Introduction.
We take every reasonable precaution to protect your information. When you submit
information to us through our web site, your information is protected both on-line
and off-line. All data transferred to/from the https://geoservices.tamu.edu
internal network, to/from an external entity, will be encrypted to industry standards (128 bit encryption).
Please keep in mind that messages you send to us by Internet e-mail may not be
secure. Do not send us any confidential or personal information by Internet e-mail.
We maintain appropriate physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to ensure
the security, integrity and privacy of your personal information within our company.
Only those employees who require your personal information to perform a specific job are
granted access to your information. Furthermore, all employees are kept up-to-date
on our security and privacy practices. This Information Security Policy deals with user
uploaded, created, or submitted information (referred to as "Data" below).
This Policy does not apply to other entities that we do not own or control or
persons that are not our employees, agents or within our control. Please take
time to read our Terms of Use.
If you have any questions about the security of your information at
https://geoservices.tamu.edu
you may contact us at the following address:
Dr. Daniel W. Goldberg
Texas A&M University, Department of Geography
TAMU 3147
College Station
,
TX
77843-3147
(979) 862-3551
1. Submission of Data.
Most functionality provided by this website makes use of user supplied data.
Submitting information to this site is your option and you do so at your own risk.
We will make all possible good faith attempts to ensure the security of your data.
As a user, you explicitly agree to not provide any personally identifiable health
data as defined by the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
Information about the steps we take to ensure the security of your data is set forth below.
2. Encryption.
Our website allows you the opportunity to upload your data in an encrypted format. You should take
this opportunity and only upload data that has been encrypted.
This site uses industry standard 128 bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
encryption to secure the communication links between your computer and our servers.
All users should use the secure version of the site
https://geoservices.tamu.edu.
3. Passwords.
We do not store your passwords as plain text in our user databases. You are the only one who will
know your password to your account and your data.
4. Uploading of Data.
Uploaded data is stored in the file system our servers. We can not and do not provide backup or
restoration services for data that you have uploaded. It is recommended that you make periodic
backups of the data you have uploaded to our site. It is further recommended that you
encrypt your data before uploading it to our servers such that it will be unreadable
by anyone except for you or other parties to whom you provide the password.
Your data will remain on our servers until such time that you remove it by deleting it
from your account, or we determine that it must be deleted which may occur at any time.
Your uploaded data files will be deleted from our servers automatically after 7 days,
but we may also delete your data at any time without notice prior to that.
5. Entering of Data.
Data entered into the forms of our website are used to provide you the services of the website.
This data is not specifically stored, but may be recorded for the purposes of debugging or
enhancing the site. After the data have been used for these purposes, they will be destroyed.
6. Creation of Data.
Many of the services offered through this site allow you to create your own data. If these data
are considered private or confidential to you, you should not choose any available options to
allow these data to be shared with other users of the site and the services it provides. Before
we share any of your created data, you will be specifically asked to approve it. This data is not
specifically stored, but may be recorded for the purposes of debugging or
enhancing the site. After the data have been used for these purposes, they will be destroyed.
7. Retention of data.
Like many web sites, we may automatically receive general
information that is contained in our server log files such as your IP address and
cookie information. When exceptions or errors occur within our site and the services it provides,
the pertinent and relevant information is recorded to our logs for the purposes of
correcting the error. We may also record statistics relating to the usage of the site and services
for the purposes of enhancing and upgrading the services we provide.
We may store and/or make use of your data for tuning and diagnostic purposes
to improve our services. Your uploaded data files will be deleted from our servers automatically after 30 days,
but we may also delete your data at any time without notice prior to that.
Diagnostic and/or use of service information derived from your data may be retained
indefinitely for tuning and/or service improvement purposes.
8. Changes to this Privacy Policy.
We may make changes to this Policy from time to time. We will notify you of substantial
changes to this Policy either by posting a prominent announcement on our site
and/or by sending a message to the e-mail address you have provided to us that is
contained within your user settings.
9. NO GUARANTEES.
While this Information Security Policy states our standards for maintenance of Data
and we will make efforts to meet them, we are not in a position to guarantee
these standards. There may be factors beyond our control that may result in
disclosure of data. As a consequence, we disclaim any warranties or representations
relating to maintenance or nondisclosure of Data.
