Grant Associates Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy Statement

Here at Grant Associates, we are strongly committed to maintaining the privacy of personal information we collect as part of the services we offer. It is also vital that you are aware of, and understand, all your obligations regarding the collection, use, storage, and protection of personal information. We place great importance on protecting the privacy of our employees, valued clients, customers and other stakeholders and your diligent and careful awareness of privacy issues is required to achieve this. If you have any questions regarding the Privacy Policy or privacy generally, please do not hesitate to contact Grant Associates at itsupport@grantassociatesinc.com.

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to:

  • Give you a better and more complete understanding of the kinds of personal information that we collect and hold.
  • Clearly and concisely communicate how and when your personal information is collected, disclosed, used, held and otherwise handled by us.
  • Inform you about the purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information.
  • Provide you with information about how you may access your personal information and seek correction of your personal information.
  • Provide you with information about how you may make a complaint, and how we will deal with any such complaint.
  • Advise you of the circumstances in which we are likely to disclose your personal information to overseas recipients.

Policy Statement

We will ensure that all of our officers, employees and subcontractors are aware of and understand our obligations and their own obligations under this policy and are provided with training to enable them to fulfil these obligations.

We will also achieve this through maintaining internal policies and processes to prevent personal information being improperly collected, held, shared/exchanged, accessed or disposed of.

What is personal information?

Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is true or not, and whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not. It includes your name, date of birth/age, gender and contact details as well as health information (which is also sensitive information). In this privacy policy, a reference to personal information includes sensitive/health information.

Collection of personal information

We do not collect personal information unless it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of our functions or activities.
Personal information collected by us will usually fall into one of the following categories:

  • Contact information (name, age, address, email address and telephone numbers).
  • Employment information (e.g. employment history, work performance, absences, workplace incidents, next of kin information).
  • Sensitive information (e.g. criminal history, trade union activity).
  • Information obtained to assist in managing client and business relationships.

We may collect your information from you in a variety of ways including face-to-face, over the telephone, through an on-line form or portal, through a paper form or by email. Sometimes we will collect personal information from a third party or a publicly available source if it is unreasonable or impracticable to collect the personal information directly from you (e.g. checking a candidate’s work history).

Where personal information is sensitive information, we will only collect that information where:

  • It is reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions,
  • We have the individual’s consent to the collection of that information, or
  • We are required or authorized by law to collect the sensitive information.

Why do we collect, use, and store your personal information?

We collect, use and store your personal information to provide you with services including:

  • Recruitment/employment services
  • Employee management
  • Labor market research
  • Occupational safety and health
  • Training/education
  • Research
  • Services under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and/or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
  • Client and business relationship management

We may also collect, use, and store your personal information for marketing purposes in order to inform you of the services we offer.

Our services, functions and activities, as well as those of our contracted service providers, may change from time to time.

Protecting and storing your personal information

We are committed to keeping personal information secure and safe. Some of the ways we do this are:

  • Securing hard copy document storage (i.e. storing hard copy documents in locked filing cabinets)
  • Security measures for access to computer systems to protect information from unauthorized access, modification or disclosure and loss, misuse and interference
  • Password protected data storage devices such as laptops and smart phones
  • Providing a discreet environment for confidential discussions
  • Access control for our buildings including waiting room/reception protocols and measures for securing the premises when unattended
  • Security measures for our website(s).

Grant Associates reviews and updates these measures from time to time to ensure security is maintained.

Personal information may be stored in documentary form but will generally be stored electronically on our software or systems.

Although we take all reasonable steps to secure personal information from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, there is an inherent risk of loss of, misuse of or unauthorized access to such information. We will not be held responsible for such actions where the security of the personal information is not within our control or we cannot reasonably prevent such an incident, for example, a technical malfunction, computer virus, third party interference or any action or event that is beyond our reasonable control.

Who will we disclose your personal information to?

We will only use and disclose personal information for the primary purpose for which it was initially collected, or for purposes which are directly related to one of our functions or activities.

Like many other businesses in the US, we contract out some of our functions and rely on third party suppliers or contractors to provide specialized services such as “cloud computing” technology and data storage services, legal advice, security services, business advisors and financial services. If personal information is provided to these suppliers, advisors, and contractors in order to enable them to perform the agreed tasks, we will take reasonable measures to ensure that the supplier, advisor, or contractor handles the personal information in accordance with the above policy.

We will not disclose your personal information to government agencies, private sector organizations or any third parties unless one of the following applies:

  • You have consented
  • We believe that you would reasonably expect, or have been told, that information of that kind is usually passed to those individuals, bodies, or agencies
  • It is otherwise required or authorized by law
  • It is reasonably necessary for enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body

Accuracy of Personal Information

We will ensure that all personal information we collect, use, or disclose is accurate, complete, and up to date. Please contact Grant Associates (details below) if you are aware of any personal information that does not meet this objective.

If we are aware that we hold personal information that (having regard to the purpose for which it was collected) is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, or irrelevant, we will take reasonable steps to correct that information.

Monitoring and training

Compliance with this Privacy Policy is subject to internal and regulatory audit. All staff will receive training with regard to privacy and the application of this Privacy Policy as part of their induction.

Communications and Marketing Policy

We communicate with users who subscribe to our services on a regular basis via email, and we may also communicate by phone or SMS. We may use your email address and phone number to (i) confirm your information(ii) send notices and other disclosures as required by law or (iii) advise you of programs you are formally registered with and/or (iv) provide information about the services we provide. Generally, users cannot opt out of these communications, which are not marketing related but merely required for the relevant business relationship.

We may also collect, use and store your personal information for marketing purposes in order to inform you of the services we offer. Part of delivering a high quality, personalized digital experience is recognizing who we’re talking to, so we can provide the services that you want from us. To do that, we may need to request and store some of your personal information. We know your privacy is vital, so these details will only ever be used in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Grant Associates may also use your personal information for the purpose of marketing its services.

If you do not want to receive marketing material from us, you can contact us as detailed below:

  • for electronic communications, you can click on the unsubscribe function in the communication or
  • for hard copy communications, you can email itsupport@grantassociatesinc.com 

Cookies and other technologies are used by Grant Associates on our website and through email to automatically collect certain types of information. The collection of this information allows us to customize your online experience (including tailored Grant Associates marketing), improve the performance, usability and effectiveness of Grant Associates’ online presence and to measure the effectiveness of our marketing activities.

If you register or log into a Grant Associates website or social media or advertising site and provide personal information, we will use your information to personalize your user experience. If you register or log into a Grant Associates website using a third-party account (such as Moodle, LinkedIn, Google or Twitter), we may collect personal information you have permitted the third-party service to share, including your name and email address, depending on the privacy settings you have set with the third-party service and their privacy policy. 


IP Address

An IP address is a number assigned to your computer whenever you access the internet. It allows computers and servers to recognize and communicate with one another. Public IP addresses from which visitors appear to originate may be recorded for IT security and system diagnostic purposes. This information may also be used in aggregate form to conduct website trend and performance analysis, and to personalize your user experience. 


Cookies

Cookies may be placed on your computer or internet-enabled device whenever you visit us online. This allows the site to remember your computer or device.

Although most browsers automatically accept cookies, you can choose whether or not to accept cookies via your browser’s settings (often found in your browser’s Tools or Preferences menu). You may also delete cookies from your device at any time. However, please be aware that if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to fully experience some of our website’s features.

Cookies by themselves do not tell us your email address or otherwise identify you personally. In our analytical reports, we may obtain other identifiers including public IP addresses, but this is for the purpose of identifying the number of unique visitors to our website and geographic origin of visitor trends, and not to identify individual visitors. 


Analytics Tools

Grant Associates uses analytics tools, such as Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365, and Google Analytics. Reports obtained from Google Analytics are used to help improve the efficiency and usability of this website.  Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365 are used to store and analyze aggregate information for determining effectiveness of services offered.

Google Analytics uses first-party cookies and JavaScript code to gather statistics about how the Grant Associates website is accessed. It anonymously tracks how our visitors interact with our website, including where they came from, what they did on the site including such things as news registration.  No personal information is collected or stored by Grant Associates or Google.  The information generated by the cookie and JavaScript code about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google. Should you wish to contact Google, you can find contact details on Google’s Contact us page.

Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf.

By using our website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner described in Google’s Privacy Policy and for the purposes set out above. Relevant legislation of the USA will apply. You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google. 

Salesforce may store some of your data to ensure we are serving you effectively and holding our team accountable to the quality and quantity of services promised to you.  Salesforce uses industry standard security and complies with international security standards, including PCI DSS, FISMA, ISO/IEC 27001:2005, SAS 70 Type II, SysTrust, and Eu-US and Swiss-US Safe Harbor.

Microsoft Office 365 is used to house employee emails which may contain portions of your information.  All staff are trained in data security and handle customer information according to the standards set forth in this policy.  Grant Associates uses enterprise level licensing and security encryption as well as multifactor authentication to ensure our accounts are always secure and accessible to the designated employee.


Location-based tools

Grant Associates may collect and use the geographical location of your computer or mobile device. This location data is collected for the purpose of providing you with information regarding services which we believe may be of interest to you based on your geographic location, and to improve our location-based products and services. 


Social media widgets and applications

Grant Associates’ website may include functionality to enable sharing via third party social media applications, such as the Twitter widget. These social media applications may collect and use information regarding your use of Grant Associates’ website. Any personal information that you provide via such social media applications may be collected and used by other members of that social media application and such interactions are governed by the privacy policies of the companies that provide the application. We do not have control over, or responsibility for, those companies or their use of your information.

In addition, Grant Associates’ website may host applications or services (collectively “social media features”). The purpose of social media features is to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and content. Any personal information that you provide on any Grant Associates social media feature may be shared with other users of that social media feature (unless otherwise stated at the point of collection), over whom we may have limited or no control. 


Links to third party websites

Grant Associates’ websites may contain links to third parties’ websites. Those other websites are not subject to our privacy policy and procedures. You will need to review those websites to view a copy of their privacy policy.

Grant Associates also does not endorse, approve or recommend the services or products provided on third party websites. 


Your choices

You have several choices regarding your use of Grant Associates’ website. In general, you are not required to provide personal information when you visit our website. However, if you request information about our services, register for services, events and updates or wish to apply for a job, provision of certain personal information will generally be required.

If you do not want to receive marketing material from us, you can contact us as detailed below:

  • for electronic communications, you can click on the unsubscribe function in the communication or
  • for hard copy communications, you can email itsupport@grantassociatesinc.com