This Privacy Policy sets out the approach taken by Khireej for the Development of Websites Limited (“Khireej  Systems”, “we”, or “us”) to the personal information of subscribers and visitors to its website www.gradsgate.com and any other website ‘Powered by Gradsgate’ (“the Sites”). Gradsgate (“Gradsgate”) is a business of Khireej Systems. By browsing UOP Alumni and the services within them (collectively the "Services”), you (“you”) agree that your personal information and data (collectively, "Personal Information") will be dealt with in accordance with this privacy policy.

Khireej  Systems acts a data controller in its use of your Personal Information, as described in this privacy notice.

Privacy and confidentiality are at the heart of the Services. We treat Personal Information acquired from you seriously and make every effort to comply with our obligations under applicable privacy statutes, including the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and / or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679. Additionally, we understand the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of any information stored about you while using the Services. We respect your privacy – Gradsgate’s entire service depends on treating Personal Information properly, in the strictest confidence and with sensitivity.

The Personal Information you provide by using the Services is owned by you, and you may ask us to correct or delete any such information at any time, by sending us an e-mail stating in the subject heading, “Remove Details”. Further information about how you can manage and delete information about you is set out in paragraph 5 below.

Except as otherwise in this Privacy Policy, the definitions and interpretations contained in our General Terms and Conditions shall apply to these Terms also.

Information Collection

1. We collect Personal Information when you register for an account, when you use certain Services (including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others) and when you visit certain Site pages. This can include information in or about the content you provide or about how you use our Services, such as the types of content you view or engage with, the people and groups you are connected to and how you interact with them or the frequency and duration of your activities.
2. When you register with us, as further described under clause 3 to our General Terms and Conditions, we will ask you for and/or collect Personal Information, directly (for example, to enter your name, email address, birth date, gender, post code, occupation, industry, personal interests etc.) or indirectly (through the "Connect with" LinkedIn or Facebook option, located at our Website's homepage).
3. By registering with us, you acknowledge and agree that we may access and store your Personal Information anywhere in the world. If you registered with us through the "Connect with" LinkedIn or Facebook option, you also acknowledge and agree that we may access and store information from your LinkedIn or Facebook profile, respectively. Further information related to this section is available under Clause 3 of our General Terms of Use.
4. Once you register with us and sign in to our Services, you are not anonymous to us.
5. If you contact us in relation to any of the Services (via email, telephone, post or otherwise), we may collect and retain your contact details and your communication for the purpose of handling your query and keeping records of communications.
6. We also collect information about you from UOP Alumni and from other people when they use our Services, such as when they send a message to you, or upload, sync or import your contact information. We also work closely with other third parties (including, for example, business partners, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers), and we may sometimes receive information about you from them. All such information may be combined with the data you provide to us when you register with us and / or when you use the Services, and the combined data may be used by us for the same purposes outlined in this notice.

How we use your Personal Information

1. Personal Information and other details about you that you supply as part of the registration process or that are collected by us when you use the Services are used to provide you with the Services and information as set out in our Terms of Use. We will not use that information for any purpose other than as set out as part of the Services.
2. We will use information provided by you to help you advance your career through inside connections, leverage your professional network, get introduced to people, socially interact with other users and share photos with them, create and/or share and/or find business opportunities and stay in touch with the UOP Alumni. You consent to the use of your profile and Personal Information being used for this purpose.
3. We use information for the following general purposes to fulfil your requests for services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide reporting for internal and external clients. You agree that we may transfer your Personal Information for the general purposes set out above within Gradsgate to any group company and to the UOP Alumni.
4. We reserve the right to send you certain communications, such as service announcements and administrative messages and other communications relating to our Service, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them. Your rights to opt-out of other types of communications will be unaffected.
5. Where you have provided your explicit consent, your name, email address and contact number may be used to provide you, or permit selected third parties to provide you, with information about services we feel may interest you (you may unsubscribe from this at any time by emailing us at technical@gradsgate.com).

Sharing your Personal Information

1. The Personal Information you provide us will be displayed to other users of the platform, including your email address, unless you choose to hide your Personal Information from other users.
2. We do not rent, sell, or share Personal Information about you with other people or non-affiliated companies except to provide products or services you've requested, when we have your permission, or under the following circumstances:
   • Responding to court orders, legal process, or to any legitimate request by authorities with which we must comply; and
   • To investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.
3. In reference to general Site activity, you retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in all information and contents which you submit, post or display on or through the UOP Alumni Alumni Site. By using the Services you grant us a nonexclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use such information and contents that you post on the Site for the purposes set out in Paragraph 2 above, and for the purpose of enabling us to provide the Services through the Site. Such a licence does not include permission for us to commercialise (for our own purposes) the information and contents you have posted. This licence will end in relation to certain information and contents that you delete from the MEU  Alumni Site when such certain information and contents are deleted, and will end in relation to all such information and contents on the Site when you delete your account from the Site, unless the relevant information or contents have been shared with others and they have not deleted such information or content.
4. You authorise for us to display and make available for download to authorised third parties all media recordings of you which you submit to us or post on UOP Alumni Site or through the Services.
5. You also agree that we may transfer your information to the Membership Organization to use for its development and advancement purposes (including in connection with the Membership Organization’s work with alumni, friends, and donors to support students, faculty, research, and outreach initiatives at the Membership Organization).

Cookies

1. We reserve the right to collect technical data about the type of browser software or operating system you are using for the purposes of tracking website use, or improving the services offered through the Sites. This information will be not used to identify you personally.
2. We may also place a 'cookie' on your browser to provide us with information about your use of a Site, and to help us identify you when you return to that Site so that your preferences can be stored. Using cookies helps us to improve our Sites and to deliver a better and more personalised service. We may also use cookies to identify repeat visitors.
3. You can remove cookies from your computer at any time, and choose to disable cookies in your internet browser settings. Without cookies enabled, we cannot guarantee that the Sites and your experience of it are as we intended it to be.
4. The length of time a cookie stays on your device depends on its type. We use two types of cookies on the Website, as follows:
   • Session cookies are temporary cookies which only exist during the time you use a Site (or more strictly, until you close the browser after using the Site). Session cookies help the Site remember what you chose on the previous page, avoiding the need to re-enter information.
   • Persistent cookies stay on your device after you have visited the Site. For example, when you log onto a Site, a persistent cookie will be used to remember your preferences, so that the system remembers your choice the next time you log in. Persistent cookies help us to identify you as a unique visitor but do not contain any information that could be used to identify you to another person.
   • We also use web analytics services from other companies to track how visitors reach our site and the path they take through it. These companies use cookies to help us improve our service to you.

Edit and Delete your Information and Preferences

1. You can edit your Personal Information on your account at any time.
2. You can re-sync your account with your Linkedin Account at any time.
3. We may restrict any change being made to any report produced about you, if we are of the opinion that such report is not a fair and true representation of you.
4. We will endeavor to correct any material error in your Personal Information that you make us aware of.
5. You may delete your account by emailing us at technical@gradsgate.com, verifying your password once more and confirming your choice to terminate the account. We may, however, retain certain aspects of your account and other Personal Information for the purposes of maintaining records of our dealings with you, analysis and/or statistics.
6. Please note that:
   • Information that you have shared with others and that others have shared about you is not part of your account and will not be deleted when you delete your account or request that information about you be deleted; and
   • It may take some time to delete data stored in backup systems

Confidentiality and Security

1. Your Personal Information is stored in electronic and physical records maintained by us and / or our service providers.
2. The security of all personally identifiable information associated with you is taken very seriously and all Personal Information supplied is treated confidentially. We therefore have several security measures in place to try to protect against the loss, unauthorised use and corruption of any Personal Information that is under our control. We review our security and privacy policies regularly and improve them where it is reasonably possible to do so. We do not guarantee that loss, unauthorized use, corruption and/or alteration of information will never occur, but we use all reasonable efforts to prevent it.
3. Please note that the input of data over the internet is never fully secure. We cannot, therefore, guarantee the security of data you submit via the Sites in transit over the internet and any such submission is at entirely your own risk. Please ensure that you never leave your device logged on or use the Services in a public place where others can potentially see your details.

Posting on Publicly Accessible Areas

1. A publicly accessible area is any area of UOP Alumni and/or Services that is accessible by the general public and may be indexed by search engines.
2. We may offer you the opportunity to post, submit and exchange content and information on publicly accessible areas and you should exercise caution if you choose to disclose Personal Information in a publicly accessible area. Remember that this information may remain indefinitely in the publicly accessible area of UOP Alumni and Services.
3. You are solely responsible for any Personal Information that you disclose and disseminate on UOP Alumni Site and through the Services.
4. We shall not be held liable for any loss of information. Any information you submit to us is at your own risk of loss.

User-to-User Communication and Sharing

1. You are solely responsible for your interactions with other users.
2. We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to monitor disputes between you and other users and to restrict, suspend, or close your account if we determine, to our sole discretion, that doing so is necessary to enforce these Terms.
3. We cannot guarantee that other users will not use the ideas and information that you share to and/or through our Services. Therefore, if you have an idea or information that you would like to keep confidential or don’t want others to use, or that is subject to third party rights that may be infringed by your sharing it, do not post it to and/or through our Services. We are not responsible for another’s misuse or misappropriation of any content or information you post.

Transfer of personal data outside the EEA

1. Whilst we are based in the UK, we and/or our service providers may have servers located outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"), where the laws may not give the same level of protection to personal data as within the UK. Notwithstanding, we confirm that any transfer of personal data of EEA data subjects to outside of the EEA, will be undertaken only using a method specifically permitted under UK and European Union law. By submitting your personal data, you agree to allowing your personal data to be transferred, processed and stored overseas as set out in this paragraph.
2. Data that we collect from you may also be processed by persons operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such persons may be engaged in, among other things, the provision of certain services which allow us to provide the Services to you. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy notice.

External Links

1. Although we only look to include quality, safe and relevant external links to our Sites, users should always adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout a Site.
2. If you follow a link to any external web links mentioned throughout a Site, please note that these external websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal information to these websites.

Social Media Platforms

1. Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that we participate on are subject to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies of those social media platforms.
2. The Sites may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from our web pages to the social media platform in question. Where you use such social sharing buttons you do so at your own discretion – you should note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account. Please note these social media platforms have their own privacy policies, and we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal information to these social media platforms.

Shortened Links in Social Media

1. We may through our social media platform accounts share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy URLs.
2. Users are advised to take caution and exercise good judgment before clicking on any shortened URLs published on social media platforms by us. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URLs are published, many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

Access to your personal data

1. If you would like to access a copy of any Personal Information which we hold about you, please send a request by emailing us at technical@gradsgate.com.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

1. We may amend this policy from time to time. If we make any substantial changes in the way we use your Personal Information we will notify you by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account or by posting a prominent notice on our pages. However you should review this policy on a regular basis to check for any changes made to it.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcome and should be addressed to: technical@gradsgate.com