for this service.
You may ask us to correct or remove information your think is inaccurate.
Cookies
Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behavior information. They are widely used in order to make websites work (or work more efficiently). Cookies are also used to provide information to the owners of the website.
We use cookies on our website:
- to make the website work (i.e. are required for the operation of our website)
- to enable us to simplify the logging on process for registered users
- to help ensure the security and authenticity of registered users
- to track visitor use of our websites and to compile statistical reports on website activity to help us improve our website to make it easier for you to access the services you require.
We use Google Analytics to track visitor use of our websites. We have set the data retention period to the minimum available (14 months).
How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps
We sometimes use Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook buttons and/or feeds. We embed and/or link to this third-party hosted content about our facilities for your convenience. These providers do however have their own privacy and cookie policies:
For further information visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.
You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above websites tell you how to remove cookies from your browser. However in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.
UK Research and Innovation Privacy Notice
Other websites
Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy notice only applies to the Facilities websites so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.
Changes to our privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page.
This page was last updated on 8 September 2023.
How to contact us
Please contact us if you have any question about our privacy notice or information we hold about you:
Our Data Protection Officer
