The University of Virginia is strongly committed to maintaining the privacy and security of confidential personal information and other highly sensitive data that it collects. Our privacy and public records obligations are governed by applicable Virginia statutes, including, but not limited to, the Virginia Privacy Protection Act of 1976, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and by any applicable U.S. federal laws.
This notice applies to all information collected by or submitted to official University of Virginia websites. The following information explains the Internet privacy policy and practices that the University has adopted for its official websites. This notice should not be construed as a contractual promise, and the University reserves the right to amend it at any time without notice.
When you access our Web pages, the client information and the essential and nonessential technical information listed below is automatically collected—we refer to those categories collectively as "access information.” No other information is collected through our official website except “optional information” sent to us by email or online forms.
Client information is used to route the requested Web page to your computer for viewing. In theory, the requested Web page and the routing information could be discerned by other entities involved in transmitting the requested page to you. We do not control the privacy practices of those entities. Essential and nonessential technical information helps us respond to your request in an appropriate format (or in a personalized manner) and helps us plan website improvements. Optional information enables us to provide services or information tailored more specifically to your needs or to forward your message or inquiry to another entity that is better able to do so and also allows us to plan website improvements.
We may use non-identifying and aggregate information to better design our website. For example, we may report that X number of individuals visited a certain area on our website or that Y number of men and Z number of women filled out our registration form, but we would not disclose anything that could be used to identify those individuals.
We may keep client information from our systems indefinitely after the Web page is transmitted, but we do not try to obtain any information to link it to the individuals who browse our website. However, on rare occasions when a "hacker" attempts to breach computer security, logs of access information are retained to permit a security investigation and in such cases may be forwarded together with any other relevant information in our possession to law enforcement agencies.
Under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, any records in our possession at the time of a Freedom of Information Request might be subject to being inspected by or disclosed to members of the public for any purpose they may desire. As indicated above, client information may be retained after transmission of the requested Web page and might be available for inspection.
We use the information you provide about yourself when placing an order or request only to complete that order or request. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete that order or request. Similarly, we use the information you provide about someone else when placing an order or request only to complete that order or request. Again, we do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete that order or request.
We generally use return email addresses only to answer the email we receive. Such addresses are generally not used for any other purpose and by University and state policy are not shared with outside parties.
Finally, we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above without clear notice and the opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such uses.
Some official University of Virginia websites use "cookies." Often a cookie enables the University website to tailor what you see according to the way you entered the site (i.e., if you entered by pushing a button identifying yourself as a student, your subsequent views of information might be tailored for student audiences). For this kind of cookie, the information stored in that cookie might include the following (formatted for legibility):
Name: UVA_cookie Session: 973016679.175537
Timestamp: 973021258
Portal: 0
Expires: Tue, 01-May-2001 19:40:58 GMT
Domain: virginia.edu
Path: /
The University may provide email addresses and/or phone numbers collected by the University to digital services, including social media platforms and search engines, for the purpose of reaching audiences via those services to promote the University and its services. If you do not want such information provided to the University to be used for this purpose, please email socialmedia@virginia.edu with that instruction and include your name and the relevant email address.
In addition, third parties may use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect or receive information from your website and elsewhere on the internet and use that information to provide measurement services and target ads. Facebook users can opt-out of the collection and use of information for ad targeting using the following links: http://www.aboutads.info/choices and http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/.
Finally, we may receive and store information about you from other sources and add it to our institutional advancement database. For further information, please consult the University of Virginia Advancement Privacy Statement.
There is no legal requirement for you to provide any information at our website. However, our website will not work without routing information and the essential technical information. Failure of your browser to provide nonessential technical information will not prevent your use of our website but may prevent certain features from working. For any optional information that is requested at the website, failure to provide the requested information will mean that the particular feature or service associated with that part of the Web page may not be available to you.
To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online, consistent with the policies of the University and with the laws and regulations of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
A central repository for all UVA information technology (IT) resource policies, standards, and procedures.