This Privacy Policy describes how Wilson College (“we,” “our,” or “us”) collects, uses, and shares personal information of our students, alumni, faculty, staff, donors, and users of this website, www.wilson.edu,  and other websites that we own or control and which link or refer to this Privacy Policy (the “Sites”), including, but not limited to sites within the wilson.edu domain (such as online.wilson.edu and mag.wilson.edu) and recruitment, student, alumni, and parent portals.

We periodically update this Privacy Policy and reserve the right to change the provisions of this Policy or our privacy practices at any time. We encourage you to review this site periodically, and we will alert you that changes have been made by updating the Effective Date of the Policy. Please note, by using this website, you are consenting to our collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
 

What is Personal Information?
Personal information is any information that personally identifies an individual or from which an individual could be identified. Personal information can include name, mailing address, email address, phone number, username, or account number. It may also include other information about you, such as gender, date of birth, or other demographic information.  Information gathered or generated by your use of the Sites, such as IP address or cookies, may also be personal information, if that other information is linked to other personal information about you.

What information do we gather about you?
We collect personal information that you provide to us.  For example:
•    If you apply to be a student at Wilson College, we will require you to provide your name, email address, phone number, and other information.
•    If you apply for or are considered for financial aid or other scholarships, we may require you to provide financial and/or tax information.
•    If you apply to work for Wilson College, we may ask you to provide more detailed and sensitive personal information required for compliance with our hiring and equal opportunity policies and practices.  
•    Our Sites include social media features, such as links to our Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and other pages. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of each social media platform.

We may obtain personal information from third parties, such as other schools, references, family members, and education partners (e.g., The Common Application, The College Board, etc.) as part of an application package.

We and our third-party vendors automatically collect certain information regarding your use of our Sites and any software applications made available by us for your use on or through computers and mobile devices.  This includes data such as your IP address and browser type. Your session and the pages you visit on our Sites will be tracked, but you will remain anonymous. We may use your IP address to identify the general geographic area from which you are accessing the Sites. We connect and correlate data from different systems but do not link IP addresses to any personal information.

If you request information or complete an online application, we will collect and retain the information you provided.   We may also collect other information as described in this policy.

What do we use your information for?
We use the information we gather from you to:
•    Evaluate students’ applications
•    Assess scholarship and financial aid opportunities
•    Support course registration
•    Enroll individuals in educational, research, wellness, and other programs
•    Perform administrative tasks
•    Evaluate applications for employment and maintain personnel files
•    Support our educational mission
•    Publicize students’ academic and career success
•    Send information about other Wilson College offerings which may be of interest
•    Solicit and process donations
•    Advertise and promote the College’s programs and student experience
•    Communicate important dates and events in the life of the College
•    Other similar uses

We will not share, sell, rent, swap, or authorize any third party to use any of your personal information including your email address for commercial purposes without your permission.

User information may be shared with third-party vendors to the extent necessary to provide and improve web services or other communications to users. For example, we use third parties such as Google Analytics to generate reports on site usage, web traffic, user behavior, and user interests to optimize our website for our visitors. We also use geographic, demographic, and interest-based reports of our website visitors to create custom audience lists. We prohibit any third parties who receive user information for this purpose from using or sharing user information for any purpose other than providing services for the benefit of our users.

We may also provide your information to third parties in circumstances where we believe that doing so is necessary or appropriate to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request; detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues; or protect our rights and safety and the rights and safety of our users or others.

How do we use Cookies?
Cookies are small files that are stored on your computer (unless you block them). We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. You may disable cookies through your individual browser options, or you can opt out of the collection and use of this information through tools like the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.  If you reject cookies, you may still use our Sites, but your ability to use some features or areas of our Sites may be limited.

Third parties may use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect or receive information from this website and elsewhere on the internet and use that information to provide measurement services and target ads.
For more information on Google Analytics, consult their terms of use, privacy practices, and ads settings. You can opt out of the collection and use of this information through tools like the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1#!/

Cookies may be set by parties other than us. These “third-party cookies” may, for example, originate from websites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud, or other social media services for which our Sites have implemented “plug-ins.” For information on the privacy practices of those third-party websites, you should visit their websites and review their privacy policies individually.

How can you access and correct your personal information?
You have the right to access personal information about you that we have collected through our Sites by sending a request for access to DPO@wilson.edu.  You can also request that we correct any such information by sending an email to the same address.  To verify that the request is authentic, we will validate it based on information the college has on file, including but not limited to email address. While we will comply reasonably and promptly with your request, we may need to retain some of your information for our own recordkeeping or to fulfill a legal obligation.

How do we protect your personal information?
This site has reasonable security measures in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, destruction, and alteration of the information under our control. We also use reasonable efforts to ensure that our Sites are available to access information concerning our privacy practices.  However, there will be occasions when access to the Sites will be interrupted or unavailable.  We will use reasonable efforts to minimize such disruption where it is within our reasonable control.  You agree that Wilson College shall not be liable to you for any modification, suspension, or discontinuance of the Sites.

The transmission of information over the Internet and electronic storage of information is not 100% secure.  Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Sites.  Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk.  We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Sites.

How long do we retain your data?
Wilson College may retain your personal information for as long as needed to fulfill the particular purpose for which it is collected, or until you request that we remove it. We may also retain your records if legally required or to fulfill a legitimate interest. To request to remove your information, contact the Office of Information Technology at the address below.

What rights to do individuals in the European Economic Area have?
If you reside in a member state of either the European Union or European Free Trade Association that is a party to the European Economic Area (“EEA”) Agreement, you have the right to access personal information that Wilson College has collected about you for the purpose of reviewing, modifying, correcting, or requesting erasure of your information.  You may also have the right to request a copy of your information.  Further, you may also request that Wilson College restrict or stop processing your information.
To the extent applicable, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) provides further information about your rights.  You also have the right to lodge complaints with your national or regional data protection authority.

If you wish to exercise these rights, please contact us at the address included under the Contacts section, below.  To protect the personal information that Wilson College holds, we may also request further information to verify your identity when exercising these rights.  Upon a request to erase information, we will maintain a core set of personal information to ensure we do not contact you inadvertently in the future, as well as any information necessary for archival or other legal purposes.  We may also retain financial information for legal purposes, including compliance with the United States Internal Revenue Service.  Additionally, in the event of an actual or threatened legal claim, we may retain your information for purposes of establishing, defending against, or exercising your or our rights with respect to such claim.

By providing information directly to us, you consent to the transfer of personal information to the United States, and potentially to other countries outside of the EEA.  You understand that the current laws of countries outside of the EEA may not provide the same level of protection as the data protection laws of the EEA.  Nonetheless, we will take all reasonable steps to protect your privacy in accordance with the applicable data protection laws.
You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide any personal information to us.

Changes to this Policy
This Privacy Policy may be amended from time to time. Any such changes will be posted on this page.

Contacts
Questions regarding this policy or requests for removal may be addressed to the Office of Information Technology at 717-262-2014, or by email at DPO@wilson.edu, or by writing to:
Attention: Office of Information Technology
Wilson College
1015 Philadelphia Ave.
Chambersburg, PA. 17201

Updated April 19, 2024