Privacy policy

Table of Contents

Introduction

This website is made available using the Veridian platform. Veridian is developed by DL Consulting (DLC) of Innovation Park, 1 Melody Lane, Hamilton, New Zealand. It is used by many organizations to make their digital collections (e.g. collections of digitized newspapers, photographs, and other materials) available online.

This Privacy Policy describes the types of Personal Data that may be collected or processed when you use this website, why we collect that data, how it may be used, and what your rights are with regard to that data.

In terms of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) DLC is primarily a Data Processor, while the owner of the digital collection (Colorado State Library) is the Data Controller. Both parties effectively have an obligation to and a commitment to protect the privacy of those using this website.

What kinds of information do we collect and how do we use it?

Usage Log Data

We receive information when you view content on this website, which we refer to as “Usage Log Data”, even if you have not created an account. This Usage Log Data includes information such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, and search terms.

We use Usage Log Data to aid in providing secure, reliable, and robust performance (e.g. by identifying and blocking unusual activity that may otherwise affect performance for other users).

Usage Log Data is also used in some cases to provide aggregated statistics including how many users are accessing the website, which pages are most popular, approximately where users access the website from, etc.

Basic Account Information

You don’t have to create an account to use many of the features of this Veridian-based website. Some optional features do require you to create an account however, and if you choose to do so you must provide us with some Personal Data that is necessary in order to make those features work.

The Personal Data that may be required when you create a Veridian account is as follows:

Email address: We require your email address in order to verify your account when you initially register, allow you to securely reset your password if you forget it in future, and for other similar functions. Your email address is not made publicly available on the website, but is accessible to administrators of the site (e.g. the owners of the collection).

First and Last Name: These fields are optional, and you do not need to provide your name when you create an account if you choose not to do so. If you do provide it your name is not made publicly available on the website, but is accessible to administrators of the site (e.g. the owners of the collection).

Display Name: The display name you provide is public, and will be associated with any contributions you make on the website. For example, if you add comments or make OCR text corrections they will be associated publicly on the website with your display name. You can use a pseudonym for your display name if you don’t wish for it to identify you personally, and you can change your display name at any time using the form on the My account page.

Information that may be collected if you create an account

As noted in the section above you don’t have to create an account to use many of Veridian’s features. If you do create an account though there are some additional settings and some additional information that may be collected and associated with your account, as follows:

Allow communications: If you choose to opt in to the “allow communications” setting, either when you initially register or from the My account page after registering, we may send information to your registered email address from time to time. You can opt out or opt in to receiving these communications at any time, from Veridian’s My account page. If you do not opt in we won’t send anything to your registered email address, aside from the automated emails required by the registration, password reset and “Change e-mail address” features, and very occasional notifications, when we feel those notifications are important and relevant.

Contributions (e.g. comments, tags, OCR text corrections): Any contributions you make are “public” (i.e. all other users of the website can see them), and they are associated with your user account.

Private lists: This feature of the Veridian platform allows you to optionally create lists of pages/content for later review. These lists are “private” (i.e. other normal users of the website can’t see your private lists), but the data is stored on our servers, and may be accessible to administrators of the website.

Search/view history: If you choose to opt in to the “Store history of searches and viewed items” setting, either from the “Search history” popup or from the “Recent activity” tab of the My account page, Veridian will store your most recent searches and viewed items. You can opt out or opt in to this at any time. If you opt out, any existing history entries will be removed. The history information is “private” (i.e. other normal users of the website can’t see your history), but the data is stored on our servers, and may be accessible to administrators of the website.

Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics to collect and analyse aggregated usage statistics. These statistics do not identify specific individuals. Usage statistics are important as they allow us to gain insight into which content and features are most useful and interesting to users. Those insights help guide decisions on future efforts to add more content to the digital collection, and new features to Veridian.

To comply with Google’s terms and conditions we ensure that no “personally identifiable information” is sent to Google Analytics by Veridian. Google Analytics does however collect the IP addresses of those using this website, and IP addresses are considered to be Personal Data as far as the GDPR is concerned.

Google Analytics uses cookies to collect data.

To find out more about how Google uses the data it collects via Google Analytics when you use this website see https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

While it isn’t possible to opt out of Google Analytics from within Veridian, Google does provide a tool that allows you to do so. For more information see https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Note however that aggregated usage statistics are genuinely important, especially for those who fund the digitization of collections like those on this website.

reCAPTCHA

This website uses the reCAPTCHA service provided by Google for the purpose of protecting against malicious automated software. The reCAPTCHA service checks if users are humans and not spam bots by sending their IP address, browser information and other personal data required for the reCATCHPA service to Google. Site visitors’ use of reCAPTCHA is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website. When you visit the site again, the cookie allows that site to recognize your browser. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. You can configure your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some of the features of this website may not function properly without cookies; most importantly, cookies are required to keep you logged-in to your account (the GDPR defines these as "strictly necessary" cookies).

The Veridian platform itself does not use any cookies that include Personal Data. That is, Veridian does use “session” cookies for authentication and to personalise this website for you, but none of those cookies contain information that could identify you, or which can be used to track your activity once you leave this website. Veridian cookies are temporary and expire once you close your browser.

The third-party Google Analytics tool also uses cookies, and those cookies may contain Personal Data and may be used to track your activity across multiple websites. For more information please see the Google Analytics section of this Privacy Policy.

Who will your Personal Data be shared with?

We do not share any Personal Data we collect from you with any third party, but Google Analytics may do so. You can find out more about who your data may be shared with, and why, by reading the Google Analytics section of this Privacy Policy.

International Transfers of your Personal Data

This website is hosted in the United States, so you should be aware (especially if you are using this website from within the European Union) that any Personal Data we collect from you will be transmitted to our hosting platform in the United States. In some cases we may also transmit your data to New Zealand.

Protecting your Personal Data

The security of your data is important to us and we work hard to ensure the Veridian platform and the systems on which it relies are as secure as is practically possible. Having said that, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage can ever be guaranteed as 100% secure.

Your rights

You have the right to access any Personal Data we retain about you, to correct any errors in that data, or to delete it all, should you choose to do so. You also have the right to withdraw consent that you previously granted (e.g. to opt out of receiving communications from Veridian, having previously opted in). For the most common cases you can access and modify your Personal Data from within this website itself (e.g. from the My account page). For anything you can’t do yourself please contact us by email for help, at contact@veridiansoftware.com.