At the Digital Scholarship Centre (DSC) and Making & Media Creation Lab (MMCL), we are committed to respecting your privacy and data retention preferences. Here, we provide transparency on how we collect and use your data to provide our services to you.
Core principles
Transparency: You informed about what information is being collected from you, and how it is used.
Data Minimization: We only capture data required to provide services to you, to manage safety or financial risks, and to create aggregated & anonymous reports on the use of our services.
Anti-sharing: We do not share your personally identifiable information outside the Libraries unless it is required to provide our services.
The data we collect from you, and how we use it
Personal information that you provide to the University is collected under the authority of the York University Act, 1965 and will be used for educational, administrative and statistical purposes. At all times personal information will be protected in accordance with the Freedom
of Information & Protection of Privacy Act.
To provide DSC and MMCL services at York University Libraries, we collect:
- your name and email address
- records of your completion of our orientation and safety training modules
- basic information about your relationship to York University, and
- information required to provide you with specific spaces, equipment, or studio configurations
Any personally identifiable information collected from you will be kept secure and will remain fully confidential. Data collected for equipment and space bookings, survey and orientation module completions, and consultation appointments is held by our service provider, Springshare. Springshare maintains SOC 2 Type II privacy compliance, and your data is stored on Canadian servers.
When we report to the university or consortial partners on our operations, we only provide basic, aggregated data. Quantitative data will always be aggregated for analysis and reporting. Qualitative information provided through open-text responses may be used as selected quotes for reporting; prior to reporting, any personally identifiable information you might have chosen to provide in such selected quotes will be obscured or redacted for confidentiality.
Website Analytics
We use the free and open-source Matomo system for website analytics. We use the on-premises version of the tool because of its ability to record and store data locally, without sharing information outside the Libraries (including sites such as Google). We use Matomo's reports for the following purposes:
- to assess and evaluate the design of the site on an ongoing basis
- to provide aggregated metrics (limited to "hit counts" and other basic data) on how our site's pages and features are used