Article

Online Privacy Notice

This policy was last updated on 20/11/2023.

For California consumers, please refer to the Springer Nature CCPA policy.

This is the privacy policy (“policy”) for masterclasses.nature.com which is run and provided by Springer Nature Ltd (we, us and our) in conjunction with Springer Nature AG Co KGaA. Springer Nature Ltd is located at The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW.  We can also be contacted at feedback@nature.com.

We will only use the personal data gathered over this website as set out in this policy. Below you will find information on how we use your personal data, for which purposes your personal data is used, with whom it is shared and what control and information rights you may have.

I. Summary of our processing activities

We provide online courses and articles. Some of this material is freely available, some if it is only available to registrants and/or subscribers. The following summary offers a quick overview of the data processing activities that are undertaken on our website. You will find more detailed information under the indicated sections below.

When you visit our website for informational reasons without setting up an account, only limited personal data will be processed to provide you with the website itself (see III).

If you register, further personal data will be processed in the scope of such services (see IV and V).

If you are identified as belonging to a customer organisation then we collect information in order to be able to provide usage reporting to that customer.

Furthermore, your personal data will be used to provide you with relevant advertising for our services and products (see VII) and for statistical analysis that helps us to improve our website (see VIII). Additionally, we improve your website experience with third party content (see IX).

Your personal data may be disclosed to third parties (see X) that might be located outside your country of residence; potentially, different data protection standards may apply (see XI).

We have implemented appropriate safeguards to secure your personal data (see XII) and retain your personal data only as long as necessary (see XIII).

Under the legislation applicable to you, you may be entitled to exercise certain rights with regard to the processing of your personal data (see XIV).

II. Definitions

Personal data: means any information relating to a natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, or an online identifier.

Processing: means any operation which is performed on personal data, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or any kind of disclosure or other use.

III. Informational use of the website

When you visit our website for informational reasons, i.e. without registering for any of our provided services listed under IV and without providing us with personal data in any other form, we may automatically collect additional information about you which will contain personal data only in limited cases and which is automatically recognised by our server, such as:

Examples might include:

- your IP address;

- your device type, name and IDs;

- the date and time of your requests;

- the content of your requests;

- information on your browser version;

- your screen resolution;

- information on your operating system, including language settings.

We use such information only to assist us in providing an effective service (e.g. to adapt our website to the needs of your device or to allow you to log in to our website), and to collect broad demographic information for anonymised, aggregated use.

The personal data automatically collected is necessary for us to provide the website, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR, and for our legitimate interest to guarantee the website’s stability and security, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

IV. Requesting information about our services

You can request to be contacted about the product via our website. 

You can further request to be contacted about the product via Facebook. For this purpose, we are using Facebook Lead Ads, a service by Meta Platforms Inc, 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, USA (“Meta”). Lead Ads makes it even easier for you to request to be contacted as the form will already be pre-populated via Facebook with your data and you only need to submit the form. Of course, you have the opportunity to amend and review the data before submission. For more information on how lead ads works see here - https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/lead-ads.

The legal basis for this processing is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. Your email address will be retained until you request the removal of your email address. 

If you inquired about the product but no longer wish to be contacted, you can email onlineservice@springernature.com, citing the name of the product, and request that your email address be removed. 

V. Registration for our services

Access to registrant/subscription content is provided via a variety of mechanisms such as IP site licenses, login via third party federated identity providers or by a personal account with us. If your access to our content is provided by an organisation or an institution like a university or a company then they choose the access method on your behalf.

If you create a personal login with us then we will store and process the following:

- Information (such as your name, email address, job title, disciple and country/territory) that is provided by registration;

- Information in connection with an account sign-in facility (e.g. log-in and password details);

- Communications sent by you (e.g. via e-mail or website communication forms).

The information that is necessary for the performance of the service is labelled accordingly. All further information is provided voluntarily.

We will process the personal data you provide:

Examples might include:

- Identify you at sign-in;

- Provide you with the services and information offered through the website or which you request;

- Administer your account;

- Communicate with you;

- (behavioural) Advertising and profiling

- Provide access (where appropriate) to other Springer Nature group content if you so request

For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR. The use of your personal data for behavioural advertising and profiling is done based in consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

You can object to the use of your personal data for direct marketing at any time. We will then refrain from any processing to the extent it is related to such purposes. You may opt-out of direct marketing via opt-out links in any marketing communication or via user profile pages on the website (where available). You can also inform us about your objection by contacting our Data Protection Office at dataprotection@springernature.com.

We offer email notifications if you register. Registration is provided by means of a double-opt-in. Thus, you will receive an email containing a link by which you can confirm that you are the owner of the email address and wish to register. You can unsubscribe from our email notifications by opting out via the link provided in each notification email. This notification service is based on your consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

Registration data is kept until such time as an account deletion request is made. If such a request is received we will erase your data within 30 days. Statutory storage obligations or the need for legal actions that may arise from misconduct within the services or payment problems can lead to a longer retention of your personal data. In this case, we will inform you accordingly.

VI. Information about the specific uses that require registration

1. Email notifications

If you register you can receive our email notifications.. The legal basis for this processing is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

Registration is provided by means of a double-opt-in. Thus, you will receive an email containing a link by which you can confirm that you are the owner of the email address and wish to register.

You can unsubscribe from our email notifications by opting out via the link provided in each notification email.

2. Access to online courses  

You are required to register on the site in order to access the online courses. We will keep a record of the course content you have completed. This will enable us to provide you with a certificate of completion when appropriate. We will keep a record of your awarded certificates. We will still retain this data if a user profile is deleted – if you wish to request this data is removed after user profile deletion, please contact the Nature Research Customer Service team at:
- For customers in the US, Canada, Central and South America: email americas.os@springernature.com
- For customers in Japan: email japan.os@springernature.com
- For customers elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region (South Korea, China, Australia, etc.): email asia.os@springernature.com
- For customers in the UK and Rest of World: email row.os@springernature.com

We will also track the time spent on the site, time spent within each course, pageviews, and visits to the website in order to be able to increase the user experience (technical improvement) and content presentation (course structure). We use Google Analytics (see section VIII) to track this navigational behaviour.

3. Usage reporting to organisations  

If you register and are identified by IP or equivalent method as belonging to a customer organisation such as a university or a company then we will also collect the identity of that organisation and use it to create usage reports which show the organisation how much of the content we publish is being read by their students, members or employees. This information contains personal data such as the name, job role and discipline you supplied upon registering to Nature Masterclasses. 

VII. Automated decision making

We do not use your personal data for automated decision making which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you, however we do use your personal data to offer you content and services which we believe may be of interest.

VIII. Online advertising

We present online advertising provided using the services of Google Ad Manager, Google AdExchange, Google AdSense, Sovrn OnScroll. Respective advertisement is labelled as ”ADVERTISEMENT” or “AdChoices”. In order to do so, we collect statistical information about you that will be processed by Salesforce DMP, Oracle MOAT, Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager, Google AdExchange, Google AdSense, Sovrn OnScroll.  This processing is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR and is based on consent to improve your website experience and receive promotional material on our products and services. We collect this data via a cookie management tool; you can update your preferences via the “Manage cookies/Do not sell my data” link in the page footer. The above providers will be automatically informed about your visit on our website. For such purpose, a web beacon is used to place a cookie on your computer.

Please note that we neither have the control of the extent of personal data that is collected by the respective plug-in provider nor do we know the processing’s purpose or the period your personal data will be retained. Your personal data will be transferred to and processed inside and outside of the EEA. For further information about the potential risks of a cross border data transfer refer to XI.

It is possible that the above providers may disclose your personal data to its business partners, third parties or authorities.

You can prevent the installation of such a cookie (i) by a respective setting of your browser that blocks the installation of third party cookies, (ii) by deactivating the interest-related advertising under https://www.google.co.uk/ads/preferences, (iii) generally blocking cookies under https://www.google.co.uk/settings/ads/plugin or (iv) by deselecting the option for tracking cookies via the masterclasses.nature.com cookie banner.

Further information about the processing of your personal data in the provider’s course of operation is provided by its privacy policy. Moreover, you will be provided with further information with regard to your rights and settings concerning privacy. You can access the provider’s privacy policy by following these links:

Google AdSense 

Twitter

Facebook

Linkedin

Sovrn OnScroll

Salesforce DMP 

Oracle MOAT

Hotjar

Permutive

Google Analytics

Google Ad Manager

Google AdWords Remarketing

In this Website, we use the remarketing or “Similar audiences” feature of AdWords offered by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, hereinafter referred to as “Google”

Google uses Cookies/tracking technologies, i.e., text files that are stored on your computer and that allow us to analyze your use of our Website. Information generated by Cookies/tracking technology on your use of this Website (including your IP address) will be transferred to a Google server in the U.S. and stored on that server. After that, the last three digits of the IP address will be deleted by Google so that it is no longer possible to clearly match this IP address with personal data. Google will use this information to analyze your use of the Website, to create website activity reports for the website operators and to provide additional services in connection with the use of the Website and the Internet. Furthermore, Google may transfer this information to third parties, if it is required to do so in accordance with statutory provisions or if third parties process data on behalf of Google.

Third party providers, including Google, place advertisements on websites on the Internet. Third party providers, including Google, use stored Cookies/tracking information to place advertisements based on previous visits of a user on this Website.

For additional information on the anonymous analysis of your search behaviour please refer to:

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de

http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/

You may object to data collection and storage for the purpose of remarketing at any time - this objection will be effective for the future, but not retroactively - by deactivating interest-based advertising in Google or by deactivating the services on the website of the Network Advertising Initiative. Note: in that case, you may not be able to use all features of this Website anymore. By using this Website, you grant your consent to the processing of data collected about you by Google in the manner and for the purpose described above.

Facebook Custom Audience

This Website uses retargeting tags and Custom Audience of Meta Platforms Inc, 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, USA (“Meta”), hereinafter referred to as “Facebook”.

When you visit our web pages, remarketing tags will build a direct connection between your browser and the Facebook server. This way, Facebook learns that you have visited our web page with your IP address. This will enable Facebook to match your visit of our pages with your user account. The information obtained this way can be used to display Facebook ads. Please note that we as the provider of the webpages do not receive any information on the contents of data transferred and their use by Facebook.

With regard to the use of Custom Audience we would like to point out that Facebook and third parties use cookies, web beacons or similar technologies to collect or gather information on this Website. Based on the data gained we can make our Facebook activities more efficient and, e.g., arrange for contents or ads to be shown only to visitors of our Website. The data collected this way will be encrypted and transferred to Facebook and is anonymous for us, e.g., we cannot see personal data of individual users.

We may also utilise other tools, such as Permutive, to build anonymous behavioural segments, and pass the status of membership of these segment(s) into the Facebook cookie. This will enable membership of these segments to be used when building Custom Audiences within Facebook.

For further information on the privacy policy of Facebook and Custom Audience please refer to https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/ or https://www.facebook.com/business/a/online-sales/custom-audiences-website.

If you do not wish your data to be collected via Custom Audience, you can deactivate Custom Audience using this link.

IX. Analytics

OneTrust

We use Onetrust, a service provided by OneTrust LLC, Dixon House, 1 Lloyd's Avenue, London, EC3N 3DQ (“Onetrust”). We use Onetrust services to provide information about the cookies and other tracking technology used on our website and to manage user preferences on that behalf. 

Onetrust places the following cookies on your computer:

OptanonAlert,  OptanonConsent, _dc_gtm_UA-xxxxxxxx

This allows us to identify if the cookie banner is displayed, which choices you made and how to act upon those choices (Opt-in or Opt-out of cookie categories). These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences. To review your current settings please go to our Privacy Preference Centre. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

You can set your browser to block these cookies, but some parts of the site may then not perform as designed.

For more information about privacy policies and Onetrust, please refer to the Onetrust website: https://Onetrust.com/privacy-notice/.

For statistical analyses we use web analytics services such as Google Analytics, collect information about the use of this site.

General tracking information

The tools collect information such as:
- Device and browser information (operating system information, Mobile device identifier, mobile operating system, etc.)

- IP address
- Page accessed, URL click stream (the chronological order of our internet sites you visited)

- Geographic location

- Time of visit

- Referring site, application, or service

We use the information we get from the providers to determine the most useful information you are looking for, and to improve and optimise this website.

We do not share information on your web behaviour with any 3rd party providers without your explicit consent. Consent is provided by clicking the appropriate button on the web banner that appears on your first visit to the website. You can update or withdraw your consent by visiting our Privacy Preference Centre. The legal basis for this processing is Art. 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR and represents you consent to accepting 3rd party targeting cookies.

Depending on the provider the information generated about your use of the website may be transferred to and processed in third countries, e.g. the United States. For further information about the potential risks of a cross border data transfer please refer to section XI. The tools collect only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, rather than your name or any other identifying information. The provider will use this information in order to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activities and to provide other services relating to website and internet use to us.

Google Analytics / Google Tag Manager / Big Query

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland (“Google”). The cookie set by Google Analytics on your device causes your web browser to transmit corresponding information to Google each time our website is called up. For example, Google Analytics collects data about the website from which a data subject has accessed a website (so-called referrer URL), which subpages of the website have been accessed or how often and for how long a subpage has been viewed. On our behalf Google will use the information generated by the cookie for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet activity in connection with the use of the website and according to your consent preferences.

The processing affects the following data categories :

- IP addresses

- Online identifiers (including cookie identifiers)

- Device identifiers

- Technical characteristics of users (e.g., browser type and version, device type, operating system)

- Measurement of user behavior (e.g., views of individual pages / content, views of content from different areas, session duration / dwell time, bounce rate

- Use of individual website functionalities (e.g. timetable information, search queries, downloads)

- Referral URL

We use the addition "_gat._anonymizeIp”  for web analysis via Google Analytics. By means of this add-on, your IP address is shortened and anonymized by Google before transmission to the USA if our website is accessed from a member state of the European Union or the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there.

The legal basis for the data transfer is Art. 28 GDPR in conjunction with the data processing agreement. The transfer of your personal data is subject to your consent according to Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR[UJ4] . You can consent to the processing of your data by Google Analytics using our Consent Manager, prevent the collection of your data or revoke consent once given. For revocation, call up the cookie settings again at the bottom of our website.

The information processed by Google about your use of this website may be transmitted to a Google server outside the EEA and processed there. The cross-border transfer is safeguarded by the Standard Contractual Clauses 2021.

Your personal data will be anonymized by Google 14 months after your last activity, unless there is a legal obligation to retain it.

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser or by amending your preferences. In addition to that you may prevent the collection of the information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including you IP address) and the processing of this data by Google if you download and install the browser plug-in available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. You can access the Google Analytics privacy policy here

In addition to the above, we use historic pseudonymised Google Analytics data to recommend content to you based on your website activity, particularly suggesting articles that may be of interest. 

The legal basis to process your data in this instance is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR, our legitimate interest to improve and increase the use of our website as well as your interest in discovering content that is relevant to you. We will retain the data for 14 months, unless longer retention is legally required or allowed.

X. Third party content and social media plug-ins

1. Social media plug-ins

We use the following social media plug-ins: Facebook, Twitter. This allows you to communicate with such services and like or comment from our website. Social media plug-ins enable a direct communication between your device and the servers of the social media provider, allowing the social media provider to communicate with you and collect information about you browsing our website. This processing is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR and represents our legitimate interest to improve your website experience and to optimise our services.

Transfer of personal data takes place whether you have an account with the provider or not.

Please note that we neither have the control of the extent of personal data that is collected by the respective plug-in provider nor do we know the processing’s purpose or the period your personal data will be retained.

Further information about the processing of your personal data in the provider’s course of operation is provided via their respective privacy policy. Moreover, you will be provided with further information with regard to your rights and setting concerning privacy.

a) Facebook Social Plugins

We use so-called social plugins („plugins“) of the social networking site facebook.com,a service of Meta Platforms Inc, 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, USA (“Meta”). The plugins can be identified by one of Facebook’s logos (white “f” on blue tile or a “thumps-up”-sign) or by the additional text “Facebook Social Plugin”. The list of Facebook Social Plugins and their appearance can be accessed via: http://developers.facebook.com/plugins.

If a user visits one of the websites using such a plugin, the user’s browser directly connects to Facebook’s servers. The plugin and its content are made available directly on Facebook’s servers and included in the website by the user’s browser.

Due to the integration of the plugin Facebook collects the information that a user is visiting the corresponding website. If the user is logged in on Facebook at the moment he or she visits the website, Facebook may be able to connect the visit on the website to the user’s Facebook account. If the user interacts with the plugin – for example if he or she presses the like button or comments on something – the user’s browser transmits this information to Facebook. Facebook stores this information. If a user is not a member of Facebook, Facebook may collect and store the user’s IP-address. Facebook states that it only collects anonymized IP-addresses in Germany.

The reason for and scope of the data acquisition and information about the way in which the data is processed and used by Facebook, as well as the user’s rights in this respect and settings options for protecting the users privacy can be found under: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

If the user is a member of Facebook and does not wish Facebook to collect personal data via this homepage and to link this with his data stored on Facebook, the user needs to log off from Facebook before going to this homepage.

The user may also block Facebook’s plugins using add-ons for the user’s browser, for example the “Facebook Blocker“.

b) Twitter

We use the twitter-button. The button is provided by Twitter Inc., 795 Folsom St., Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. (“Twitter”) The buttons are marked using the text “Twitter” or “Follow” and a stylized blue bird. The button enables the user to share an article or a website of this homepage on Twitter or to follow the provider on Twitter.

If a user visits one of the websites using such a button, the user’s browser directly connects to Twitter’s servers. The Twitter-button and its content are loaded directly from Twitter’s servers and included in the website by the user’s browser. According to the provider’s knowledge, Twitter collects the user IP-address and the website’s URL when the button is loaded from Twitter’s servers. However, this data is only be used for loading and displaying the Twitter-button.

Further information can be found in Twitter’s privacy statement under: https://twitter.com/privacy.

Should you have any questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us via the email address dataprotection@springer.com.

XI. Cross border data transfers

Within the scope of our information sharing activities set out above, your personal data may be transferred to other countries (including countries outside the EEA) which may have different data protection standards from your country of residence. Please note that data processed in a foreign country may be subject to foreign laws and accessible to foreign governments, courts, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies. However, we will endeavour to take reasonable measures to maintain an adequate level of data protection when sharing your personal data with such countries.

In the case of a transfer outside of the EEA, this transfer is safeguarded by EU Model Clauses in accordance with Article 46 GDPR. You can find further information about the aforementioned safeguards by following this link https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en or contact our Group Data Protection Officer via dataprotection@springernature.com for specific information on respective safeguards.

XII. Security

We have reasonable state of the art security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control. For example, our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised personnel have access to personal data. Whilst we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of information will never occur, we use all reasonable efforts to prevent it.

You should bear in mind that submission of information over the internet is never entirely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of information you submit via our website whilst it is in transit over the internet and any such submission is at your own risk.

XIII. Data retention

We strive to keep our processing activities with respect to your personal data as limited as possible. In the absence of specific retention periods set out in this policy, your personal data will be retained only for as long as we need it to fulfil the purpose for which we have collected it and, if applicable, as long as required by statutory retention requirements.

XIV. Your rights

Under the legislation applicable to you, you may be entitled to exercise some or all of the following rights:

1. require (i) information as to whether your personal data is retained and (ii) access to and/or duplicates of your personal data retained, including the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned, and the data recipients as well as potential retention periods;

2. request rectification, removal or restriction of your personal data, e.g. because (i) it is incomplete or inaccurate, (ii) it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, or (iii) the consent on which the processing was based has been withdrawn;

3. refuse to provide and – without impact to data processing activities that have taken place before such withdrawal – withdraw your consent to processing of your personal data at any time;

4. object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, that your personal data shall be subject to a processing. In this case, please provide us with information about your particular situation. After the assessment of the facts presented by you we will either stop processing your personal data or present you our compelling legitimate grounds for an ongoing processing;

5. take legal actions in relation to any potential breach of your rights regarding the processing of your personal data, as well as to lodge complaints before the competent data protection regulators;

6. require (i) to receive the personal data concerning you, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and (ii) to transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from our side; where technically feasible you shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted directly from us to another controller; and/or

7. not to be subject to any automated decision making, including profiling (automatic decisions based on data processing by automatic means, for the purpose of assessing several personal aspects) which produce legal effects on you or affects you with similar significance.

You may (i) exercise the rights referred to above or (ii) pose any questions or (iii) make any complaints regarding our data processing by contacting us using the contact details set out below.

XV. Contacting us

Please submit any questions, concerns or comments you have about this privacy policy or any requests concerning your personal data by email to our Group Data Protection Officer. You can contact our Group Data Protection Officer via dataprotection@springernature.com. In case of other questions related to the functionality of the website or your account please contact us at feedback@nature.com.

The information you provide when contacting us will be processed to handle your request and will be erased when your request is completed. Alternatively, we will restrict the processing of the respective information in accordance with statutory retention requirements.

XVI. Amendments to this policy

We reserve the right to change this policy from time to time by updating our website respectively. Please visit the website regularly and check our respective current privacy policy.