Privacy Policy

This revised policy is effective as of May 25, 2018

Your privacy is important to us, and so is being transparent about how we collect, use, and share information about you. This policy is intended to help you understand:

• What information we collect about you
• How we use information we collect
• How we share information we collect
• How we store and secure information we collect
• How long we keep information
• How to access and control your information
• Other important privacy information

This Privacy Policy covers the information we collect about you when you visit our websites, apply to an academic program, subscribe to our blogs or newsletters, or otherwise interact with Berkeley Haas (for example, by attending a Haas event), unless a different privacy policy is displayed. This policy also explains your choices about how we use information about you. Your choices include how you can object to certain uses of information about you and how you can access and update certain information about you. If you do not agree with this policy, do not access or use our services or interact with any other aspect of our business.

When we refer to “Berkeley Haas,” “Haas,” “we,” or “us” in this policy, we mean the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Haas owns and operates a number of websites and related services, like the ability to apply to a degree program. We refer to all of these as “Services” in this policy.

We collect information about you when you use our Services, including browsing our websites and taking certain actions within the Services.

Device and Connection Information: We collect information about your computer, phone, tablet, or other devices you use to access the Services. This device information includes your connection type and settings when you access, or use our Services. We also collect information through your device about your operating system, browser type, IP address, URLs of referring/exit pages, device identifiers, and crash data. We use your IP address and/or country preference in order to approximate your location to provide you with a better Service experience. How much of this information we collect depends on the type and settings of the device you use to access the Services.

Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies: Berkeley Haas and our third-party partners, such as our advertising and analytics partners, use cookies and other tracking technologies (e.g., web beacons, device identifiers and pixels) to provide functionality and to recognize you across different Services and devices.

What types of technologies do we use?

We use cookies, web beacons and other technologies to improve and customize our products and websites (“the Services”) and your experience; to allow you to access and use the Services without re-entering your username or password; to understand usage of our Services and the interests of our customers; to determine whether an email has been opened and acted upon; and to present you with advertising relevant to your interests.

How do we use them?

• Where strictly necessary.These cookies and other technologies are essential in order to enable the Services to provide the feature you have requested, such as remembering you have logged in.
• For functionality.These cookies and similar technologies remember choices you make such as language or search parameters. We use these cookies to provide you with an experience more appropriate with your selections and to make your use of the Services more tailored.
• For performance and analytics.These cookies and similar technologies collect information on how users interact with the Services and enable us to improve how the Services operate. For example, we use Google Analytics cookies to help us understand how visitors arrive at and browse our products and website to identify areas for improvement such as navigation, user experience, and marketing campaigns.
• Targeting Cookies or Advertising Cookies.These cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising relevant to you and your interests. They remember the websites you have visited and that information is shared with other parties such as advertising technology service providers and advertisers.
• Social media cookies.These cookies are used when you share information using a social media sharing button or “like” button on our websites. The social network will record that you have done this. This information may be linked to targeting/advertising activities.

How can you opt-out?

To opt-out of our use of cookies, you can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from websites you visit. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all aspects of our Services. Haas and our third party partners also collect information using web beacons (also known as “tracking pixels”).

You will not be able to opt-out of any cookies or other technologies that are “strictly necessary” for the Services.

Information we receive from other sources

We receive information about you from third party services and from our business and channel partners.

Haas Partners: We work with a global network of diversity and leadership programs who provide coaching and support through the application process. Some of these partners also help us to market and promote our products and generate leads for us. We receive information from these partners, such as contact information, company name, what degree programs you may be interested in, what events you have attended, and what country you are in.

Other partners: We receive information about you and your activities on and off the Services from third-party partners, such as advertising and market research partners who provide us with information about your interest in, and engagement with, our Services and online advertisements.

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How we use the information we collect depends in part on which Services you use, how you use them, and any preferences you have communicated to us. Below are the specific purposes for which we use the information we collect about you.

To provide the Services and personalize your experience: We use information about you to provide the Services to you, including to process transactions with you, authenticate you when you log in, provide customer support, and operate and maintain the Services. For example, we use the name and/or picture you provide in our community forum account to identify you to other Service users. We may use your email domain to infer your affiliation with a particular organization or industry to personalize the content and experience you receive on our websites. Where you use Haas owned or operated services, we may combine information about you and your activities to provide an integrated experience, such as to allow you to find information from one service while searching from another or to present relevant program information as you travel across our websites.

For research and development: We are always looking for ways to make our Services smarter, faster, secure, integrated and useful to you. We use collective learnings about how people use our Services and feedback provided directly to us to troubleshoot and to identify trends, usage, activity patterns and areas for integration and improvement of the Services. For example, we used information collected about how users navigate our websites and search for information to design a better, more user-friendly navigation system. In some cases, we apply these learnings across Haas owned or operated services to improve and develop similar features or to better integrate the services you use. We also test and analyze certain new features with some users before rolling the feature out to all users.

To communicate with you about the Services: We use your contact information to send transactional communications via email, including confirming your account creation, reminding you of events you’ve registered for, responding to your comments, questions and requests, providing customer support, and sending you technical notices, updates, security alerts, and administrative messages. Depending on your settings, we send you email notifications as you onboard to a particular Service to help you become more proficient in using that Service. These communications are part of the Services and in most cases you cannot opt out of them. If an opt out is available, you will find that option within the communication itself.

To market, promote, and drive engagement with the Services: We use your contact information and information about how you use the Services to send promotional communications that may be of specific interest to you, including by email and by displaying Berkeley Haas ads on other companies’ websites, as well as on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google. These communications are aimed at driving engagement and maximizing what you get out of the Services, including information about new features, survey requests, newsletters, and events we think may be of interest to you. You can control whether you receive these communications as described below under “Opt-out of communications.”

Customer support: We use your information to resolve technical issues you encounter, to respond to your requests for assistance, and to repair and improve the Services.

To protect our legitimate business interests and legal rights: Where required by law or where we believe it is necessary to protect our legal rights, interests and the interests of others, we use information about you in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory, and audit functions.

With your consent: We use information about you where you have given us consent to do so for a specific purpose not listed above. For example, we may publish testimonials or featured student stories to promote the Services, with your permission.

Legal bases for processing (for EEA users): If you are an individual in the European Economic Area (EEA), we collect and process information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable EU laws. The legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use your information only where:

• We need it to provide you the Services, including to operate the Services, provide customer support and personalized features and to protect the safety and security of the Services;
• It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as for research and development, to market and promote the Services and to protect our legal rights and interests;
• You give us consent to do so for a specific purpose; or
• We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.

If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place. Where we are using your information because we or a third party (e.g. your employer) have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer using the Services.

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We share information we collect about you in the ways discussed below, but we are not in the business of selling information about you to advertisers or other third parties.

Sharing with other Service users

When you use the Services, we share certain information about you with other Service users.

Community Forums: Our websites offer publicly accessible blogs and forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these websites – including profile information associated with the account you use to post the information – may be read, collected, and used by any member of the public who accesses websites. Your posts and certain profile information may remain even after you terminate your account. We urge you to consider the sensitivity of any information you input into these Services. To request removal of your information from publicly accessible websites operated by us, please contact us as provided below. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to and why.

Sharing with third parties

We share information with third parties that help us operate, provide, improve, integrate, customize, support and market our Services.

Service Providers: We work with third-party service providers to provide website and application development, hosting, maintenance, backup, storage, virtual infrastructure, payment processing, analysis and other services for us, which may require them to access or use information about you. If a service provider needs to access information about you to perform services on our behalf, they do so under instruction from us, including abiding by policies and procedures designed to protect your information.

Links to Third-Party Sites: The Services may include links that direct you to other websites or services whose privacy practices may differ from ours. Your use of and any information you submit to any of those third-party sites is governed by their privacy policies, not this one.

With your consent: We share information about you with third parties when you give us consent to do so. For example, we often display personal testimonials of students on our public websites. With your consent, we may post your name alongside the testimonial.

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Information storage and security

We use data hosting service providers in the United States and European Economic Area (EEA) to host the information we collect, and we use technical measures to secure your data. While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care, is absolutely safe from intrusion by others.

In order to fulfill the intended processing purposes described above, your Personal Data will be transferred outside of the European Economic Area (EEA), specifically to the United States, which does not protect Personal Data in the same way that it is protected in the EEA. University of California, Berkeley will undertake appropriate measures to ensure adequate protection of Personal Data, including utilizing appropriate physical and technical safeguards to protect Personal Data, as well as the execution of standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission or a supervisory authority under GDPR, or obtaining your consent, where appropriate.

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How long we keep information we collect about you depends on the type of information, as described in further detail below. After such time, we will either delete or anonymize your information or, if this is not possible (for example, because the information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your information and isolate it from any further use until deletion is possible.

Account information: We retain your account information until you delete your account. We also retain some of your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, to support business operations and to continue to develop and improve our Services. Where we retain information for Service improvement and development, we take steps to eliminate information that directly identifies you, and we only use the information to uncover collective insights about the use of our Services, not to specifically analyze personal characteristics about you.

Information you share on the Services: If your account is deactivated or disabled, some of your information and the content you have provided will remain in order to allow others to see questions and how we responded. For example, we continue to display responses to your questions and our responses in past admissions chats.

Marketing information: If you have elected to receive marketing emails from us, we retain information about your marketing preferences unless you specifically ask us to delete such information. We retain information derived from cookies and other tracking technologies for a reasonable period of time from the date such information was created.

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You have certain choices available to you when it comes to your information. Below is a summary of those choices, how to exercise them and any limitations. We will respond to requests about this within a reasonable timeframe.

Your Choices:

You have the right to request a copy of your information, to object to our use of your information (including for marketing purposes), to request the deletion or restriction of your information, or to request your information in a structured, electronic format. Below, we describe the tools and processes for making these requests. You can exercise some of the choices by logging into the Services and using settings available within the Services or your account. For all other requests, you may contact us as provided in the Contact Us section below to request assistance.

Your request and choices may be limited in certain cases: for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal information about another person, or if you ask to delete information which we or your administrator are permitted by law or have compelling legitimate interests to keep. If you have unresolved concerns, you may have the right to complain to a data protection authority in the country where you live, where you work or where you feel your rights were infringed.

Access, update and rectify errors in your information: Our Services give you the ability to access and update certain information about you from within our online application. For example, you can access your profile information from your account and you can update it from within your profile settings.

Delete your information: Our Services give you the ability to delete certain information about you from within the Service. For example, you can remove content that contains information about you using the editing tools associated with that content and you can remove certain profile information within your profile settings. Please note, however, that we may need to retain certain information for record keeping purposes, to complete transactions or to comply with our legal obligations.

Request that we stop using your information: In some cases, you may ask us to stop accessing, storing, using and otherwise processing your information. Where you gave us consent to use your information for a limited purpose, you can contact us to withdraw that consent, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place at the time. You can also opt-out of our use of your information for marketing purposes by contacting us, as provided below. When you make such requests, we may need time to investigate and facilitate your request. If there is a delay or dispute as to whether we have the right to continue using your information, we will restrict any further use of your information until the request is honored or the dispute is resolved, provided your administrator does not object (where applicable).

Opt out of communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by using the unsubscribe link within each email, updating your email preferences within your Service account settings menu, or by contacting us as provided below to have your contact information removed from our promotional email list or registration database. Even after you opt out from receiving promotional messages from us, you will continue to receive transactional messages from us regarding our Services. Please note, you will continue to receive generic ads.

You may be able to opt out of receiving personalized advertisements from other companies who are members of the Network Advertising Initiative or who subscribe to the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. For more information about this practice and to understand your options, please visit:  http://www.aboutads.info,  http://optout.networkadvertising.org/ and  http://www.youronlinechoices.eu.

Turn off Cookie Controls: Relevant browser-based cookie controls are described in our “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” section provided earlier in this policy.

Send “Do Not Track” Signals: Some browsers have incorporated “Do Not Track” (DNT) features that can send a signal to the websites you visit indicating you do not wish to be tracked. Because there is not yet a common understanding of how to interpret the DNT signal, our Services do not currently respond to browser DNT signals. You can use the range of other tools we provide to control data collection and use, including the ability to opt out of receiving marketing from us as described above.

Data portability: Data portability is the ability to obtain some of your information in a format you can move from one service provider to another (for instance, when you transfer your mobile phone number to another carrier). Depending on the context, this applies to some of your information, but not to all of your information. Should you request it, we will provide you with an electronic file of your basic account information.

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Our policy towards children

The Services are not directed to individuals under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If we become aware that a child under 16 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to delete such information. If you become aware that a child has provided us with personal information, please contact our support services.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice by sending you an email notification. We will also keep prior versions of this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review. We encourage you to review our privacy policy whenever you use the Services to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.

If you disagree with any changes to this privacy policy, you will need to stop using the Services and deactivate your account(s), as outlined above.

Contact Us

Your information is controlled by the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. If you have questions or concerns about how your information is handled, please direct your inquiry to Haas, as set forth below.