Privacy and data protection

Who we are

White Rose eTheses Online is the jointly-managed repository for theses produced by the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. The system is hosted by the University of Leeds IT Service, and is maintained and supported by colleagues from across the three institutions.

Data Protection

The Universities recognise the importance of personal privacy and ensure that all personal data is held in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. Compliance is managed by Data Protection colleagues across the sites, and the Data Controller for White Rose Libraries operations is the University of York, on behalf of the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York.

Potential data breaches should be reported immediately by telephone on 01904 323 869. If you are unable to get through via telephone please email dataprotection@york.ac.uk using the subject heading Urgent: data breach.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have a right of access to your data, a right to rectification, erasure (in certain circumstances), restriction, objection or portability (in certain circumstances). You also have a right to withdraw consent. If you would like to exercise these rights, or if you have any concerns or questions relating to Data Protection, please contact:
libraries@whiterose.ac.uk
Kate Petherbridge – Executive Manager: Tel: +44 (0)1904 323803 in the first instance.

You can also contact the University of York’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@york.ac.uk

If you are unhappy with the way in which the University of York has handled your personal information you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. For information on reporting a concern to the Information Commissioner’s Office, see www.ico.org.uk/concerns.

Data is hosted by the University of Leeds IT Service. Policies can be found on the their Data Protection site.

User account

When you created your user account you gave consent to your data being used and stored. View the current policy.

In terms of retention policy:

  • Should you use your account to deposit your research we will retain your personal data for the duration of our curation of this content.
  • Should you not use your account to deposit content, the account will remain live for 12 months from last recorded activity. After this period, the account, along with any personal data it contains, will be deleted.

Emails

If you email the etheses@whiterose.ac.uk email address, this will be seen by a member of White Rose Libraries staff who will reply or forward the email on as appropriate. White Rose Libraries will retain the email for 1 month in case further correspondence follows. After this, it will be deleted.

If the email is forwarded on to one of the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, this will then fall under their GDPR policies and retention schedules. Please contact staff at the individual institutions if you have any concerns or questions relating to their use of your personal data.

If the email is a request for access to restricted content, this email - including your email address - may be forwarded on to the author directly so they can respond. Please note that if your request for access is approved, a record of this access will be kept until the embargo period ends.

Logs

White Rose eTheses Online, through the University of Leeds IT Service, maintains logs of its servers’ activities. The server log files include the IP address of each computer which accesses the website. The logs are used to support essential maintenance of the site including analysing how the site is used so improvements can be made. This use comes under the following lawful basis:
6 (1) (e) - Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

The University of Leeds IT Service retains server logs for one year.

White Rose eTheses Online sends logs of downloads and summary page views to the Jisc IRUS (Institutional Repository Usage Statistics) service. The data sent is governed by the IRUS Privacy policy. White Rose eTheses Online also retains logs of downloads and summary page views for local reporting via the 'IRStats2' package. This information can be viewed on our Statistics page.

Cookies

Please see the Cookies page for details about cookies and their use on White Rose eTheses Online.