Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Colby-Sawyer College collects, protects and uses the personal information received through our website or via email communications.

We make every effort to protect the personal information that you provide us and are committed to respecting your right to privacy. If you have any requests concerning your personal information or any queries as to how we use your personal information please contact us at 603-526-3000.

This policy takes into consideration guidelines set forth by domestic United States Government policies and guidelines (eg: FERPA) as well as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

1. Information gathering

We may collect personal information from visitors to the Website through the use of online forms, response to surveys, registration as a user of the Website and/or inquiry as an applicant, alum, vendor, or other, post entries on related social media pages, each time you email us any information and every time you contact us. You may visit the Website without registering for information.

2. Use of personal information

We use your personal information for the purposes of:

  • responding to your inquiries and requests, or inquiries or requests made by a third party on your behalf;
  • providing you with information and news about our offerings, events and services;
  • contacting you regarding your specific inquiry (eg: applying for admission to the college.)

You may subscribe to a respective email list (admissions, alumni, athletics, or other) to receive information about some of our offerings, events, and information. You may also download some of our information directly from the Website without subscribing.

If you register for any information, we may use the personal information we collect from you to send you information about our offerings by email, text, mail, or by phone. If you opt-in to receiving marketing communications when we collect your personal information but later change your mind, you can send us an email at admissions@colby-sawyer.edu and we will unsubscribe you.

We may also use and disclose information in aggregate (so that no individuals are identified) for marketing and strategic development purposes.

We will retain the personal information we collect from the Website in accordance with our data retention policy.

3. How we use the data we collect

We use this data to help our Advertisers identify and serve ads to you that are more relevant to you. We also use this data to operate, improve and enhance our services including enhancing the data points we or our Advertising Partners have about a particular user, browser, or device to serve the most relevant ads to you and, in turn, improve performance of an Advertiser’s ad campaigns. Specifically, we use this data for:

Targeting: Selecting ads that are more likely to be relevant to you based on the interests previously associated with your device and the time of day you may be most interested in viewing these specific ads.

Frequency Capping: Making sure that you don't see the same ad too many times.

Sequencing: If you are being served a sequence of ads, making sure we show you the right ad next in the sequence.

Cross-device Matching: Identifying all devices that are likely to be associated with you so that ads can be targeted, capped and sequenced across those devices. It also helps us match devices so we can honor your opt-out choices across all devices we know are connected to the opted-out cookie.

Attribution: Monitoring when, where, and at what price we served certain ads on behalf of an Advertiser so that we can measure our influence on the marketing result of the Advertiser’s campaigns and overall marketing strategy.

Reporting: Providing Advertisers insights into how their ads are performing and gain insights into their customers. Reporting may include ad metrics such as impressions, clicks, and conversions. With respect to specific cookie data, we limit reporting to cookie activity on the specific Advertiser’s website and which ads were shown whether there was engagement with those ads.

Opting Out: Colby-Sawyer College is also a member of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and adheres to the NAI Codes of Conduct. You may use the NAI opt out tool here, which will allow you to opt out of seeing personalized ads from us and from other NAI approved member companies.

4. Use of cookies

A cookie is a small piece of information sent by a web server to a web browser, which enables the server to collect information from the browser. We use cookies to identify you when you visit the Website and to keep track of your browsing patterns and build up a demographic profile. We use "analytics" cookies to understand who has seen which of the pages on the Website and to determine the most popular areas of the Website so that we can improve and develop the Website in response to your needs.

Our use of cookies may allow registered users to be presented with a personalized version of the Website and have access to information about their account.

We may also use “social media” cookies to personalize your interaction with third party social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook where our Website may use such features. These cookies recognize users of these social media sites when you view social media content on our Website. They also allow you to quickly share content across media.

If you do not wish to receive these cookies you can disable them in your browser. By doing so you may lose some of the functionality of our Website. Please refer to your browser instructions or help screen to learn more about how to do this. However, should you decide to disable any cookies we place on your computer you may not be able to use certain services or facilities on the Website. Switching off cookies may restrict your experience of the Website.

5. Analytics

To deliver a better experience on our website, we use Google Analytics to collect non-personal information when browsing our Website. This collects and analyzes information, including cookies, IP addresses, device and software identifiers, referring and exit URLs, onsite behavior and usage information, feature use metrics and statistics, usage history, MAC Address, mobile unique device ID, and other similar information.

The third-party analytics companies who collect information on our Sites may combine the information collected with other information they have independently collected from other websites and/or other online or mobile products and services relating to your activities across their network of websites as well as online and/or mobile products and services. Many of these companies collect and use information under their own privacy policies.

In addition to our use of technologies as described herein, we may permit certain third-party companies to help us tailor content we think may be of interest to you based on your use of the Colby-Sawyer Website.

6. Disclosure of your personal information

We will only disclose personal information we collect from you from the Website:

  • for use within our institution for the purpose of admissions, alumni communications, donor relations, event registration, business inquiries and related college business, as requested;
  • to vendors we engage to process data, disseminate information and/or market our offerings on our behalf.
7. Other websites

The Website may contain links to other Websites which are outside our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy and you should use them at your own risk. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these websites may collect personal information from you which will be used by them in accordance with their privacy policy, which may differ from ours. Please refer to these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

8. Access to your personal information

Subject to applicable laws, you have a right to request access to, a copy of, correction, restriction in the use of, or erasure of your information. You also have the right to withdraw consent to the use of your information, without affecting the legitimacy of the college’s use of the information prior to receipt of your request.

If you would like to have personally identifiable information changed or removed from the college database, please contact the Office of the Registrar.

Information collected in the European Union will be transferred out of the European Union to the college. If you believe that the college has not complied with applicable foreign laws regulating such data or data transfers, you have the right to file a complaint with the appropriate authorities. To secure a copy of the personal information we hold about you, please contact us at 603-526-3000.

9. Security

We strive to take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information. All the personal information we collect is stored securely on our servers and we use secure internet protocols to protect data collection and processing. We may request documents be submitted to a secure site versus directly to an individual to further ensure your privacy and security of your information. If information is requested for processing (as in the case of an application for admission) through a secure site and you choose to provide it directly through email to a faculty, staff, or administrator of the college, you assume the risk of a data privacy compromise and release the college from any liability as a result.

The data that we collect from you may be stored securely onsite, accessible only to college-authorized personnel. Some information may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside of the college. It may also be processed by staff who work for us or for one of our vendors. By submitting your personal data, you consent to this transfer, storing or processing. We do our best to use only vendors who comply with strict privacy protocols and data security standards.

10. Internet-based transfers

Using the Internet to collect and process personal information involves the transmission of data on an international basis. Therefore, by browsing the Website and communicating electronically with us, you acknowledge our processing of personal information in this way. However, we will work to protect all personal information collected through the Website in accordance with strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access. For all prospective international students, we will provide a full disclosure statement, developed in compliance with EU GDPR. Email international@colby-sawyer.edu for more information.

11. Credit card information

For any payments related to your tuition payment or donation, your credit card information will be collected and processed outside of the Site, by a third-party payment processor. This Privacy Policy does not apply to our third-party payment processors, and, if you disclose your information to a third-party payment processor, different rules may apply to its use and disclosure of the information you provide to such third-party payment processor. You acknowledge that if you provide information to third-party payment processors, that information will be subject to their user agreements, terms and conditions of sale, privacy policies and other applicable policies and agreements, which may differ from this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the policies of third-party payment processors.

12. Changes to this privacy policy

Due to changes in regulations and to ensure compliance and clarity, we may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. When we do we will publish the changes on the Website. If you do not agree to these changes, please do not continue to use the Website. If material changes are made to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email or by placing a prominent notice on the Website.