Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

The Museum of Oxford is committed to protecting the privacy and security of the personal information (‘personal data’) that you provide to us via this site.

This policy (together with our Terms and Conditions) describes how we collect and use your personal data when submitted to this site, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

A         Who is using your personal data?

The Museum of Oxford is the ‘data controller’ for the information that you provide to us via this site. This means that we decide how to use it and are responsible for looking after it in accordance with the GDPR.

Access to your personal data within the Museum of Oxford will be provided to those staff who need to view it as part of their work.

Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. We may update this policy at any time.

When you submit material via this site you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

B      Glossary

Where we refer in this policy to your ‘personal data’, we mean any recorded information that is about you and from which you can be identified. It does not include information contained in the ‘story’ part of the submission (e.g. the person associated with the objects).

Where we refer to the ‘processing’ of your personal data, we mean anything that we do with that information, including collection, use, storage, disclosure or retention.

C         Types of data that we collect about you

When you submit material, we will collect, store, and use your name, your contact details (address, email, mobile number), and data about the objects and story that you are submitting.

D         When we collect your data

We will collect the data about you only when you choose to give it by submitting a story and/or item to the online collection.

E         How we use your data

We process your data for one or more of the following reasons:

  • To allow us to keep a secure record of those who have submitted material for future reference;
  • To display to end users who search the collection on our online collection website (https://museumofoxford.omeka.net/) hosted on secure servers by Omeka.net (users will be able to see the data you have entered into the story section, the dates and location of the objects, the digitised objects themselves (e.g. photographs), and, unless you choose to remain anonymous, your name. They will not be able to see your contact details.)
  • To preserve the data (we will store all the data you give us on secure servers under the control of the Museum of Oxford and Omeka.net).

Please note that we may process your data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

F          Marketing

We would like to send you information by email about the project. We will not provide your data to other businesses so that they can use it for marketing purposes.

We will not provide your data to journalists or researchers, but we may contact you for your permission to be put in touch with them.

G         Sharing your data with third parties

We will share your data with non-commercial third parties who actively support the study of the relevant topic. All third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your data in line with our policies. We permit them to process your data only for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. In particular, we may share your data with other museums and archives to allow them to preserve the data and increase cross-searching of material.

Where your data is shared with third parties, we will seek to share the minimum amount necessary.

H         Where we store or use your data

We will store your data manually at the Museum of Oxford and electronically our secure servers in our premises within the United Kingdom.

Data that is displayed on our online collection site will be stored on Omeka.net (see Section E). All data uploaded to Omeka.net is encrypted in transit with current best practices and stored within the Amazon cloud, where access is tightly restricted to the few people who need access to maintain the service. All data is currently stored in the us-east-1 AWS region in Virginia. Amazon.com is signed up to Privacy Shield.

The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to the website and any transmission is at your own risk.

I           Retaining your data

We will only retain your data for as long as we need it to fulfil our purposes, including purposes relating to legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

J          Your rights

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your data (commonly known as a ‘subject access request’). This enables you to receive a copy of your data and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of your data. This enables you to ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you.
  • Request erasure of your data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove your data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  • Object to processing of your data where we are relying on our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. [You also have the right to object where we are processing your data for direct marketing purposes.]
  • Request the restriction of processing of your data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your data, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your data to another party.

Depending on the circumstances and the nature of your request it may not be possible for us to do what you have asked, for example, where there is a statutory or contractual requirement for us to process your data and it would not be possible to fulfil our legal obligations if we were to stop.

Where you have consented to the processing (for example, where you have asked us to contact you for marketing purposes) you can withdraw your consent at any time by emailing the Museum of Oxford (museum@oxford.gov.uk). In this event, we will stop the processing as soon as we can. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before your withdrawal of consent and you may no longer be able to use the site in the same way as you did before.

If you want to exercise any of the rights described above or are dissatisfied with the way we have used your information, you should contact the Museum of Oxford (museum@oxford.gov.uk). The same email address may be used to contact the Museum’s Data Protection Officer. We will seek to deal with your request without undue delay and in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR. Please note that we may keep a record of your communications to help us resolve any issues which you raise.

If you remain dissatisfied, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/concerns/).

K         Cookies

The online collection website (website address to be confirmed) will use cookies. These are simply to assist users who submit more than one contribution to the site and are not used for any other purposes.

I           Changes to this policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted here.

M         Contact

If you wish to raise any queries or concerns about this privacy policy, please contact us at museum@oxford.gov.uk.