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This policy applies to personal data of JASMIN users.

We may store, either manually or electronically, all personal data that you supply to us through JASMIN websites, for example when applying for and creating a JASMIN account or applying for access to services and resources. We may also store information about your use of all aspects of JASMIN.

We may use this information to help us manage and administer JASMIN, to review, analyse and audit performance and patterns of use, and to plan for the future.

Any personal information you give to us will always be processed in accordance with the UK Data Protection Act 2018, which is the UK's implementation of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). We will only use the personal information you provide to deliver the services you have requested, or for our lawful, disclosed purposes. In some cases this will involve sharing your personal data with others outside of the JASMIN Team, including to relevant third parties outside of JASMIN's host organisation, for example in order to provide support or to gain approval from a third-party service owner for your access to particular services. We will not otherwise make your personal details available outside our organisation without your consent, unless obliged by law.

We reserve the right to monitor your use of the service, including anything you transmit over the Internet, and any data or software you store on our systems, in order to ensure that you and all the other users are complying with the Terms and Conditions of Access and not breaking the law. We must allow any court or other competent authority to inspect our records of your use of the system, or your data, and to take copies of it, if this is legally required; and we must report your activities to the competent authorities if we know or suspect that you are breaking the law. These are legal obligations for us.

We would not be able to administer the service properly, nor adequately account to our funding bodies for our conduct of this project, without processing your personal data in our database in this way. For this reason, we have to ask you to consent to this policy. This consent is included in the Terms and Conditions of Access.

Cookies

As is common practice with websites, JASMIN websites may place small files known as “cookies” on your device (e.g. computer or smartphone) in order to improve your user experience.

Our use of cookies

JASMIN websites themselves set ‘first-party’ cookies in order to identify you as you travel around the sites. This enables us to provide services that are tailored to your account, such as applying for access to a resource. These cookies will usually be deleted when you log out, however in some cases they may remain afterwards to remember your site preferences.

JASMIN sites may also make use of ‘third-party’ cookies from the following services:

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Maps
  • YouTube (owned by Google)
  • Help Scout

We use these services to monitor the usage of our websites in order to continue to improve the services we offer, and to provide effective user support. For more information about cookies set by Google services, see the Google Cookie Policy, and for Help Scout services see the Help Scout Privacy Policy.

Disabling cookies

JASMIN websites will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.

However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit the About Cookies website, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may have an impact upon the functionality of JASMIN websites.

Visibility while using JASMIN

Due to the nature of JASMIN as a collaborative platform for scientific research, certain identifiable information relating to your JASMIN account may be visible to any and all users of the platform, while you are a user of the service (not limited to when you are active online). This includes, but is not limited to, your system account username, IP address and hostname of the machine from where you have connected to JASMIN.

Retention policy for account profile and home directory

In order to ensure that we do not keep your personal data longer than is necessary, and to preserve resources for active users of the JASMIN service, the following retention policy applies to your JASMIN account, information stored about you in the JASMIN accounts portal and the home directory of your JASMIN system account:

  1. While your JASMIN account has ACTIVE status, your JASMIN account on the JASMIN Accounts Portal, your corresponding system account and your home directory will remain available. Given that JASMIN resources are provided for scientific research and collaboration only, you should not store any personal or confidential data in your JASMIN home directory which you would not wish to be disclosed to your supervisor or group workspace manager or another member of that project team.
  2. In order for your JASMIN account to retain ACTIVE status, you must respond to annual requests from the JASMIN Accounts Portal to reconfirm the email address associated with your account. You will be sent reminders at 2 months, 2 weeks and 2 days prior to the deadline, and can reconfirm before the deadline date. There are also reminders in the shell environment as you log in, for the 2 months preceding the deadline. You must keep us informed of any change of email address by contacting the JASMIN Helpdesk: your email address is the only means we have to contact you.
  3. If you fail to re-confirm your account by the deadline, or if your account is suspended for any other reason, then the following schedule will apply:
    • Your account will have status INACTIVE and the suspension date will be recorded on your account profile. You will not be able to log in to your account on the JASMIN Accounts Portal, or to access JASMIN with your system account. To re-activate it, you will need to contact the JASMIN Helpdesk. You may be asked for details to confirm your identity before your account is reactivated. If the account is reactivated within a short period (e.g. a few days) after the suspension, it is normally possible for the JASMIN team to restore any access privileges which you held at the time of suspension. Otherwise, you will need to re-apply for all the access roles which previously held, once your access to the JASMIN Accounts Portal has been restored. Restoration of some of these roles may require third-party approval (e.g. for group workspace membership) dependent on their availability and timescales.
    • After 12 months has elapsed from the suspension date, the email address registered with the account will be contacted to state that the account will be removed in 3 months' time (15 months from the original suspension date).
    • After 15 months has elapsed, the home directory will be REMOVED to a temporary "frozen" area (you will not be able to use it in this state), but additionally:
      1. Data belonging to your system account residing in any scratch or transfer cache areas will already have been deleted by their respective automated processes by this stage.
      2. Any cron jobs will be deactivated when your home directory is moved to "frozen" storage.
      3. Any data in Group Workspace storage will become the responsibility of the relevant Group Workspace manager to remove, so may be assigned over to their ownership.
      4. The JASMIN Team may, on request from a relevant individual (e.g. your supervisor or group workspace manager) copy, move or reassign ownership of data within your home directory to their account, after taking reasonable steps to establish a valid and appropriate basis for this, however this decision will be at the discretion of the JASMIN Team.
    • After 18 months has elapsed, your system account and home directory will be physically DELETED. Your personal details will be deleted from your JASMIN account profile, but the username will be retained, and cannot be re-used for any future JASMIN account. If you wish to use JASMIN again in the future, you will need to apply for a new JASMIN account which cannot share the same details as the deleted account.

Questions

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us.