Website Privacy Notice

Back to Privacy & Terms
Updated November 2022

Introduction

Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory (“SDL,” “us,” or “we”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it through our compliance with this Privacy Notice. Therefore, we provide this Privacy Notice explaining our online information practices.

This Privacy Notice describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit any of the following websites owned or operated by SDL: https://www.sdl.usu.edu/; https://smallsat.org/; https://calcon.sdl.usu.edu/; https://ffrdc-uarc-sc.org/; https://universitynanosat.org/; or http://www.usurf.usu.edu/; (our “Website”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This Privacy Notice applies to information we collect on this Website.

It does not apply to information collected by:

  • Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by SDL or any third parties; or
  • Any third party, including our parent organization, Utah State University, through any application or content that may link to or be accessible from or on the Website.

Please read this Privacy Notice carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this Privacy Notice. This Privacy Notice may change from time to time; see Changes to Our Privacy Notice. Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the Privacy Notice periodically for updates.

Collecting Information

Personal Information

SDL may collect personal information about you if you voluntarily provide it.

Personal information is any information that can be used to identify you or that may be linked to you. This information is commonly limited to the information found in a public directory, such as first name, last name, postal address, email address, or phone number.

Other services may require additional information through an account to access certain features; an account, created for you to authenticate into a system or service, includes personal information identifying you for the sake of the service.

The information we collect on or through our Website may include:

  • Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of registering your business, registering to use our Website, posting material, or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our Website.
  • Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses) if you contact us.

International Visitors

SDL is located in the United States (State of Utah). By providing information to SDL, you are transferring your personal data to the United States. If you are providing personal information and are not a resident of the United States, your country’s laws governing data collection and use may differ from those in the United States. The United States has not sought nor received a finding of “adequacy” from the European Union under Article 45 of the GDPR, and SDL relies on derogations for specific situations as set forth in Article 49 of the GDPR.

Children

SDL does not believe our Websites are appealing to children, nor are they directed to children under 13. SDL does not knowingly collect personally identifiable data from persons under the age of 13 and strives to comply with the provisions of COPPA (The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). If you are a parent of a child under 13, and you believe that your child has provided us with information about him or herself, please contact us at info@sdl.usu.edu.

Web Servers

Collecting Information About Devices

As do most websites, SDL web servers automatically collect the following information about your device:

  • Your internet connection, including the public Internet Protocol (IP) address of the device through which you access SDL websites.
  • The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the website from which a device reaches an SDL website (called a referrer), typically by following a link.
  • The webpages requested from the SDL websites.
  • The date and time of access.
  • The operating system of the device through which you access SDL websites.
  • The browser type and version, the monitor screen size and color depth, and other plugin and program information as sent by your browser.
  • Similar data and information that may be used in the event of attacks on our information technology (IT) systems.

Automatic Data

The information we collect automatically is only statistical data and does not include personal information, but we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. We do not collect personal information automatically, but we may tie this information to personal information about you that we collect from other sources or you provide to us. This information helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

  • Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
  • Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website according to your individual interests.
  • Speed up your searches.
  • Recognize you when you return to our Website.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting, you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.

Web Analytics

Some SDL websites use Google Analytics, a service provided by Google, Inc. We use this data to determine the number of people using our Website, their journey through the Websites, as well as how they find and use our Website. Google Analytics records data such as your geographical location, device type, internet browser, operating system, and associated information; none of this information personally identifies you. Google Analytics also records your IP address, which could be used to personally identify you, but Google does not grant SDL access to this; see Google Privacy Policy. To opt out of the Google Analytics advertising features outlined above, follow the instructions at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Third-Party Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Some content or applications on the Website are served by third parties, content providers, and application providers, including Google, YouTube, etc. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our Website. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content.

We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly. For information about how you can opt out of receiving targeted advertising from many providers, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

  • To present our Website and its contents to you.
  • To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us.
  • To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
  • To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
  • To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it.
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website.
  • In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
  • For any other purpose with your consent.

Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

We may disclose personal information that we collect, or you provide, as described in this Privacy Notice:

  • To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep personal information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.
  • To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
  • For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
  • With your consent.

We may also disclose your personal information:

  • To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
  • To enforce or apply our Terms of Use.
  • If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of SDL, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:

Tracking Technologies and Advertising

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

You can review and change your personal information by logging into the Website and visiting your account profile page.

You may also send us an email at info@sdl.usu.edu to request access to, correct, or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. We cannot delete your personal information except by also deleting your user account. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

If you delete your User Contributions from the Website, copies of your User Contributions may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or might have been copied or stored by other Website users. Proper access and use of information provided on the Website, including User Contributions, is governed by our Terms of Use.

Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. To prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have suitable physical, technical, and managerial controls and procedures to safeguard the information we collect online. For example, all information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers behind firewalls. Our measures follow applicable laws regarding the safeguarding of information under our control. We retain the information we collect online no longer than as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collect the information and to comply with our legal obligations.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.

Changes to Our Privacy Notice

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Notice on this page with a notice that the Privacy Notice has been updated on the Website home page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account or through a notice on the Website home page. The date the Privacy Notice was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this Privacy Notice to check for any changes.

Contact Information

Subject to local law, you may have certain rights regarding information that we have collected and that is related to you. We encourage you to contact us to update or correct your information if it changes or if you believe that any information that we have collected about you is inaccurate.

To help us keep your personal information up to date or if you no longer wish to receive communications from us, please login to the Website that collected your data and update your information. For general inquiries, please contact SDL for further information.

To ask questions or comment about this Privacy Notice and our privacy practices, contact us at:

info@sdl.usu.edu

or via our phone number:

(435) 713-3400


Privacy Notice & Terms of Use