Privacy, Cookie & Corporate Policies
Privacy Policy
IERF takes your privacy very seriously and will take all reasonable steps to protect your privacy. This Statement of Privacy governs IERF's data collection and usage. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, by accessing and using the website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement. if you do not agree with our practices, your choice is not to use IERF's services.
Information Collected
Like many websites, IERF also gathers information about how visitors use its website. This information is used only in aggregate and contains no personal identification information. We do not disclose, sell, trade or rent any information obtained in this way to outside parties. We may disclose certain aggregate data, such as the number of visitors in a given time period or the most frequently accessed pages, to others. In general, you can visit many of our web pages without revealing who you are or any personal information about yourself.
IERF may collect information regarding your browser type and IP address when you visit our website.
However, if you reveal or provide any personal or confidential information, you will no longer be anonymous to IERF. Any confidential or personal information you provide to IERF is treated in accordance with applicable laws and according to that stated below.
IERF collects information which may include, but is not limited to, names, addresses, email addresses, phone and fax numbers, date of birth, student ID number and information about educational background and credentials. This information is required and is used in conjunction with the evaluation of an applicant's credentials for purposes of issuing reports or for other services that have been requested.
The information gathered is retained for as long as is necessary to comply with the purpose for which it was collected and for the duration that IERF has an ongoing relationship with you to provide services and/or has an ongoing relationship with an institution or governmental agency to which IERF is bound, or for any legal requirement, and/or to protect IERF’s legal interests. Information that is reasonable and or necessary is retained for research purposes taking into account IERF’s mission being that of ongoing research in the field of international education.
If you communicate with IERF via email, or request that IERF communicate with you via email, the contents of your emails to IERF, and IERF's responses, together with your email address, will be retained by IERF.
By using the IERF website and contracting for our services, you acknowledge that IERF is the Data Controller of your Personal Data as defined in the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). IERF's privacy policy is as follows:
- Any personal information provided by you or a third party (for example, name, schools attended, courses taken, grades received, etc.) may be used for the purpose of providing you with information and the services that you have requested from IERF. Our employees, agents and contractors will have access to this information as necessary in order to perform their duties.
- Personal information will not be released to a third party except in the following circumstances:
- To comply with a judicial order, subpoena, lawful requests from governmental authorities or other legal requirements, to exercise our legal rights or to defend against any legal claims or actions brought against IERF;
- To contact designated recipients of evaluation reports, educational institutions the applicant has attended and governmental institutions/agencies for additional information and/or verification of the authenticity of the applicant's credentials;
- To inform appropriate persons (academic institutions, government agencies, professional organizations and other evaluation services) in cases where documents submitted to IERF are reported to IERF by the appropriate persons not to be authentic or to be forged, altered or falsified;
- To prevent or protect against fraud or illegal activities;
- To institutions, agencies, or other recipients as designated by the applicant.
- IERF will confirm, without the necessity of any further consent from the applicant, whether or not an evaluation report was issued by IERF.
- Except as stated above, IERF will not sell or distribute any information provided to any third parties. However, IERF may summarize information about its applicants, including the services requested, and provide this to affiliated organizations, educational institutions and governmental institutions/agencies. Such summaries will not contain any personally identifying information regarding any applicants, except as otherwise provided herein.
IERF uses a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of its applicants' personal information that it receives online. These measures include sophisticated encryption and authentication tools. All applicants' personal information received online is maintained within secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights and who are required to keep the information confidential. When an applicant submits an application or wishes to access his/her personal information, IERF offers the use of a secure server. All credit card information that is supplied is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and is only accessed as stated above.
You have the right to request that we delete all of your personal data provided we do not have a legal basis for refusing such a request. Any request to remove any personal data must be in writing and emailed to info@ierf.org. The request must identify in detail the personal data that is to be deleted. Once IERF has received and considered your request and confirmed that it has no legal basis for refusing such request, you will be notified within one month confirming that your personal data as you requested has been removed.
Cookie Policy
A cookie is a small removable data file that is stored by your web browser on your computer. Cookies do not retrieve personal information stored on your hard drive and do not corrupt or damage your computer or computer files. In order to provide "state of the art" customer service, IERF uses cookies on its website so that it can track how users navigate through the IERF website. Cookies allow you to submit an application on our website and allow us to enhance and personalize your online surfing and client experience.
The information collected via cookies is used to compile statistical data on the use of the IERF website. All Information gathered is anonymous and an applicant cannot be identified from this information.
Applicants may set their browsers to reject cookies, but such may affect the ability to use all of the functions and features of the IERF website.
External Links
This website contains links to other sites. IERF is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites. IERF encourages you to review the privacy policies of these websites. Applicants should take such steps as they deem necessary to protect their privacy before linking to these other websites.
Watch out for Phishing
"Phishing" refers to emails sent to individuals containing authentic-looking messages that instruct them to provide sensitive personal information. Individuals who "bite" are exposed to identity theft. Phishing occurs when an individual receives a deceptively-legitimate looking email from what appears to be a reputable company. The email asks recipients to update their credit card or account information. IERF does not send emails with links to update your information. IERF is not responsible for phishing attempts by identity thieves made which use the IERF name or identification.
Social Sharing Feature
We embed a Facebook widget to allow you to see number of likes/shares/recommends and “like/share/recommend” our webpages. This widget may collect your IP address, your web browser User Agent, store and retrieve cookies on your browser, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the widget, including correlating your Facebook account with whatever action you take within the widget (such as “liking/sharing/recommending” our webpage), if you are logged in to Facebook. For more information about how this data may be used, please see Facebook’s data privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update
We use a Twitter Tweet widget at our website. As a result, our website makes requests to Twitter’s servers for you to be able to tweet our webpages using your Twitter account. These requests make your IP address visible to Twitter, who may use it in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://twitter.com/en/privacy#update
We use a GooglePlus widget at our website. As a result, our website makes requests to Google’s servers for you to be able to share our webpages using your GooglePlus account. These requests make your IP address visible to Google, who may use it in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
We use a Linkedin Share widget at our website to allow you to share our webpages on Linkedin. These requests may track your IP address in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
We use Google Analytics to track social shares made at our website. Google automatically collect and store certain information in their server logs which includes device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL, cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your Google Account, in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Protection of Children's Privacy Online
IERF's website is not designed to be used by children. IERF does not knowingly collect or use personal information from children under the age of 13 without obtaining verifiable parental consent.
Changes to Privacy Policy
IERF reserves the right to change, modify or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time. Any such changes will be posted on IERF's website, which can be reviewed by anyone at any time.
Contact Information and Questions About Privacy Policy
Should you wish to contact IERF or have any questions about IERF's privacy policy, please contact us at:
International Education Research Foundation
P.O. Box 3665
Culver City, CA 90231-3665
Email: info@ierf.org
Last updated: August 2018
Conflict of Interest Policy
Available upon request
Whistleblower Policy
Available upon request