OCC Privacy Notice

The College recognizes the importance of protecting private information provided to the College by students, employees, guests and community members. As such, the College shall appropriately collect, manage, utilize and secure any confidential personal data provided to the College. More specifically, the College shall:

  • Collect, store, and use the minimum amount of personal information that is necessary for its legitimate business purposes, and to comply with legal obligations.
  • Take reasonable steps to ensure the personal information is accurate and current.
  • Limit access of personal information to only those who need it for a legitimate, specific purpose.
  • Protect personal information with reasonable security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access.
  • Communicate with OCC students, faculty, employees, suppliers, partners, and others about how the College use’s personal information in its day-to-day operations by
    • posting this policy in the form of a Privacy Notice on the college web site; and
    • posting a privacy consent statement on its online application.
  • Provide individuals the opportunity to control their personal information, as permitted by applicable United States and other laws.
  • Only disclose private information with the individual’s consent or as required by law.
  • Conduct periodic review of its privacy policy, procedures, and notice.

How Information is Collected

Information is collected in the following ways:

  • Directly provided by students, employees, guests, suppliers, partners and others.
  • Through automated technological processes such as cookies placed on computers during visits to OCC websites.
  • From other (third-party) organizations for legitimate, specific purposes (for example, transcripts for admissions purposes).

Types of Information Collected

Automatically collected information about an individual’s visit to the College’s website includes, without limitation:

  • The Internet domain from which a visitor accesses the website.
  • The IP address assigned to the visitor’s computer.
  • The type of browser the visitor is using.
  • The date and time of visit.
  • The address of the website from which the visitor has linked to oaklandcc.edu.

The College also collects the following:

  • Information provided by students during the application process.
  • Information provided directly to the College or a third party contracted by the College for recruitment and employment-related services by individuals during the job application process.

The College also collects information through the use of third parties the College has contracted for advertising and marketing services through visits to oaklandcc.edu or its social media sites. Information collected may include:

  • Content viewed during the visit.
  • Date and time of visit.
  • Amount of time spent on the website.
  • Visitor location based on IP address.
  • Demographic information.
  • Personally identifiable information, voluntarily submitted to oaklandcc.edu, such as email address, name, telephone number or street address.

How Information Is Used

Personal information may be used for educational programs (e.g., recruitment or admission), administrative purposes (e.g., employment), university engagement (e.g., attending a university sponsored event), or contacting students, alumni or donors, or any other purpose related to College business.

Information about user visits to the College’s webpage is used to monitor and improve the College’s website performance, revise content, and market to prospective students and others.

With Whom This Information Will Be Shared

The College does not sell or rent personal information. The College may, however, share personal information in limited circumstances, such as with service providers that support business activities. The College requires service providers to keep personal information secure and does not allow service providers to use or share personal information for any purpose other than providing services on the College’s behalf.

The College may also share personal information upon written request and receipt of a signed release, when required by law, or when the College determines sharing will help to protect the safety, property, or rights of the College, members of the community, and guests.

Cookies

The College uses cookies, which are small pieces of information sent to a browser by a website visited by the user. These cookies do not collect personally identifiable information. Cookies are used to track usage patterns, traffic trends and customer behavior, as well as to record other information from the website. Many content adjustments and customer service improvements are made based on the data derived from cookies. Information that the College collects from cookies will not be used to create profiles of users and will only be used in aggregate form.

Social Media Plugins

Some of the pages on the College’s website have embedded social media sharing buttons. Social media platforms use cookies or other tracking technologies when a button is embedded on the website. The College does not have access to, or control of, any information collected through these buttons. The social media platforms are responsible for how they use information. For specific privacy controls on how these buttons track how users access our website, see the cookies policies of Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

Web Beacons

A "tracking pixel" (sometimes called "web beacons", "transparent GIFs", "clear GIFs", "pixel gifs", or "pixel tags") is a tiny, invisible image that allows the College to track activities based on pages visited. Tracking pixels redeliver advertising and notifications through third party vendors. No personally identifiable information is collected through these retargeting services, and the College does not sell or rent the information collected through tracking pixels. Information collected through tracking pixels can only be shared with third parties in aggregated form and in accordance with the College's privacy policy.

Offsite Links

Links to non-College organizations are provided solely as a service to users. The College is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of external web links.

How Information Is Secured

Although no computer system is 100 percent secure, the College has deployed extensive security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under its control. Concern about the accuracy of information contained in personal records should be directed to the custodian of the record, which is typically the department that collects and maintains the information. For example, contact Enrollment Services about information collected through the Web application for admission.

Perkins and WIOA Acts

In order to improve instruction offered by the College and to meet the requirements of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, 20 USC 2323 (“Perkins”), and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, 29 USC 2842 (“WIOA”), the College uses Social Security Numbers (“SSN”) in order to compile summary reports. Both Perkins and WIOA require the College and the State of Michigan to assess the effectiveness of vocational and technical education programs aimed at training, placement and retention of students in employment. Although these laws require that performance reports be compiled based on wage record information, neither law requires students to give their SSN to the College.

The College uses SSNs in order to gain access to individual wage records and compile required Perkins and WIOA reports. These reports assist the College to improve vocational and technical education programs. By improving programs, the College will be better able to serve both employers and employees. Wage record information is confidentially maintained, based on SSNs, by the State of Michigan.

Neither the College nor the State of Michigan will disclose SSNs or wage record data to any person or entity unless legally permitted or required to do so. Any personally identifying wage record data will be destroyed by the College as soon as all required statistical analysis has been performed, or when the information is no longer needed, which ever date comes first.

Who to Contact with Questions or Concerns

Any concerns or questions how personal data is used should be addressed to the OCC Webmaster at webmaster@oaklandcc.edu.

The College will attempt to respond promptly to all requests and make reasonable best efforts to help with concerns. Complaints regarding concerns not appropriately addressed may be directed to the local data protection authority. Individuals also have the right to submit a complaint in the state of residence or place of work of potential violations of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

For persons in the European Union (“EU”)

To the extent individuals in the EU provide personal information to the College, the processing of that information may fall under the GDPR.

Personal information will be processed for legal purposes in the context for which the information was collected or provided.

The College recognizes the rights of EU residents under the GDPR to access data, ask for erasure, correction, restriction, portability of information, and object to the processing of information covered by
the GDPR.

Personal data will be maintained as long as necessary to satisfy the purposes for which it was collected and processed, and as otherwise required by law. The College will strive to provide the safeguards required by GDPR for information transferred from the EU to the College.