Privacy

BBC Academy - a division of the BBC

The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

1. Statement of intent
2. Information on visitors
3. What is a cookie?
4. Submitting personal information
5. Access to your personal information
6. How to find and control your cookies
7. How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?
8. How to see your cookie code

1. Statement of intent

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services may include newsletters and competitions.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable BBC Academy and its service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. BBC Academy will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Information on visitors

During the course of any visit to BBC Academy, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you entered your contact details, then we might find this out from your cookie and fill in the same information on a second visit for you or where you maybe requested for this information again, saving you time repeating to enter the same data.

Funnel Web, is a software package that runs on our hosting server that gathers non-personal data regarding the visitors to the site on our behalf. It does so by reading the server log files that are collated after visitors use the site. The log files provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, IP addresses and referring sites and other general information. BBC Academy uses this type of information, as with that obtained from the forms used on the site, to help it improve the services to its users.

Information on Funnel Web can be viewed at http://www.quest.com/funnel_web/analyzer/

Please note that there is no way for the user to disable it.

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3. What is a cookie?

When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.

NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for BBC Academy services.

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4. Submitting personal information

When you supply any personal information to BBC Academy (e.g. for competitions) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notices on particular webpages that let you know why we are requesting the information) and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else.

In general, any information you provide to BBC Academy will only be used within the BBC. It will never be supplied to anyone outside the BBC without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged by law to disclose it. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, you no longer wish to continue your registration as a personalised user. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

If you are notified on the BBC Academy site that your information may be used to allow BBC Academy to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that BBC Academy may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for.

For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance. We will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services on BBC Academy unless you specifically agree to be contacted for such purposes at the time you submit your information on the site, or at a later time if you sign up specifically to receive such promotional information.

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5. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information BBC Academy holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (The BBC charges £10 for information requests.) Please address requests to the Data Protection Officer (email: dpa.officer@bbc.co.uk).

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6. How to find and control your cookies

If you're using Netscape 6.0:

On your Task Bar, click:
1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Security tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Scroll down to the sixth option to see how cookies are handled by IE5 and change to Accept, Disable, or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:

1. Choose View, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Advanced tab
4. Scroll down to the yellow exclamation icon under Security and choose one of the three options to regulate your use of cookies.

In Internet Explorer 3.0:

You can View, Options, Advanced, then click on the button that says Warn before Accepting Cookies.

If you're using Netscape Communicator 4.0:

On your Task Bar, click:
1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Set your options in the box that says Cookies.

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7. How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?

If you're using Netscape 6.0:

On your Task Bar, click:
1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies
5. Click the View Cookies button

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the General tab
4. Click Settings
5. View Files


If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:

On your Task Bar, click:
1. View, then
2. Internet Options
3. Under the tab General (the default tab) click
4. Settings
5. View Files.

Internet Explorer 3.0:

On your Task Bar, click:
1. View
2. Options
3. Advanced
4. View Files.

Netscape Communicator 4.0:

Netscape bundles all cookies into one file on your hard drive. You'll need to find the file, which it calls Cookie.txt on Windows machines.

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8. How to see your cookie code

Just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.

British Broadcasting Corporation © 2001-2003
Broadcasting House,
Portland Place,
London,
W1A 1AA

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