Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATED: July 8, 2022

EFFECTIVE DATE: July 8, 2022

About this Policy 

This Privacy Policy describes the privacy practices of ProQuest LLC and its subsidiary companies, including the global businesses operating under the following business names and brands (“ProQuest”, “we”, “our” or “us”) with respect to how we collect, use, store, disclose and transfer the information you provide when you interact with us through our websites, brands, and applications (the “ProQuest Services”), and when you communicate with us through other means such as email or by telephone. The ProQuest Services include, but are not limited to:

Please note that Heritage Quest® Online, Ancestry Library Edition, O’Reilly for Higher Education (formerly Safari Books Online), Factiva and other third party services distributed but not operated by ProQuest are subject to their own privacy policies.

This Privacy Policy governs websites owned or operated by ProQuest that provide a link to this Privacy Policy on the homepage of the site (“ProQuest Sites”).

ProQuest LLC and its subsidiaries are subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

This Policy does not apply to any websites owned, operated by, or associated with R.R. Bowker LLC ("Bowker") or Ex Libris Group LLC or its subsidiary Ex Libris (USA), Inc. (“Ex Libris”). All Bowker and Ex Libris websites are governed by their own privacy policies and/or practices.

Data Controller or Data Processor

ProQuest LLC is the data controller for all data described by this policy except as specified below, which means that ProQuest determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data with respect to the ProQuest Services.

ProQuest LLC is the data processor with respect to all personal information described by this policy with respect to all Workflow Solutions services with the exception of AquaBrowser and Ulrich’s XML Data Service.

Types of Information We Collect About You

Information you or your Institution may provide

Depending upon the ProQuest Services you are accessing, we may collect information such as

• Contact details such as (for example) your full (i.e., first and last) name, institutional affiliations, phone number, email address, and postal address
• If you are a paying subscriber, we may collect your credit or other payment card information
• Educational and professional background information
• Usernames and passwords
• Comments, feedback, posts and other content you submit to the ProQuest Service
• Information you provide to or post on message boards or chat rooms that are part of the ProQuest Services
• Interests and communication preferences

In all cases, you will be given advanced notice of what information specific to you we are collecting. Posting information on message boards or in chat rooms is never required.

Information collected automatically

Depending upon the ProQuest Service you are using, ProQuest may also automatically collect information about you or your computer or device that does not directly identify you. This information may include:

• Information about your use of ProQuest Services (including web pages you have visited, apps you have downloaded, parts or functions of the ProQuest Services you have used or viewed, content you have accessed or viewed, library items you have checked out, and transaction history)
• IP address and device identifiers, information about your Internet connection
• Information about the equipment or software you use to access ProQuest Services

Information is only collected to the extent that it is necessary for us to provide the ProQuest Services that you use, to optimize your user experience, and/or to make improvements to the ProQuest Service. ProQuest does not serve advertising within any of the ProQuest Services, but may track your activities on our product information websites such as about.proquest.com in order to serve advertising to you through third party sites. Please see our Cookies and Similar Technologies page for more information about how we use cookies and other tracking technologies.

You have the ability to choose to opt out of inclusion of your personal information at the point of disclosure. You may choose whether your personal information is (i) to be disclosed to a third party or (ii) to be used for a purpose that is materially different from the purpose(s) for which it was originally collected or subsequently authorized by you. You may also opt out of use of your personal information as outlined below under Access, Correction, and Erasure.

How We Collect Information About You

We collect information about you in three main ways:

• Information Directly Provided by You or Your Institution: We collect information about you when you register for ProQuest Services, download an app, sign up for email or text alerts, make other purchases via a ProQuest Service, request products or services, respond to surveys, fill out registration forms on a ProQuest Site for events, register for or view webinars; create a profile, publicly post or share content, contact us, use social media connections, and/or otherwise interact with ProQuest Sites or Services. We may receive and store information provided by your institution to the extent required to perform a contracted service.
• Information Collected Automatically Using Technological Means: We collect information through the use of cookies and similar technologies to log your activities while visiting the ProQuest Sites. You may set your browser to block all cookies, including cookies associated with ProQuest Services, or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us. However, it is important to remember that many of our services may not function properly (or at all) if your cookies are disabled. Please see our Cookies and Similar Technologies page for more information about how we use cookies and other tracking technologies.
• Information Collected Through Third Parties: We work with third parties (for example, data aggregators) and may receive information about you from them.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

ProQuest uses cookies to manage and improve the functionality of our websites and to enable us to better understand how you use our services. A cookie is a tiny text document, which usually includes anonymous information about the user. You can set your browser to not accept ProQuest’s cookies, but you might not be able to access all aspects of the ProQuest Site you are visiting. For more information, visit Cookies and Similar Technologies.

How We Use and Share Information About You

ProQuest uses the information we collect for the purposes of authorizing and processing transactions, authenticating users, customer service, customer support, content processing, content classification, and providing you with information concerning the ProQuest Services. We will retain this information for as long as the customer account is active or as needed to provide the ProQuest Services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and as needed to comply with or enforce our licenses and other agreements.

We may share information—such as aggregate data and information about your use of ProQuest Services—with third parties as outlined below. We may also share the information about you in ways disclosed at the time you provide that information.

ProQuest remains responsible for the personal data that we share with third parties for processing on our behalf, and we remain liable under this privacy policy if such third parties process such personal data in a manner inconsistent this privacy policy and we are responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.

Please keep in mind that any information you disclose publicly – either in a Public Profile or through message boards or other public areas – may be collected and used by others, may be indexable by search engines, and might not be able to be erased from public view to the extent they have been copied to external sites. Please be careful when disclosing personal information in these public areas.

The following is a list of instances where we may share your information with third parties:

• Institutions or Businesses: If you access the Service through your affiliation with an institution or through your employer, your information and certain usage data gathered through the ProQuest Service may be shared with the institution or business for the purposes of usage analysis, access and license management, collection management, contract and regulatory compliance, and cost allocation.
• Publishers/Content Providers: We may provide anonymized information to publishers so that they understand how their content is being used and consumed.
• Service Providers: At times ProQuest may hire other companies to process data or do work on our behalf. This is always pursuant to a contract that requires the third-party service provider to protect your information consistent with this privacy policy. These companies are only provided the information they need to perform their functions and the information can only be used to perform the services on our behalf or to comply with legal requirements. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for direct marketing purposes.
• Public Profiles: Information provided by you or your institution for the purposes of populating a public profile within a ProQuest Service will be searchable and viewable by anyone who has access to the ProQuest Service. The information contained in your public profile is made available to other users of the ProQuest Service as an aid to research and to foster collaboration between researchers. Users are not authorized by ProQuest to use the Public Profile information for any other purpose. Should you wish to remove your public profile, follow the instructions under the Access, Correction, and Erasure section of this policy.
• Message Boards and Other Public Areas: Information you post on message boards, chat rooms, or other public areas that are part of the ProQuest Services is public and will not be kept private. Should you wish to remove your postings from message boards or other public areas, follow the instructions under the Access, Correction, and Erasure section of this policy
• Contests and Sweepstakes: We may publicly disclose the name, city and state of contest and sweepstakes winners as permitted by the contest/sweepstakes rules or as required by law. You may be required to consent to if you wish to enter a given contest or sweepstakes.
  Sale or Purchase of Business or Assets: If ProQuest is involved in a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, we will continue to ensure the confidentiality of any personal information and give affected users notice before personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
• Legal Reasons: We will disclose information to cooperate with law enforcement, government or regulatory bodies, content protection organizations, or judicial processes as required by the applicable laws and regulations. We may also use or disclose information to enforce or protect the rights or safety of ProQuest Services users, us, or others. We will provide notice to individuals prior to such disclosures, to the extent it is practicable to do so allowed by law.
• RefWorks Citation Manager Google Limited Use Requirement Disclosure: In its utilization and transfer of information from Google APIs to other applications, RefWorks Citation Manager strictly adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy. This includes compliance with the Limited Use requirements outlined in the policy.

Legal Basis for Processing (in the EEA)

If you are an individual in the European Economic Area (EEA), ProQuest collects and processes information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable law. The legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use information only where:

• We need it to perform a contract and/or to provide the ProQuest Services to you, to operate the ProQuest Services, provide customer support and personalize features and to protect the safety and security of the ProQuest Services.
• It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as for research and development, to market and promote the ProQuest Services and to protect our legal rights and interests.
• You give us consent to do so for a specific purpose.
• We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.

Where ProQuest relies on your consent to process personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, and where we rely on legitimate interest, you may have the right to object to our processing.

Security

ProQuest takes commercially reasonable security measures to protect against unauthorized access to, or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of, data that you share and that we collect and store. These security measures may include practices such as keeping your data on a secured server behind a firewall, internal reviews of our data collection practices and platforms, industry-standard encryption technologies, and physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store your information.

If you have reason to believe that a third-party has gained unauthorized access to your information, please contact us immediately by submitting a Data Subject Request. If ProQuest becomes aware of any data breach, it will notify you as soon as reasonably possible.

Your Rights and Choices

Communication Preferences and Opt-outs

If you have subscribed to one or more of our email newsletters or are receiving marketing emails from us and you don’t want them anymore, you can unsubscribe. Follow the instructions contained in the email message to opt-out of receiving future messages of that type. However, you cannot unsubscribe from some service related messages so long as you maintain an account with ProQuest.

Access, Correction, and Erasure

Registered users or account administrators for an institution may update or remove their personal information using account settings within the particular ProQuest Services. To the extent reasonably feasible, we provide online access to a user’s information and the ability to review, update, delete, and/or correct it. You may also request access to other personal information about you that may be held by ProQuest.

Postings from message boards or other public areas, may be deleted by using the tools provided when you are logged-in to the particular service; or you may contact ProQuest at Data Subject Request with the details and location of the content (such as a direct link to the information), and ProQuest will make commercially reasonable efforts to remove the content.

To help protect your privacy and security, we will take reasonable steps to verify your identity, such as requiring a password, user ID, or other verification before granting access to or removing your information.

If you are over 13 but under the age of majority, and you have posted content (or see content posted about you) that you cannot remove yourself you may need to provide your full name, your state of residence, and your age at the time you posted it. We will remove the content from view.

Please note that where we are acting as a processor of personal data for our customer, we may first refer your request to the customer that submitted your personal data, and we will assist our customer as needed in responding to your request.

Please contact Data Subject Request for more information about exercising these rights.

Data Retention and Deletion

If you request to delete your personal information, we will endeavor to fulfill your request but some personal information may persist in backup copies for a certain period of time and may be retained as necessary for legitimate business purposes or to comply with our legal obligations.

We may retain your data for as long as you use the ProQuest Services and that information is needed to provide the ProQuest Services to you, and for a reasonable time thereafter in accordance with applicable law. ProQuest cannot honor requests to delete data that is required for ProQuest Services to function properly or that ProQuest is required to retain by law.

Children

The ProQuest Services are typically general audience websites, intended for use by users aged 13 and older. In cases where the ProQuest Services are intended for use by children registration information has been disabled.

The following ProQuest Services are offered to schools and libraries and are intended for use by students under the age of 13: Culture Grams, SIRS and eLibrary research services. These services may only be accessed through an authorized institutional account, and no personal information is collected from individual users when the products are accessed through the student interface.

In all cases, we do not market to nor intentionally collect any personally identifiable information from children under thirteen (13) years of age. If you are under 13, please do not register for any of our services or provide us with any personally identifying information (such as your name, email address or phone number). Please contact Data Subject Request if you are aware of any personal information supplied to one of ProQuest Sites by a child under the age of thirteen (13).

If you are over 13 but under the age of majority, and you have posted content (or see content posted about you) that you cannot remove yourself, you may send a “take-down” request to us at Data Subject Request. You must provide us with a direct link to the information, along with your full name, your state of residence, and your age at the time you posted it. We will remove the content from view.

Links to Other Services and Websites

The ProQuest Services may contain links to information created and/or maintained on third-party websites. The third-party website will be displayed in a new browser window and the user will no longer be in the ProQuest environment. When users select a link to an outside website, they are leaving the ProQuest Site and are subject to the privacy and security policies of the owners of the third-party website. We are not responsible for, and we do not endorse or control, the policies or practices of any such website or services.

In some cases, we may embed a content feed, video player or other application from a third party into the ProQuest Services, and those feeds, players, or other applications may appear to be part of the ProQuest Services, even though they are provided or served by a third party. Such feeds, video players, and/or applications do not collect personal information from you. If information is required for the performance of the service, the service provider is required to protect your information consistent with this privacy policy. For further information, please see the “How We Share Information About You” section of this policy.

Updates to Our Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may revise this Privacy Policy. If we make material revisions to the way we collect or use your information, we will provide you with notice of those changes by either: (1) notifying you directly, (2) announcing the change on our ProQuest Services, and/or (3) posting the revised version of this Privacy Policy online.

You can determine when this Privacy Policy was last revised by referring to the “Last updated” legend at the top of this page. By continuing to use ProQuest Services after such updates, you affirm your agreement with the terms of the Privacy Policy. If we have made changes you don’t agree with, you are free to request that we delete your information.

Questions

For any questions on this Privacy Policy or our data practices, you can contact us:

By mail at:

ProQuest
Attn: Data Protection Officer
789 E. Eisenhower Parkway
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108
United States of America

Submit request: Data Subject Request

Despite the measures outlined in this Privacy Policy, ProQuest cannot guarantee the security of any information that is disclosed online. To the extent permissible under law, ProQuest shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential or punitive damages relating to this Privacy Policy.

EU/US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield Frameworks

Where personal information is transferred from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or Switzerland to a country that has not received an adequacy decision by the European Commission, ProQuest relies on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission-approved Standard Contractual Clauses to transfer the data. The Privacy Shield Frameworks are not currently relied upon as a data transfer mechanism, but are maintained to demonstrate ProQuest’s commitment to the Privacy Shield Principles.

ProQuest complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union, the United Kingdom and/or Switzerland (as applicable) to the United States, respectively. ProQuest has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles. If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern.

Covered Entities. The following U.S. entities covered by this Privacy Policy have certified to the EU/US Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks: ProQuest LLC, Alexander Street Press LLC, Alexander Street Audio LLC, Microtraining Associates LLC, Filmmakers Library Inc., Dialog LLC, and SIPX LLC.

To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/. Personal data from the European Union, the United Kingdom or Switzerland and/or on EU, UK or Swiss citizens may be collected by ProQuest and may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which ProQuest or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities.

You have the right to access your personal data, and to have the data corrected, amended or deleted where it is inaccurate or processed in violation of the Privacy Shield Principles.

Dispute Resolution

In compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Principles and the Swiss-US Privacy Shield Principles, ProQuest commits to resolve complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your personal information.

If you have an inquiry or complaint regarding whether ProQuest has violated its obligations under this Privacy Policy as to you or if you are an EU or Swiss resident with an inquiry or complaint regarding whether ProQuest has violated its obligations under the Privacy Shield Principles as to you (your “Complaint”), you should first contact ProQuest’s Global Information Security Office.

By mail at:

ProQuest
Attn: Data Protection Officer
789 E. Eisenhower Parkway
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108
United States of America

Submit request: Data Subject Request

ProQuest will acknowledge your Complaint within 24 hours, and respond to your complaint within 45 days. ProQuest may ask that you provide additional information and/or request a one-on-one discussion or conference.

Step 2: Third Party Dispute Resolution. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third party dispute resolution provider (free of charge).

If you have a complaint left unresolved by all available recourse mechanisms, you may invoke binding arbitration. For additional information go here: www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=How-to-Submit-a-Complaint

ProQuest has further committed to cooperate with the panel established by the EU data protection authorities (DPAs), the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), and the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) with regard to unresolved Privacy Shield complaints concerning data transferred from the EU, the UK and Switzerland.