At the Centre of Excellence (CoE) on Technology for Low-Carbon and Lean Construction (TLC2), Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), we are committed to safeguarding the privacy and security of our users' personal information. This privacy policy outlines how we collect, use, and protect the data gathered through the announcement section of our journal publication. Our publication is a repository of research data and reports, journals, and pre-prints. All our publications are committed to delivering knowledge and information with the highest level of ethics, integrity, and transparency.
Information we collect
We collect information about you in three ways: directly from your input, from third-party sources, and through automated technologies.
Information you provide to us:
The types of personal information that we collect directly from you depends on the content and features of the Service you use and how you otherwise interact with us and may include:
- Contact details, such as your name, email address, postal address, phone number, and social media handle.
- Account login credentials, such as usernames and passwords, password hints, s, and similar security information.
- Other account registration and profile information, including educational, professional, and other background information, such as your field of study, current position, areas of interests, gender, ORCID ID, and photo.
- Content that you upload and share or store in your account, such as annotations, comments, contributions, and replies.
- Payment information, such as a credit or debit card number, and government-issued ID numbers.
- Information that you communicate to us, such as questions or information you send to customer support.
- Data that you provide to us as part of interacting with the Service, such as your favorites and search queries.
- Communications preferences, such as your preferred language and the frequency, type, and format of the alerts you sign up to receive.
Data from your institution
We may obtain information about you from the institution with which you are employed or affiliated in order to activate and manage your access to and use of the institution’s subscription to the Service, including:
- Contact details, such as your name and institutional email address, postal address, and phone number.
- Other account registration information, such as job title. and/or
- Institutional user ID.
Data from other sources
We may also obtain contact details and other information about you from third parties, including:
- Social networks that you grant permission to the Service to access your data on one or more networks.
- Service providers help us determine a location in order to customize certain products to your location.
- Partners with which we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities; and/or
- Publicly available sources and data suppliers to validate or supplement the information we hold or to support the Service.
Device and usage data
The Service may automatically collect information about how you and your device interact with the Service, such as:
- Computer, device, and connection information, such as IP address, browser type and version, operating system and other software installed on your device, unique device identifier and other technical identifiers, error reports, and performance data.
- Usage data, such as the features you used, the settings you selected, URL click stream data, including date and time stamp and referring and exit pages, and pages you visited on the Service.
- For educational Services, the course modules and test questions you view, answer, or complete; and/or
- For location-aware Services, the physical location of your device.
We collect this data through our servers and the use of cookies and other technologies. You can control cookies through your browser's settings and other tools. However, if you choose to block certain cookies, you may not be able to register, login, or access certain parts or make full use of the Service.
How we use your information
We are committed to delivering a relevant and useful experience to you. Depending on how you interact with us and the Service, we use your personal information to:
- Provide, activate, and manage your access to and use of the Service.
- Process and fulfill a request, order, download, subscription, or other transaction.
- Offer you customized content and other personalization to make the Service more efficient for you and more relevant to your interests and geography.
- Enhance and improve the Service, such as adding new content and features.
- Notify you about changes, updates, and other announcements related to the Service.
- Deliver targeted advertisements, promotional messages, and other information related to the Service and to your interests.
- Provide technical, product, and other support and help to keep the Service working, safe, and secure; and/or
- Identify usage trends and develop data analysis, including for the purposes of research, audits, reporting, and other business operations, such as paying royalties and license fees to third-party content providers, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, evaluating our business performance, or in other ways pursuant to a customer agreement.
We may also use your personal information to:
- Respond to your requests, inquiries, comments, or concerns.
- Invite you to submit or review manuscripts or otherwise participate in our publishing programs.
- Conduct and administer user testing and surveys as well as sweepstakes, competitions, and similar promotions.
- Provide you with relevant promotional messages and other information about products, events, and services of, our group companies and third parties such as societies and sponsors.
- Enhance and improve our products, events, and services and develop new ones; and/or
- Comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
Sharing of your information:
We share your personal information in the following ways and contexts.
Your Rights
If you believe the personal information relating to you that RDR holds may be incorrect at any point in time, registered users can directly access their account information and have it corrected or deleted.
Keeping such information up to date is solely the responsibility of the user. Registered users may also close their accounts directly through the Service or by contacting RDR.
If your personal data held by RDR is based on consent only, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Be aware that your continued membership is dependent on us holding the relevant information.
If you have any inquiries regarding the privacy policy, you can contact, tlc2@civil.iitm.ac.in
Data retention
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide the Service and fulfill the transactions you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, maintaining business and financial records, resolving disputes, maintaining security, detecting and preventing fraud and abuse, and enforcing our agreements.
Data security
We take precautions to safeguard your personal information against loss, theft misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction using appropriate technical and organizational measures.
Changes
We will update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with the revision date. If we make any material changes, we will provide notice through the Service or by other means.