Hobsons Privacy Policy

Hobsons Plc and its affiliated companies such as Hobsons Inc., Hobsons Australia Pty. Ltd., Hobsons France, Hobsons GmbH, Hobsons Belgium and Trendence GmbH take your privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy explains the steps we take to ensure information about you is kept secure and confidential.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully, as once you use our Web site or our services you will be deemed to have read and accepted this Privacy Policy.

You must not use our Web site or our Services if you do not accept this Privacy Policy.

1. The Information We Collect

We will only collect personal information about you and given by you when you register with us. We will always let you view the personal information we have about you. To access this click on the “Update your details” link on our websites, log in with your username and password and click on “my profile”. You are able to update and amend your personal information at any time in the same way.

2. Purposes for Which We Use Information about Our Users

We collect information about our users for a variety of purposes. These include the following purposes:

• where users supply information to us pursuant to schemes and services which we offer (for example, to join our information services such as the Hobsons Student Service or the parent zone of Hobsons Springboard) or to obtain information about jobs and courses), information will be processed by us to supply the information and material which we promise to supply members. Your information is held at Hobsons PLC in the UK, and maintained by third parties such as Ciconi www.ciconi.com, Riverhall Computer Systems Ltd www.riverhall.co.uk, as well as by Hobsons and yourself via any of our websites.
• so that we can inform our users of new offers, products, and services which may be of interest to them,
• so that we can send you news items which are relevant to your interests
• to help us improve and personalise our services and any services provided to you through our services

3. Passing on Information about You

We may disclose information obtained from you to third parties to enable us to perform services requested by you, together with aggregate but not individual statistics to potential advertisers, such as the number of users we have, their average age, location, etc. We will only pass on information about you as an individual (as opposed to aggregate information) to third parties with your prior consent. If you give your consent, third parties may then send communications to you to provide information, offers, and services that may be of interest to you. The more we know about you, the more value we can offer you by way of a personalized service. We may store certain personal information and use this to offer you personalized services, information, and offers through our services. Once you have given consent you can of course ask us and third parties to stop providing such services to you at any time by e-mailing unsubscribe@hobsons.co.uk or to the third party
In certain circumstances we may need to disclose information about you if you breach this privacy policy. We may also disclose or access your account if required to do so by law or any other governmental body.

4. Security

Keeping information about you secure is very important to us. However, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information which you send to us, and you do so at your own risk.
Hobsons will take precautions to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of your user data under our control. Only authorized employees and subcontractors will be given access to the information you provide us. It is our policy that your data will only be forwarded to organizations such as employers and educational institutions in accordance with the preferences expressed by you. Apart from this authorized disclosure, our systems are designed to ensure that your data can only be viewed online if your logon ID and password are correctly input. While we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse, or alteration to data will not occur, we take many precautions aimed at preventing such occurrences.
You are ultimately responsible for the security of your logon ID and password. Please take care when using and storing them. We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. You should log out of your browser at the end of each computer session to ensure that others cannot access your personal information, especially if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet cafe.

5. Cookies

Persistent cookies are not used in any of Hobsons’ sites. Non-persistent cookies are used extensively to manage sessions.

6. Transferring Your Information Abroad

Information supplied by you to us, whether submitted by you via this or other Web sites (or other communications, such as registration forms) will only be transferred abroad by us or our agents for the purpose of performing contractual obligations owed by us to you.

7. How Can You Access and Update Information Which We Hold
about You?

• access and update your information by clicking on the “Update your details” link on any of our websites and logging using your username and password
• unsubscribe from Hobsons by e-mailing unsubscribe@hobsons.co.uk
• unsubscribe from sms (text) messaging (Hobsons Students Service only) by replying to +. +447797891228 You cannot call this number; it will accept text messages only. You will remain a member of the Hobsons Student Service and still receive other communications unless you also e-mail unsubscribe@hobsons.co.uk

8. Automated Decisions Taken by Us about You

Assumptions are made about your interests depending on the campaign you respond to. For example, if you registered with Hobsons via our Careers in Engineering guide we assume you are interested in a job in engineering.

Assumptions are made about your interests depending on the courses you have studied.

Your sex is automatically determined by your title, e.g. Miss = female.

If you provide us with a university e-mail address we assume you are studying at that university unless you provide us with your university information.

We assume you speak certain languages based on your nationality. This assumption is very limited and for most nationalities there are no language assumptions made.

If you have any questions relating to this Privacy Policy or how we use the personal information we have about you, please contact: hobsonsstudentservice@hobsons.co.uk