The Big Microplastic Survey  Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting your privacy and maintaining the security of any personal information received from you. The purpose of this statement is to explain to you what personal information we collect and how we may use it.

Who we are

Your personal information such as contact details will be held securely by Just One Ocean.   Your personal information will be shared with the University of Portsmouth to contact you about survey results, surveys being conducted in your area and newsletters about the Big Microplastic Survey project.

Your Survey Data and Images

The data you have collected will be stored securely at the School of Environmental and Earth Sciences and made available to researchers for research purposes.  Survey data will be made available as open source data via a Geographical Information System database that is currently under development.

Why we collect your personal data

Your survey data and the geolocation will appear on our data map when you submit data. It will be linked to your survey reference number but will not be linked to your personal data.

We will use your personal data to contact you if we need  verify any scientific research that you submit and send you communications .

We will not, under any circumstances, share your data with anyone for marketing purposes and you will not receive offers from other companies or organisations as a result of giving your details to us.  We do not sell, rent or exchange your personal information with any third party for commercial reasons. By submitting your data on the site, you are saying that: (a) the content is yours, and (b) you agree that the content can be used by this project, and (c) you agree that your survey data can be made publicly available for wider use.

Legal basis for data processing

We may need to share limited information with our service providers who help us to prepare and send you our communications e.g. Mail Chimp.  However, we will not allow these organisations to use your data for their own purposes and will take care to ensure that they keep your data secure. We have a legal duty to ensure that we hold up-to-date information about our supporters (e.g. if you move house, we have a duty to remove your old address). From time to time we will ask a trusted third party to cleanse the data that we have for our supporters. This means that our trusted supplier will use records that are in the public domain such as the Postcode Address File to remove out of date information.

Purpose of data processing

By registering with us, you are automatically opting in to receiving communications from Just One Ocean, the University of Portsmouth and the Big Microplastic Survey.  You will be offered the option to opt-out in every communication that you receive.

How long we’ll hold the data for

We will hold your personal data and related scientific data for as long as is necessary for data processing and analysis.  If you request to stop receiving communications, we will retain your scientific data, but remove your personal data.  If you wish us to remove your personal data for any reason you may do so at info@microplasticsurvey.org

Newsletter subscribers

If you choose to continue to receive communications from us such as e-newsletters, you may continue to hear from us even after your survey data has been processed.  By working with trusted email services we will remove subscribers who have not opened our emails, clicked any links in the email or responded at all within the previous two years. As long as we continue to send out mailings, we will review our lists in this way on an annual basis. You may opt-out of receiving future mailings at any point before this time elapses.

Citizen scientists

We believe in taking action to protect our natural world underpinned by science. For volunteers who take part in our projects and submit data, we must retain some information associated with their scientific research in order to verify the accuracy of the data, scientific integrity and future investigations. In all cases where personal information or geographic location is not vital to the research we will remove the associated information, however we may still need to retain a unique identifier so that we can trace your data in future.

Individuals’ rights – including how to withdraw consent

Update your information or unsubscribe

We believe that we can only save our natural world by working together. We understand that it is important to our supporters that we stay in touch with them. If your information changes, or you no longer desire our service, you may contact us using our details provided above. Or you can simply unsubscribe in our email communications.

How to make a subject access request

If you would like to request all the information about you that we hold for The big Microplastic Survey project, please contact us at info@microplasticsurvey.org

Please provide your full name and survey references numbers that you have undertaken.  We will process your request within 30 calendar days. In the case that we need further information from you to be sure of your identity (for example if you have the same name as someone else that we hold information about) we could take up to 40 days from the day that the identity is verified.

How to make an enquiry or complaint

If you would like further information or have any questions about this Privacy Policy you may contact us here or using our details provided above. If you have a concern about The Big Microplastic Survey data protection practises you can report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office by calling their helpline on 0303 123 1113 or report your concerns directly to us.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, please contact us.

Notification of changes

We will only use your information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected. If we change our Privacy Policy, this page will be updated so our users may remain aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify you by way of an email. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner.

Cookies

Our websites (like most platforms) use cookies.

What is a cookie?

Cookies are files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website or mobile application. Cookies are then sent back to the originating site on each subsequent visit, or to another site that recognises that cookies. Cookies are widely used in order to make sites work, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the platform. We use cookies to enhance the online experience of our visitors (for example, by remembering your language and/or product preferences) and to better understand how our site is used. Cookies may tell us, for example, whether you have visited our site before or whether you are a new visitor. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.

Types of cookies

There are two broad categories of cookies:

First party cookies, served directly by us to your computer or mobile device. They are used only by us to recognise your computer or mobile device when it revisits our site.

Third party cookies, which are served by a service provider on our site, and can be used by the service provider to recognise your computer or mobile device when it visits other sites. Third party cookies are most commonly used for platform analytics or advertising purposes. Cookies can remain on your computer or mobile device for different periods of time. Some cookies are ‘session cookies’, meaning that they exist only while your browser is open. These are deleted automatically once you close your browser. Other cookies are ‘permanent cookies,’ meaning that they survive after your browser is closed. They can be used by the site to recognise our computer or mobile device when you open your browser and browse the Internet again.

What cookies do we use?

Our site uses the following types of cookies:

Cookies necessary for essential purposes

These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through our site and to use some of its features, such as access to secure areas. Without these cookies, services you have asked for, like transactional pages and secure login accounts, would not be possible.

Analytics cookies

These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. The information gathered does not identify any individual visitor and is aggregated. It includes the number of visitors to our site, the sites that referred them to our site and the pages that they visited on our site. We use this information to help operate our site more efficiently, to gather broad demographic information and to monitor the level of activity on our site.

Performance cookies

These cookies collect information about how visitors use the site, so that we can analyse traffic and understand how our visitors use our sites. We use Google Analytics for this purpose. Google Analytics uses its own cookies. These cookies don’t collect information that identify a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how the site works. You can find out more information about Google Analytics cookies here. You can avoid the use of Google Analytics relating to your use of our site by downloading and installing the browser plugin available via this link.

Functionality cookies

These cookies allow our site to remember choices you make (such as your user name, or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customize. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Social media cookies

These cookies are used when you share information using a social media sharing button or “like” button on our sites or you link your account or engage with our content on or through a social networking site such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+. The social network will record that you have done this. This information may be linked to targeting/ advertising activities.

How to control or delete cookies

You have the right to choose whether or not to accept cookies and we have explained how you can exercise this right below. However, please note that if you choose to refuse cookies you may not be able to use the full functionality of our site. You can set your cookie preferences by changing your browser settings so that cookies from this site cannot be placed on your computer or mobile device. In order to do this, follow the instructions provided by your browser (usually located within the “help”, “tools” or “Edit” facility). Further information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your computer or mobile device and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu.

IP addresses

We may collect information about your computer or mobile device, including (where available) your IP address, operating system, log in times and browser type. We use this information to better understand how visitors use our site and for internal reporting purposes.