Digital Ricoeur Privacy Policy
How We Use Your Personal Information
Digital Ricoeur is committed to safeguarding the privacy of our users and the security of the data in our care. This page provides information about the use of personal information provided by users of the Digital Ricoeur website (hereafter “Digital Ricoeur”). These policies intend to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European Union’s data protection law.
- What is “personal information”?
“Personal information” means any information which relates to or identifies you as an individual.
- Who will process my personal information?
The information provided here applies to the use, sharing, and disclosure of your personal information by Digital Ricoeur. Subject to opt in and opt out provisions described below, the information will be processed automatically by the site or by Digital Ricoeur staff. You may opt in or opt out of provisions on your personal profile page.
- What personal information will be processed?
As explained in this section, Digital Ricoeur will use the details you provide on registering for the site and will gather aggregate information on researcher use of the site.
When you initially register with Digital Ricoeur, we require that you provide us with your name, one or more of your email addresses, your university or organizational affiliation (if any), and a short summary of your site research goals. We use this information to validate your registration request.
We will retain a record of your name and email address. We will use your email address to let you log in and to communicate with you. Our more general communications to your email address will be restricted and typically involve responses to questions or interactions that you might raise with us. We would also send you an email to address a security alert, for example, if we have reason to believe your user’s account has been compromised.
We also maintain access logs, both as a security measure and to identify errors in our software (which is also a security measure). This is the only category of information that we collect for visitors other than registered users. Because we have a legitimate interest in maintaining the security of the site, you as a user do not have a right to have this information deleted upon request.
We may also occasionally communicate with site users to provide updates on important new site features or the deployment of significant additions to the corpus. You may opt out of these communications.
Additionally, we gather information on frequency of use and topics researched. This information is used for research and statistical purposes only and is not used to identify you individually. You may opt out of having Digital Ricoeur collect this information.
After your registration is validated, we will delete your university or organizational affiliation and your site research goals, unless you voluntarily opt in to allow us to retain that information. We also invite you to opt in to provide us additional background information such as the country of origin from which you are logging in and your gender. All of this background information is used for research and statistical purposes only and is not used to identify you individually. Provision of this information is voluntary and on an opt in basis.
If you are concerned about cookies, the Digital Ricoeur website itself uses exactly one, which is strictly necessary to remember that you have logged in. This cookie is set when you log in and is deleted when you log out. Third-party components, discussed in item #5, may use cookies in other ways.
For further clarifications of these provisions, see items #4 and #5.
- What is the purpose and legal basis of the processing?
Digital Ricoeur will process the personal information provided on your registration for the purposes of identifying you, processing your registration, verifying limited information such as email address, communicating with you, responding to your requests, and monitoring use of the site.
We also use your personal information to prevent and detect fraud and abuse in order to protect the security of the information on Digital Ricoeur, other site users, and the site itself. In addition, we keep a log of access to your account as a security measure. If someone else with administrative privileges to invite other users sends you an invitation to join Digital Ricoeur, we keep a record of that invitation until it expires.
We primarily monitor site use by individual researchers to measure use of, analyze performance of, fix errors in, provide support for, improve, and develop Digital Ricoeur. None of this monitoring involves disclosure of your personal information.
We also monitor against site abuse, including the downloading of copyrighted material, which can occur by hacking or otherwise manipulating the site. Individual researcher abuse of the site will result in a banning from the site and other legal remedies as appropriate.
We additionally monitor site use for aggregate purposes, such as frequency of use and topics researched. We may also use or disclose the information provided for research and statistical purposes, including to other organizations described in more detail in item #5, but for these purposes no information will be used or disclosed which could identify you individually. For information used for these purposes, you may choose to opt out of providing it to us. We consider the processing of your personal information for these purposes to be vital to our understanding how the site is being used for research purposes, its reach to various constituencies (such as country of origin), and how the site might be improved to enhance user benefit. Other organizations may be interested in this aggregate information to help assess the status and trajectories of Ricoeur studies globally.
We may also use or disclose, including to other organizations described in item #5, aggregate information such as institutional affiliation (if any), country of origin, and gender and individual information such as email address. We would use or disclose information for these purposes only if you opt in to such disclosure. For some of these purposes, we consider the processing and disclosure of your personal information to be potentially of mutual interest to you and the organization, such as membership in a Ricoeur society. For these purposes, we would need to disclose limited information that could identify you, such as an email address. For other purposes, we consider the processing and disclosure of aggregate personal information necessary for goals such as funding applications or understanding the composition and national backgrounds of the Ricoeur research community. For these purposes, we would not disclose any information that could identify you personally.
We may also use or disclose the information provided for the following legally mandated purposes: to prevent or detect fraud, or to provide information required by applicable legislation. Use and disclosure of this information is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation.
We do not ask for sensitive information such as that concerning your ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.
- Who will my personal information be shared with?
Ordinarily, access to the personal information you provide will be restricted to the Digital Ricoeur staff.
If, as described in item #4, you opt in to provide certain information, we will share it with:
- Another Ricoeur-related organization, such as the Society for Ricoeur Studies (ricoeursociety.org) or the Fonds Ricoeur (www.fondsricoeur.fr). The disclosure will be for the purpose of the other organization contacting you about joining the organization or an email list, or for the purpose of gathering information on aggregate data on Ricoeur researchers. The disclosure will include only personal information regarding your email address.
- Potential donors or funders to the Digital Ricoeur site. This disclosure will not include any personal information.
- Potential researchers on the nature of use of the Digital Ricoeur site, such as frequency of use, topics researched, or user country of origin. This disclosure will not include any personal information.
- Governmental organizations as required by law.
- If you choose, other users of the site, so that they may contact you on subjects of possible mutual interest.
Some parts of the Digital Ricoeur website use third-party technologies which are governed by their own privacy policies, which you can locate on their sites. These include the Amazon web server. We also use reCAPTCHA to protect against spam and malicious attacks. reCAPTCHA examines hardware and software information to determine that you are human. This data is analysed on reCAPTCHA's servers.
- How is my personal information used if my registration is accepted?
If your registration is accepted, we will use your personal information for the purposes described in items #4 and #5.
Your personal information is created, stored and transmitted securely in electronic formats, including the site database. We protect the security of your information during transmission to or from Digital Ricoeur by using encryption protocols and software, including the security offered by our Amazon Web Services server. Access to your personal information is limited to Digital Ricoeur staff who have a legitimate interest in it for the purpose of carrying out their duties, and our use of your personal information will not be excessive.
We do not gather or process some information about you that may classed as sensitive or special category personal data, such as your ethnicity, sexual orientation, of religious beliefs.
- How can I access my personal information?
You have the right to access the personal information that is held about you by Digital Ricoeur. You may access and edit that information through the “My Account” page. To protect privacy, individual requests for personal information are restricted to information that is linked to the email address used for registration at the site.
You also have the right to ask us to correct any inaccurate personal information we hold about you, to delete personal information, or otherwise restrict our processing, or to object to processing (including the receipt of communications), or to receive an electronic copy of the personal information you provided to us.
- How long is my information kept?
We store your personal information as long as you are registered on the site. You may inform us that you want to revoke your registration for the site, and we will eliminate your personal information at that time.
- Who can I contact?
If you have any questions about how your personal information is used, or wish to exercise any of your rights, please write us at the Digital Ricoeur contact page or see the About section for contact informatin.
- How do I register a complaint?
If you are not happy with the way your information is being handled, or with the response received from us, please contact the Society for Ricoeur Studies President, who can be located here. Relevant governmental authorities will vary by the jurisdiction in which you live.
- Are changes made to this webpage?
This webpage was last updated in February 2021. It is reviewed when necessary and at least annually. Any changes will be published here and you will be notified via this webpage.