Privacy Policy

Taking care of the information you provide to us is important for UNHCR in its capacity as the Secretariat of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness, (the “Hosting Agency”).  This Privacy Policy applies to the Global Alliance to End Statelessness website (https://statelessnessalliance.org), for agencies of the United Nations System, governments, for civil society and stateless-led organizations, regional inter-governmental organizations and other stakeholders  to engage (collectively, the “Portal”). It sets out how we collect, use, and store your personal information and what steps we take to protect your information. UNHCR will process your personal data in accordance with its General Policy on Data Protection and Privacy.

Please read our Privacy Policy carefully before using the Portal and refer back to it regularly to check for updates. Remember, by accessing and using the Portal, you agree to all provisions of this Privacy Policy.

  1. What personal information do we collect through the Portal?

We obtain personal information relating to you from various sources described below:

Registration/Account Information

To access content as a Global Alliance Member on the Portal, you must first register and apply for membership. When registering and with subsequent use of the Portal, you are required to provide certain personally or organizationally identifiable information such as name and surname, e-mail address, physical address/location and other contact information.

Communications

We collect any information that you provide to us when you contact us through the online Contact form.

Through this Contact form we may receive additional information about you. For example, when you contact us, we may receive your name, email address, phone number, the contents of a message or attachments that you may send to us, and other information you choose to provide.

Personal Information We Collect Automatically From Your Use of the Portal

When you use the Portal, we and our third-party service providers may collect information about you and your device through automated means, such as cookies and web server logs. Cookies are small text files which identify your computer, phone, and other devices to our server. By using the Portal, you consent to the placement of cookies and similar technologies in your browser in accordance with this Privacy Policy. The information collected in this manner includes your IP address, network location, what browser you are using, device IDs and characteristics, operating system version, language preferences, referring URLs, and information about the usage of the Portal.

We use this information, for example, to ensure that the Portal functions properly, to determine how many users have visited certain pages, or to prevent fraud. We use IP address information to derive your approximate location. We also work with analytics providers, which use cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyze information about use of the Portal and report on activities and trends. These services may also collect information about the use of other websites, apps, and online resources.

If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, most browsers allow you to automatically decline cookies or be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer to your computer of a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular site. You may also wish to refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html for more general information about cookies.  If, however, you do not accept our cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of the Portal.  

  1. How do we use the information collected on the Portal?

Communications

We will use your information to contact you in relation to the activities of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness, such as information on the upcoming webinars, meetings or other events, as well as to share information about news, resources and updates on the website (including opening of new content) and user-service or technical-support purposes.

Internal and Service-Related Usage

We may use your personal information for internal and site-related purposes, including to operate, provide, and maintain the Portal.

Analytics and Improving the Portal

We and our service providers may use the information that we collect on the Portal, such as your location and your activities on the Portal, to monitor and analyze usage of the Portal and to improve and enhance the Portal.

Aggregate Data

We may de-identify and aggregate information collected through the Portal for statistical analysis and other lawful purpose, including in research activities intended to improve our programmes and partnerships with civil society organizations. The results of this research may be shared with third parties, such as our partners, supporters, educators and researchers through conferences, journals, and other publications.

Legal

We may use your personal information to enforce our Terms and Conditions of Use of the Portal, to defend our legal rights, and to comply with our legal obligations and internal policies. 

  1. With which third parties do we share your personal information?

We disclose information that we collect through the Portal to third parties in the following circumstances:

  • To third-party service providers who render services to us, such as website hosting, data analysis, information technology and related infrastructure provisions, analytics providers to deliver content targeted to your interests and to help us to better understand how you use the Portal, email delivery, and other services. We will never, however, sell your information to a third party.
  • We will, at our own discretion, sometimes disclose your personal information in order to fulfill a legal requirement, enforce our Terms and Conditions of Use of the website, or protect anyone’s rights, privacy, safety, or property and for other lawful purposes.

We will only transfer your personal information to trusted third parties who provide sufficient guarantees in respect of the technical and organizational security measures governing the processing to be carried out and who can demonstrate a commitment to compliance with those measures. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Some of the third parties mentioned in this Privacy Policy may be located in countries outside your country of residence. Where we transfer your personal information outside of your country, we take steps to ensure that your information is treated securely and that the means of transfer provides adequate safeguards.

  1. How long do we keep your information?

We will retain information about you for as long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for and as specified in the Hosting Agency data protection and retention policies. In practice, we delete or anonymize your information upon deletion of your account, unless:

  • we must keep it to evidence our compliance with legal obligations and to enforce our agreements and rights;
  • there is an outstanding issue, claim or dispute requiring us to keep the relevant information until it is resolved; or
  • the information must be kept for our legitimate interests, such as fraud prevention and enhancing users’ safety and security. For example, information may need to be kept preventing a user who was banned for security incidents from opening a new account.

Although the Portal is designed to carry out data deletion processes according to the above guidelines, due to technical constraints we cannot guarantee that all data will be deleted within a specific timeframe. Otherwise, we will seek to delete your personal information within a reasonable timeframe upon your request.

  1. Is the Portal website secured?

We are committed to protect your personal information through the implementation of encryption methods, secured login, firewalls, regular security patches and antivirus. However, it is always a possibility that third parties may unlawfully intercept or access your personal information or private communications. So, although we work extremely hard to safeguard your personal information, we cannot guarantee that your information or communications will always remain private.

We also ask that you do your part to safeguard your personal information. Select and protect your username and password appropriately. Limit access to your account and sign out of your account once you have finished using it.

  1. Controlling Your Information

If you want to have all of your information removed from our servers (i.e. when there is a change of the Member’s focal point or for other reasons), please contact the Hosting Agency at [email protected] for assistance.

You are able to delete cookies by adjusting your web browser settings.

  1. Third Parties Websites

The Portal may contain links to other websites that are not covered by this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy applies only to the processing of your personal information by the Hosting Agency. It does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information, or other practices of any third parties, including any third party operating any site or service to which the site links. The inclusion of a link on this Portal does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by the Hosting Agencies. Please be aware that the terms of this Privacy Policy do not apply to these outside websites or content, or to any collection of data after you click on links to such outside websites.

  1. Notifications of Changes to the Privacy Policy

We review our security measures and our Privacy Policy and we may modify our policies as we deem appropriate. If we make changes to our privacy practices, we will post a notification to our site alerting that the Privacy Policy has been amended. Such changes will be effective immediately upon posting them to the Portal. For this reason, we encourage you to check our Privacy Policy frequently.  The “Last Updated” date at the bottom of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Your continued use of the Portal following these changes means that you accept the revised Privacy Policy.

  1. Contact Us

Should you have questions or concerns related to privacy and use of personal data on Portal, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Last Updated: 1 December 2023