Privacy Policy
GTG Advocates (“GTG”) is committed to protecting your privacy, and consequently shall always act in compliance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2001 and the regulations issued thereunder.
By visiting our web-site, you are accepting and consenting to the practices set out in this policy.
Collection of personal data online
General Note
If you do nothing during your visit to our website, but browse or download/print information, our system would be automatically collecting and storing the following information about you and your visit.
The Internet Protocol (I.P.) Address and domain name used will be automatically stored and collected but this does not extend to the email address. The Internet Protocol address is a numerical identifier assigned either to your Internet service provider or directly to your computer.
We use the Internet Protocol Address to direct Internet traffic to you and to identify the type of browser and operating system you used. Moreover the date and time you visited this site, the web pages or services you accessed at this site and the website you visited prior to coming to this web site will also be logged and collected.
For website management purposes, information is collected for statistical and/or historical purposes. As is the case with most systems we use software programs to create summary statistics, which are used for such purposes as assessing what information is of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas.
For website security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, we monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations and the security purposes mentioned elsewhere in this notice, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction.
Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under Maltese law and/or any International Agreement or Legal Instrument.
If during your visit to this website you send an email, the email message and email address may be retained by the server. We use your email to respond appropriately. This may be to respond to you, to address issues you identify, to further improve our web site, or to forward the email to another agency for appropriate action.
The information collected is not limited to text characters and may include audio, video, and graphic information formats you send us.
Information Use
Profile
We store information that we collect through cookies, log files, clear gifs, and/or third parties to create a profile of our users. A profile is stored information that we keep on individual users that details their viewing preferences. Collected information is tied to the users personally identifiable information to provide offers and improve the content of the site for the user. This profile is used to tailor a user’s visit to our website, and to direct pertinent marketing promotions to them.
Cookies
A cookie is an item of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. For the session ID cookie, once users close the browser, the cookie simply terminates. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the user’s hard drive for an extended period of time.
By setting a cookie on our site, users would not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. If users reject the cookie, they may still use our site. The only drawback to this is that the user will be limited in some areas of our site. Persistent cookies enable us to track and target the interests of our users.
Some of our business partners may use cookies on our site. We have no access to or control over these cookies, once we have given permission for them to set cookies for advertising.
Log Files
Like most standard Web site servers we use log files. These include internet protocol addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.
Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)
We employ a software technology called clear gifs (or Web Beacons/Bugs), that help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content is effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of the users. Clear gifs are invisible on the page and are much smaller, about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
Clear Gifs can “work with” existing cookies on a computer if they are both from the same Web site or advertising company. That means, for example, that if a person visited a website, which uses an advertising company’s clear gif, the website would match the clear gif's identifier and the advertising company's cookie ID number, to show the past online behaviour for that computer.
This collected information would then be given to the advertising company.
Data Sharing
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our website. We do share aggregated demographic information.
Service Providers
We partner with other third parties to provide specific services. When the user signs up for these particular services, we share names, or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide these services.
Business Transitions
In the event GTG goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets, users’ personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred.
Links
This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.
Security
This website takes every precaution to protect our users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the website, their information is protected both online and offline.
When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked/open, when users are just ‘surfing’.
While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users’ information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information. Also, all employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices.
Correcting/Updating/Deleting Personal DATA
If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as phone, email or postal address), or if a user no longer desires our service, we provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate users’ personally identifiable information. This can be done by sending an email to info@gtgadvocates.com.
Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:
GTG Advocates
66, Old Bakery Street
Valletta
Malta
Tel: +356 21242713
E-mail: info@gtgadvocates.com
Website: www.gtgadvocates.com |
