Privacy Policy

Western Sierra Law School (WSLS) is firmly committed to maintaining your privacy. We strive to uphold the highest privacy standards on the web. This privacy policy is provided to explain what information we collect, the collection process and how it is used in order to continue to provide you with exceptional service.

Application

Web servers are generally capable of collecting, storing, and analyzing a variety of information about those who visit the site.  Our goal is to keep the information collected at this website secure and to use it only for purposes for which it was intended or to improve the quality of the web service we provide.

In some cases, WSLS contracts with commercial services for specific web services, generally related to financial transactions, and links to their sites for those transactions.  If you are redirected to another site, something other than “wslawschool.com” in the URL, privacy and security are governed by the policies of those services and are documented by those sites.

Practice/Standard

• What information does WSLS collect on its website? 

We collect personal information (such as name, address, phone, e-mail address) only if you provide it to us voluntarily through e-mail, registration forms, information request forms or surveys, or otherwise. Personal information is kept confidential and will not be disclosed to third parties except as may be required by law.  Credit card information and social security numbers are only collected for specific purposes where the information is required for the transaction, such as to register you in a course or program, allocate funds to a WSLS account, or when we accept donations.  Any information of that nature is saved on our secure server and is only accessible to authorized employees to process payments or registrations or for other legitimate purposes.  Once processed, the information is deleted from the server.  Credit card information collected via commercial services such as CASHNet or the Verisign Payment Gateway is not stored on our server.

Our web server software may log the following information each time someone visits our website: date, time, web browser, URLs of page requested and referring page, among others.  We use the information gathered to help us improve our website.

• Internet protocol (IP) addresses

An IP address is a number assigned to your computer that identifies your location when browsing the internet. This information is used to improve our service and make it more interesting for you based on general usage statistics. This information may also be used for system administration or diagnostic purposes or to enforce compliance with our privacy policies.  Our web server software automatically logs the client and server IP addresses, browser type and computer operating system.

• Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your web browser on your hard drive when browsing a website. Cookies will never store private information but will only reference such information elsewhere.  In those cases, cookies are used only to record security keys with limited lifetimes for your convenience in accessing other secured pages.  For example, cookies provide a way to remember your account information and log you in automatically when revisiting a site or automatically populating data on forms. Cookies also provide statistical information that allows us to improve our service based on your preferences and usage behaviors. Web browsers usually accept cookies automatically. However, you can change your browser settings to block cookies.

WSLS also uses services which will issue cookies from their own servers and which will be able to track website visitors throughout WSLS web pages and through any other sites that use those services. WSLS does not control how those cookies are issued, or the data that they store. Examples of services being used on the WSLS website which track website visitors are: Google; Facebook; addthis.com.

• What does WSLS do with the personal information collected on this website?

Certain personal information is used to provide information back to you, such as grades, transcripts, etc.  We do not and will not sell your personal information to anyone.  Certain postal information may be provided to our mailing service that handles the distribution of class materials and announcements. WSLS may share statistical information about customers, sales, or website traffic but this will never contain personal, identifiable information.

• Is credit card / transaction information secure on this website?

We care about the safety and security of your transaction. We use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to communicate with your browser software when you register with us online.  SSL is the industry standard security protocol, which makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to intercept your credit card or other information that you send us. You can tell you are using SSL whenyou see https:// in the front of the URL, or see a “lock” symbol at the beginning of the URL bar.

We have partnered with commercial Internet financial services to handle credit card transactions, and we do not store credit card information on WSLS’s servers after the transaction is processed.

• What does WSLS do to safeguard personal information on this site?

We have instituted safeguards to check that our internal procedures meet our high policy standards. Only authorized employees have access to the information you provide us. All personal details are stored in a secure, firewall-protected database. Access to personal information is limited to personnel authorized to use such information for administrative purposes only. Data and passwords are encrypted and can never be retrieved. All e-commerce transactions take place across secure server software (SSL) encryption.

• Internet communication security in general

The privacy of communication over the Internet cannot be guaranteed because the Internet is not a secure medium.  WSLS does not assume any responsibility for any harm, loss or damage you may experience or incur by the sending of personal or confidential information over the Internet by or to WSLS.

• Online Disclosure of Information

If you voluntarily disclose personal information in public areas of the Site such as on your About or Contact areas or on message boards, we cannot control how that information may be used by third-parties. This information may be collected by third-parties to send you unsolicited messages, advertisements, or for other purposes so please do so with caution.

• Consent

By using this site, you signify your consent to WSLS’s online privacy statement. If you do not agree to this privacy statement, please do not use this site.  We reserve the right, at our discretion, to update, change, modify, add, or remove portions of this privacy statement from time to time. This policy has been developed with the recognition that Internet technologies are rapidly evolving and that underlying standard business models are still not well established. Accordingly, this policy is subject to change. Any such changes will be posted on this page.

• How to Protect Your Information

Never give out your passwords. If you have forgotten your password, a new one will be automatically generated for you by using the “Forgot my password” link on the login page (login URL). Logout of secure areas and close the browser window that you were working within before leaving your computer.

Exceptions

None

Appendices

None

Status: Created July 18, 2020

Policy Owner: Law School Registrar