Privacy Policy

Harvard Dataverse cares about your privacy. This privacy policy explains what information we collect through your use of the Harvard Dataverse application and how we treat that information. By using the Harvard Dataverse application, you acknowledge and accept that these are the privacy practices governing the Harvard Dataverse application. This web site may contain links to other web sites and use third-party applications and/or software. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties, and you should read through their practices before clicking or using them.

Information Collected

Information Voluntarily Provided by You

When you register for an account with Harvard Dataverse, we collect your name, email address, (and optionally) institution and position.

Additionally, if the guestbook feature if activated for a particular dataset, then any information filled out in the guestbook is made available to the dataverse administrator, dataset manager, and dataset curator.

Information Collected Through Your Use of the Harvard Dataverse Application

When you access this web site, our web server software generates logfiles of the IP address of your computer. These web server logs are retained on a temporary basis and then deleted completely from our systems. When you download a file from Harvard Dataverse, our software collects user account data such as your name, username, email, institution and position if provided (or the session ID data for guest users) and accompanying download data such as the time of the download. This information is then made available to the dataverse administrator, dataset manager, and dataset curator of the file.

We also use Google Analytics to collect data on how our users are using Harvard Dataverse so that we can improve its functionality. Please see the Google Privacy & Terms for information on how Google handles these data.

Use of Information

We use your IP address and files you access to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our Web site by identifying (1) which parts of our site are most heavily used, and (2) which portion of our audience comes from within the Harvard network. We also use this information to tailor site content to user needs and to generate aggregate statistical reports. At no time do we disclose site usage by individual users.

With the exception of the data collected during downloads, which are made available only to the file owner, we do not share any personally identifiable information we gather or develop about our users to any third parties for any purpose unless required by law. Any reports we may share externally would use unidentifiable, aggregated data.

Cookies

We use cookies to maintain a user’s identity between web sessions.

Security

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Harvard Dataverse may revise this privacy policy at its sole discretion. Please check this page regularly for our current practices. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this site, you can contact: support@dataverse.harvard.edu.

This policy was last modified: 12/05/2014.