University of Silesia in Katowice

The University of Silesia in Katowice attaches great importance to respecting the privacy of users visiting university websites. This document describes for what purpose and in what manner your data is collected and processed by the University.

The University of Silesia in Katowice collects data provided voluntarily by completing the forms contained on the University’s websites, for instance, while registering for a conference, registering for a lecture organised by the university or upon creating an account at one of the university’s numerous websites. Personal data provided in the online form are not visible to unauthorised persons.

Students and employees accounts in IT systems of the University of Silesia in Katowice are created for the purposes necessary for the implementation of the education process and the performance of employees’ duties.

In order to ensure security, maintain user sessions and optimise services, the IT systems of the University’s websites collect automatically data such as: the IP address of the computer from which the connection was established, the name of the client station, the name of the User in the authorisation process, the time of inquiry, the course of the process, the volume of the reply, information on the message headers, information on the status of the response, communication status and user session data.

In order to optimise services and enable proper functioning and saving the settings of individual users, websites of the University of Silesia in Katowice use the so-called “cookies”. cookies are small text files sent by the website to the user’s browser on the end device (computer, smartphone, tablet, etc.),

Cookies are used primarily to maintain the user’s session in order to enable him/her to conveniently use the website, including remembering user preferences such as font size, contrast, etc., cookies can be used to limit the number of views of information, advertising and other content presented on the websites of the University of Silesia in Katowice. Cookies can also be used to measure the effectiveness of these activities, and to collect statistics on the use of the University websites.

The following types of cookies are used on the website of the University of Silesia in Katowice:

• session cookies – they remain on the user’s device until he/she leaves the website or turns off the software (web browser),
• permanent cookies – they remain on the user’s device for the time specified in the file parameters or until they are deleted by the user.

Browsers allow the use of cookies by default, however, these settings can always be changed by the user. Users can control the behaviour of their web browser with respect to cookies. They are free to completely or partially disable the storage of cookies in their browsers’ settings. It should be remembered, however, that limiting the use of cookies may hinder or even prevent the use of some websites.

When browsing the websites of the University of Silesia in Katowice without changes in your browser, you consent to the use of cookies by the University. Thanks to this, the University’s websites can be as safe and convenient to use as possible.

The University of Silesia in Katowice is constantly improving its websites, wishing to improve the quality of services offered and to make websites more and more user-friendly. For this purpose, it may use tools such as Google Analytics, Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, HotJar, UXTweak. Thanks to these tools, the University is able to collect important information about its recipients, user behaviour on the University’s websites, traffic patterns, and monitor, maintain and solve problems related to the positioning of the University’s websites in Google search results.

When using university websites, some of the user’s data may be automatically collected and processed by the tools of external entities used by the University of Silesia in Katowice.

You can read more about data processing by external entities in the privacy policies of Google, Google Analytics, HotJar, UXTweak.

Plugins for social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Issuu, LinkedIn) are used on the University websites.

Links to websites of external entities are placed on the University’s websites. The University of Silesia in Katowice is not responsible for the privacy policy of external entities. Users should familiarise themselves with the specific privacy protection rules of these entities.

The University of Silesia in Katowice makes technical and organisational efforts to ensure that the data processed on websites are properly protected against unauthorised access by third parties.

Network traffic related to the use of university websites is automatically analysed. During the analysis, fragments of information can be sent to companies providing security tools to the University in order to be analysed insofar as risks are concerned.

In cases requiring collection of personal data by the University of Silesia in Katowice via online forms, the user will be informed by the administrator in an information clause about the method and purpose of data processing, as well as about the data subject’s rights related to the protection of personal data, in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR Regulation (on the site where the data is collected),

In the event of a change to the current privacy policy, appropriate modifications will be made to the above provision.