This site is owned and operated by Southern Oregon University. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. Southern Oregon University does not sell or otherwise provide any information collected on the SOU web site to any external entity except as expressly stated on this site, or as otherwise required by law. SOU does not knowingly collect personal information from children under age 13. This policy is subject to compliance with the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), revised Oregon statutes, and Oregon Administrative Rules. The Privacy Policy below applies to the overall SOU web site and any information you provide on this site. If any web sites within SOU differ from this policy, they will have their own Privacy Policy. Please be sure to check other sites for their privacy policies.
Introduction
The primary purpose of the SOU web site is for University related activities only. In order to operate the web service and to reduce the risk of fraud, SOU must ask you to provide us information about yourself. This Privacy Policy describes the information we collect and how we use that information. SOU respects the privacy of your personally identifiable information. This information may include name, address, social security number, and will be used only in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information. However, as described in more detail in Part C below, there are limited circumstances in which some of your information will be shared with third parties, under strict restrictions, so it is important for you to review this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy applies to all services offered on the SOU web site.
Information We Collect
Network Information
Information collected automatically is analyzed to help us understand how you use our web services and how we can improve our site to better meet your needs. Like most other web sites, the following information is collected automatically:
- IP Address
- Type of browser and operating system used to access our site
- Date and time the user accessed our site
- Information regarding which pages users access or visit
- If you link to our site from another web site, we collect the address of the other web site
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this site may monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. If security monitoring reveals evidence of possible abuse or criminal activity, system personnel may provide the results of such monitoring to appropriate officials. Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the state law and federal statutes including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.
Email Information
If you send us an electronic mail message with a question or comment that contains personally identifying information, we will only use the personally identifiable information to respond to your request and analyze trends. We may redirect your message to another government agency or person who is in a better position to answer your question. If you provide us with your email address when you register as a customer or make a purchase from us, we may send you notices of new events, products, and services. You will be given the option to unsubscribe from any mailing lists to which you are added.
Required Information
For some of our sites, a login id and password is required (i.e., SISWeb - you must provide your Student ID number and Personal Identification Number). In order to make payments through SOU, you must also provide credit card or bank account information. This required information is necessary for us to process transactions, issue a new PIN/password if you forget or lose your PIN/password, protect you against credit card fraud, and to contact you should the need arise in administering your account.
Transactional Information
When you use the SOU web site for transactions such as making a donation, registering and paying for classes, purchasing tickets, or applying for admission to SOU, we ask you to provide information related to each transaction such as the amount of the payment or donation, which events you would like tickets to, the courses you wish to register for, or information needed for determining admission status. Information provided by the user is the minimal data needed to successfully complete a web transaction. We retain this information for each of your transactions through the SOU web site.
Our Use of “Cookies”
“Cookies” are small files of data that we send to your computer to allow us to recognize you as an SOU customer, to remember user preferences, to track usage patterns, and maximize performance of our services. We send a cookie to your computer if and when you log in to your account by entering your login id and password. These cookies allow us to recognize you if you visit multiple pages in our site during the same session, so that you don’t need to re-enter your password multiple times. The information we collect with cookies is not sold, rented, or shared with any outside parties. If you wish to control cookies, you need to use a browser that allows you to control cookie requests received by the browser (always accept, accept on approval, always deny). If you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use all of the services.
Our Use and Disclosure of Information
Internal Uses
We use the information we collect about you in order 1) to provide our services and process your transactions and 2) to provide customer service. Specifically, we use your information to help you complete a transaction, to communicate back to you, to update you on service and benefits, and to personalize our web sites for you.
We give access to personally identifiable information about our users only to those SOU employees who need to know that information in order to provide products or services to you.
Disclosure to Other SOU Customers
Your personally identifiable information will not be disclosed to other SOU customers, except in the case where SOU employees use the same system and need the information in order to provide services to you (i.e., a professor viewing class rosters and wait lists via the web).
Disclosure to Third Parties
SOU will not sell, rent, or lease your personally identifiable information to others. SOU will not share any of your personally identifiable information with third parties except in the limited circumstances described below, or with your express permission (and to employees as described above), or to comply with applicable law. These third parties are limited by law or by contract from using the information for secondary purposes beyond the purposes for which the information is shared.
- We share information with organizations that help us process the transactions you request and protect our customers’ transactions from fraud, such as sharing your credit card number with a service that screens for lost and stolen card numbers.
- We disclose the information we collect, as described in Section B above, to organizations that perform services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with whom we have joint service agreements (i.e., we disclose information to Rogue Community College so that Financial Aid eligibility can be determined when students attend both institutions). These organizations are subject to confidentiality agreements with us and other legal restrictions that prohibit using the information except to provide the specified related services, unless you have affirmatively agreed or given your prior permission for other uses.
- We disclose to cooperate in investigations of fraud or other illegal activity, or to conduct investigations of violations of our Computing Resources Acceptable Use Policy.
- We disclose information in response to a subpoena, warrant, court order, levy, attachment, order of a court-appointed receiver or other comparable legal process, including subpoenas from private parties in a civil action.
- We disclose information to your agent or legal representative (such as the holder of a power of attorney that you grant, or a guardian appointed for you)
- We share aggregated statistical data with our business partners or for public relations. For example, we may disclose that a specific percentage of our students are Oregon residents. However, this aggregated information is not tied to personally identifiable information.
- We share information with third parties, in compliance with the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), when required by the Oregon Public Records Act.
Internet Address Information
We use IP addresses, browser types, and access times to analyze trends, administer the site, improve site performance, gather broad demographic information for aggregate use, and to conduct investigations on fraud, illegal activity, and other violations of our Computing Resources Acceptable Use Policy.
Information Security
SOU is committed to handling your information with high standards of information security. While no computing environment is 100% secure, we take every precaution to protect the user’s information. When a user submits sensitive information via the web, that information is protected both online and off-line.
Your credit card information is stored only in encrypted form on computers that are not open to the Internet. We restrict access to your personally identifiable information to employees who need to know that information in order to provide products or services to you.
If you are transacting business with us over the Internet, the security of your information is protected by:
- Participating in the VeriSignTM program, which certifies all of our secure servers;
- Using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption technology to transmit confidential information between your browser and our Web servers; and
- Protecting our databases and Web servers separate with a firewall.
The security of your account also relies on protecting your password. We strongly urge that you never share your password with anyone. SOU representatives will never ask you for your password, so any e-mail or other communication requesting your password should be treated as unauthorized and suspicious. If you do share your password with a third party for any reason, the third party will have access to your account and your personal information, and you will be responsible for actions these third parties may take using your password. If you believe someone else has obtained access to your password, please change it immediately by logging in to your account and also contact us right away as described in Section G below.
Tips for Safe Transactions
- Use an SSL-capable browser with 128-bit encryption (40-bit encryption secures your information, but 128-bit provides more security).
- Don't walk away from your computer when in communication with our servers.
- Safeguard your password and other identifying numbers and do not share them with others.
- Keep personal information such as your mother's maiden name and identifying numbers (including your Social Security, driver's license, passport, and credit card numbers) in a safe and secure place. Do NOT share this information unless you know the purpose for which it will be used.
- Before anyone else uses your computer, clear your cache or restart your browser (this eliminates copies of Web pages that have been stored in your hard drive). The preference menu in your browser can tell you how to clear your cache.
Acceptance of Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions
By using this site, you signify that you understand how your privacy is protected and how your personal information will be used. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this policy at any time. Please check this page periodically for any changes to this policy statement. Your continued use of the SOU web site following the posting of any changes signifies that you are comfortable with changes to the privacy policy and have accepted those changes. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us as described in Section G below.
Links to Other Web Sites
Our web site may contain links to other sites. Please be aware that SOU is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. The user is encouraged to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by the overall SOU web site. Other SOU web sites, such as SISWeb, may have their own privacy policy which should be reviewed.
Contacting Us
If you have questions about our web site or concerns regarding privacy, you may email webmaster@sou.edu, call 541-552-6900 Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:00am and 5:00pm PST, or write us at Southern Oregon University, Computing Services Center, Attn: Webmaster, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd, Ashland, OR 97520.
