Welcome to the world's leading Postgraduate Forum
An active and supportive community.
Support and advice from your peers.
Your postgraduate questions answered.
Use your experience to help others.
At FindAUniversity Ltd we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This policy relates to PostgraduateForum.com (hereafter refered to as ‘our website’).
This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
We may change this Policy from time to time, so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.
Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to [email protected] or in writing to FindAUniversity Ltd, 77 Sidney Street, Sheffield, S1 2NU, UK. Alternatively, you can phone us during UK office hours on +44 (0)114 268 4940.
FindAUniversity Ltd act as the data controller of the personal data you provide through PostgraduateForum.com and its subpages. You can browse our website without providing us with your personal data. If you wish to reply to any of the threads on the site or start your own thread/blog, then you will need to register and we will need your personal information.
You can jump to a relevant section of this Privacy Policy by following the links below:
1. What information do we collect and what is it for and what do we do with it?
2. Visiting our websites / Cookie Policy
3. Do we disclose information to outside parties?
4. Will we transfer your information outside of Europe?
We collect information from you when you register to post on PostgraduateForum.com. The legal basis for processing your data is your consent and this is something you can withdraw at any time (see our contact details above or at the bottom of all our web pages).
There is some information that you must provide when registering to post to PostgraduateForum.com. These include your name, contact details, current country of residence, nationality and your education level or intentions.
We use your information to contact you when somebody replies to one of your threads or uses our messenger service to contact you (you can opt out of either of these services at any time). We use the other information to help us monitor the demographics of our user base. None of the information provided to us is used for marketing purposes.
Your threads and replies are published alongside your username on PostgraduateForum.com and where relevant on FindAMasters.com, FindAPhD.com and FindAPostDoc.com.
We store all our Postgraduate Forum data securely on our own servers. We do not pass on your contact details to any third party, unless legally required to do so.
You can opt out of any contact from PostgraduateForum.com by clicking the link at the bottom of any email correspondence.
We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you submit or access it via PostgraduateForum.com. This includes SSL (secure sockets layer) technology to ensure that your information is transmitted safely across the internet.
We keep your data indefinitely. Your personal data and posts can be removed at any time.
You can edit or update your data at any time.
We use technologies such as cookies to customise content and advertising, to provide social media features and to analyse traffic to our websites. We also share information about your use of our site with our trusted social media, advertising and analytics partners.
When you first visit our website a direct link to this section of our Privacy Policy is provided. By continuing to use our website you consent to Cookies being used, however you may choose to use our sites without cookies (click here to see how). Not all the functions of our websites will work with cookies disabled.
'Cookies' are small text files that are stored by the browser (e.g. Chrome or Safari) on your computer or mobile phone. They allow websites to store such things as user preferences. You can think of cookies as providing a "memory" for the website, enabling it to recognise a user and respond appropriately.
A visit to a page on PostgraduateForum.com may generate the following types of cookie:
This type of cookie remembers where you’ve been on our website and what you’ve searched for so the things like pressing the ‘back’ button on your browser will work properly. They are also used to record any courses that you shortlist.
Every time a user visits PostgraduateForum.com, Google Analytics generates an anonymous analytics cookie.
These cookies can tell us whether or not you have visited the site before. Your browser will tell Google Analytics if you have these cookies, and if you don't, it will create a new one. This allows us to count metrics such as the number of unique users we have, how many pages each user visits and how often.
These cookies are not used to identify individuals and are used only to generate statistics.
When you login to the websites, we set a cookie that recognises whether you are logged in or not. This means that you don’t need to use your username and password every time you want to make a post on the forum.
This website uses remarketing services to advertise on third-party websites (including Google, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) to previous visitors to our sites. It could mean that we advertise to previous visitors who haven’t completed a task on our site, for example using the contact form to make an enquiry. This could be in the form of an advertisement on your Facebook timeline, in the Google search results page, or a site in the Google Display Network. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to our websites. Of course, any data collected will be used in accordance with our own privacy policy and that of either Google or Facebook. You can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Preferences page, and if you want to you can opt out of interest-based advertising entirely by turning off cookies (see below).
Some of the advertisements you see on PostgraduateForum.com are generated by third parties (in this case Google). Google use their own anonymous cookies to track how many people have seen a particular ad, or to track how many people have seen it more than once.
Google have their own privacy policy, and FindAUniversity Ltd has no access to read or write their cookies. Google may use third party advertising cookies to anonymously target advertising to you on other websites, based on your visit to PostgraduateForum.com.
You can get more information about Google Adwords advertising cookies at www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/
On some pages on PostgraduateForum.com third parties may set their own anonymous cookies, for the purposes of tracking the success of their application, or customising the application for you. FindAUniversity Ltd cannot access these cookies.
For example, when you share a course using a social media sharing button on PostgraduateForum.com, the social network that has created the button will record that you have done this.
It is usually possible to stop your browser accepting cookies, or to stop it accepting cookies from a particular website. Be aware that if you turn off cookies some of the functions on our websites will no longer work, however you will still be able to send enquiries to organisations listing on the websites.
Most browsers allow you to change your cookie settings. These are usually found in the 'preferences' or 'options' menu of your web browser. Use the 'Help' option in your browser for more details or try the following links.
If you are primarily concerned about third party cookies generated by advertisers, you can turn these off by going to the Your Online Choices site.
You can also visit the trade body representing these advertising platforms for more information: Network Advertising Initiative. They have provided a one-stop place that gathers all of the opt-out controls. Please bear in mind that the are many more networks listed on this site than those that we use at FindAUniversity Ltd.
To talk to us about FindAUniversity Ltd’s use of cookies then please contact [email protected]
We do not sell transfer or otherwise transfer to third parties except under the following circumstances:
No
For more detailed information on these rights visit https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/
If you would like to exercise any of these rights in relation to the FindAUniversity's use of your data, please contact: [email protected] or in writing to FindAUniversity Ltd, 77 Sidney Street, Sheffield, S1 4RG, UK. Alternatively, you can phone us during UK office hours on +44 (0)114 268 4940.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner who is the regulator for data protection in the UK: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or use their Helpline on 0303 123 1113.
Thank you for using our web sites.
This policy was last updated on 1st Oct 2020
An active and supportive community.
Support and advice from your peers.
Your postgraduate questions answered.
Use your experience to help others.