The University of Mississippi Center for Biodiversity & Conservation Research operates the “GulfSeeLife” system (web portal and mobile applications). Listed below are the policies observed regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personally identifiable information when you use the “GulfSeeLife” system. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to, your name, phone number, and postal address
Information Collected
To use “GulfSeeLife” you must register within the system. When registering, you are required to provide information such as your name, e-mail address, and a password for the account. This information is used to validate access upon login and provide a personalized user experience.
Access to your location data is not required to use the “GulfSeeLife” mobile application. We may use general location data to provide you with Weather services that are relevant to your general location.
When you retrieve weather forecasts and conditions using the system’s weather function, you may optionally request the information to be retrieved for your current location. We also collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit “GulfSeeLife”. This log data may include information such as your computer’s IP address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, and other statistics.
Use of Information
When you post an observation on “GulfSeeLife”, we may collect your Username, latitude and longitude of the site of the observation, the place name of the site of the observation, the date and time of the observation, the metadata associated with image or sound files, and the time zone of the site of the observation. The amount and type of information that “GulfSeeLife” gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. In each case, “GulfSeeLife” only collects such information as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of your interaction with “GulfSeeLife”.
We continually strive to improve the “GulfSeeLife” program based on information and feedback we receive from you. The email address you provide may be used to send information to you, respond to inquiries, remind you to complete an observation, contact you requesting input, and respond to other requests or questions. If we have questions about the information you provided in an observation, we may contact you via email or by phone for this purpose. Questions involving specific observation data will be recorded in the system and used for scientific purposes only.
Push Notifications and SMS Messages
We may send push notifications and/or SMS messages related to “GulfSeeLife” to your device. You can deactivate these messages at any time by changing the notification settings in the “My Account” tab and in settings on your device
Information Protection
We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, and access your personal information, but remember that no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. All supplied information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into the “GulfSeeLife” database to only be accessed by those authorized with special access rights to “GulfSeeLife”.
Cookie Use
Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits and to track the completion status of trip information.
Outside Party Disclosure
We will not sell your information and we do not share your information unless we need to share it with a third-party vendor to improve the service provided, or we are required to by law.
Third Party Service Providers
We may employ third party companies and individuals to maintain or improve “GulfSeeLife” or to assist us in analyzing how “GulfSeeLife” is used. These third parties have access to your information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
Catch Data Sharing
Observation data collected from the “GulfSeeLife” mandatory reporting program will be made available to the University of Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, and other appropriate end-users in a timely manner and in readily usable formats. However, this data will not include personally identifiable information.
Legally Required Sharing and Public Records
Information may be shared if required by law. For example, if we are served with a subpoena or a request from law enforcement, we will share the information with them.
All information that we collect is subject to the Public Records Act (Miss. Code Ann. 25-61-1). This means that any member of the public can request the information and we must release it, unless it falls within one of the law’s narrow exceptions.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance (COPPA)
The GulfSeeLife mobile application is in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act); we do not knowingly solicit data from or market to children under the age of 18. The GulfSeeLife mobile application, products, and services are designed and directed to participants who are at least 18 years old or older. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us.
When a user creates a GulfSeeLife account we ask if the user is under the age of 13. Users under the age of 13 will be classified as “Child Users”. Child users are permitted to create a user account, but we ask them to provide their parent’s email address instead of their own.
After registration we will send an email notifying the parent about GulfSeeLIfe’s privacy and information practices regarding child users, including what personal data we collect and how we use, share, and protect that personal data. The email also explains how parents can request that GulfSeeLife access, change or delete the personal data about their child.
If we discover that we have unknowingly collected additional personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it.
Child users receive the following special treatment:
- The Profile page is hidden, preventing the child from stating their name, location or bio.
- Promotional emails are disabled.
- The child’s profile is made private and hidden from other users’ searches.
- Other users are unable to follow the child.
- The ability to follow other users or search for other users is disabled.
- Social logins with Facebook, Google or Apple are disabled.
- Social follow buttons for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are disabled.
Information Retention and Deletion
We treat information collected through the “GulfSeeLife” program as we do any other internal documents. This means that it may be deleted at some point in the future, but this is unlikely to occur. Please note, deleting the mobile application from your mobile device does not delete any personal information previously collected during the use of the application. If you feel that information is incorrect or would like to have your personal information removed from the system, you may request removal by contacting us using the "Account Deletion Request" option on the App (After login, click the Menu on Top right and you should see the menu option)
Online Privacy Policy Scope
This online Privacy Policy applies only to information collected through the “GulfSeeLife” mobile applications and web portal and not to information collected offline.
Changes to “GulfSeeLife” Privacy Policy
Changes to “GulfSeeLife” privacy policy may be updated from time to time for any reason and will be posted on the “GulfSeeLife” website on the “Privacy Policy” page.
Your Consent
By registering to use “GulfSeeLife”, you certify that you have read and agree to this privacy policy and the terms of use.