ITS Social Media Channels Privacy Policy

Notice and Scope

The University of Michigan's Information and Technology Services (ITS) recognizes the importance of privacy for students, faculty, and staff and strives to be the leaders and best in the ways in which we manage your personal information.

This policy applies to information collected by ITS on the ITS Facebook page, Twitter account, and Google+ Communities, and describes:

  • What, how, and why your information is collected
  • How your information is used and protected
  • When and with whom your information may be shared
  • The choices you can make about how your information is collected, used, and shared

Remember, information on your Facebook page, Twitter account, and Google+ profile may be accessible if you post on the ITS Facebook Wall, tweet to ITS, post in and/or join an ITS-related Google+ community. It is important to manage your Facebook privacy settings, and review Twitter's and Google's privacy policies.

What Information is Collected

ITS Promotions and Contests

ITS collects personal information when you enter promotions or contests hosted by ITS in social media channels. The information ITS collects for contest entry is:

  • Name
  • Uniqname, and
  • Email address.

General Demographic Information

In addition, ITS may collect demographic information when you post in an ITS-related Google+ Community or on Twitter, including:

  • Email address
  • Gender, and
  • Educational background.

Technical Information

ITS also automatically collects certain information when you visit or use our websites, including:

  • Technical information such as your internet protocol address, your device operating system and browser type, the address of a referring website, if any, and the path you take through our websites.
  • "Cookies" to recognize you as you use or return to our sites. A cookie is a small text file that a website or email may save to your browser and store on your hard drive.

How Your Information May Be Used

ITS Promotions and Contests

ITS promotions and contests are open only to U-M students, faculty, and staff. Your name, uniqname, and email address are used to verify your university status by checking them against U-M databases.

ITS Service Improvement

ITS may use your demographic information for our own data analysis and service improvement efforts. The following are ways we might use the information in any of our social channels:

  • To better understand the composition of communities and whether they are more popular/useful to a particular segment of the university (e.g. students, undergrads, graduates, academic unit staff, etc.)
  • To better understand what issues and services are important to you, based on the subjects of your posts and your demographics
  • To contact you about a service improvement or issue that you posted about or that is relevant to your demographic

ITS Campus Community Communications

Your information may also be used to send emails related to ITS updates, questionnaires or surveys, and Tech Shop announcements and promotions.

How Your Information May Be Disclosed

ITS does not provide, sell or rent your personal information to non-university related third parties, and will only disclose your personal information with your prior approval and/or under the following limited circumstances:

  • U-M Partners
    ITS may disclose or otherwise make available personal information about you to other U-M organizations. For example, ITS may share your information with U-M Athletics or the University Musical Society, which in turn may use your information to send you emails about sales or other offerings.

  • U-M Service Providers
    ITS may disclose or otherwise make available personal information about you to ITS service providers who may use this information to help ITS improve its product and service offerings and websites. For example, ITS may share your information with a consultant so that users can be contacted to help improve the functionality of ITS' website.

  • Legal Requirements and Protection of Others
    ITS may disclose your information when necessary to protect the safety and property of the university, and its faculty, students and staff, or when otherwise required by law.

How to Remove Your Information or Opt-Out

For information on how to remove yourself from ITS social media channels, contact ITS at the email address listed in the Contact Information.

  • Opt-Out
    If you wish to participate in ITS Social Media Channels, but do not wish to receive communications originating from those channels, please contact ITS at the email address listed in the Contact Information, and we will remove your name from our contact list.

Note: The removal and opt-out options apply only to communications originating from ITS social media channels. You will continue to receive official emails sent by ITS to all U-M students, faculty, and staff.

How Your Information is Secured

Securing your information is an ITS priority and we use reasonable security measures to help protect the privacy and confidentiality of personal information that we collect and store. For more about U-M's security environment, visit ITS Safe Computing.

The university is not responsible for securing the information you post in social media channels that are not hosted by the university, like Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Please periodically check this privacy policy for changes.

Contact Information

ITS Communications
[email protected]

 

Effective June 14, 2011. Last updated January 23, 2014.