Privacy Policy
Updated: October 7, 2025
University of Northwestern – St Paul (“University” or “Northwestern” or “we” or “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Polices applies to information collected through Northwestern’s websites and mobile applications (collectively referred to as “sites”), including related sub-domains, as well as information collected offline or in person. It explains what personal information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstance it may be shared. We may update this statement from time to time to reflect changes to our sites, the types of information we collect, or how we use that information.
Information We Collect
Personally Identifiable Information
Certain areas of our sites, including request and registration forms, collect voluntary information that is personally identifiable, such as name, zip code, and email address. We also collect data from you when you contact us online, by email or phone, schedule a visit or apply to be a student. This information includes your name, address, email address, phone number, education information (such as transcripts, SAT scores) and information you include in your application (such as in an essay). If you are involved in an incident at Northwestern, body cameras on our security personnel may be activated that will record video and audio of you and others involved in the incident. By entering the Northwestern campus, you consent to such recording.
Personally identifiable information also may be collected as part of a purchase or an online purchase, payment, or donation. In this case, Northwestern uses PCI-compliant third-party services to process your transaction (i.e. payment providers).
Biometric Information and GeoLocation: Northwestern collects biometric information and geo-location data from you when you physically enter Northwestern property for the sole purpose of detecting the presence of a person of interest (POI). POIs may include, without limitation, individuals who are currently on a trespass at Northwestern, who may be a threat to the Northwestern environment, who were identified to Northwestern by security enforcement, who display suspicious movements or activity or who are missing or may be in danger. By entering the Northwestern campus, you consent to such collection of biometric information and geo-location data.
If you are a POI, your geo-location data and photos of you are uploaded into the facial detection system used by Northwestern. The technology creates signatures by extracting facial measurement data—a mapping of an individual’s face. Signatures are stored separately from a pseudonymized identifier and are not associated with your name or other personally identifiable information. The technology monitors and works to match the faces on the video cameras with the signatures of the uploaded images. If a signature does not match an uploaded POI signature, the signature is not stored. If a signature is flagged as a potential match to a stored POI signature, the software system alerts the security team that a POI might be on property, which triggers further investigation by the Northwestern security team.
Northwestern strictly limits access to your biometric information. Data is stored within on-premises servers that certified vendors may service.
Northwestern keeps this biometric information no longer than needed to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected. For POIs, Northwestern will keep biometric information (in the form of a POI signature) for the duration of the bar, threat, or status as missing or in danger. For guests who are not POIs, a signature is created while the system determines whether the guest may be a POI and then is deleted once the analysis is complete. This analysis and deletion of signatures occurs in near real-time.
Other Information
As users access the sites, Northwestern collects analytics and systems information such as IP address, browser type, and site usage. This information is not linked to any other personal information and remains anonymous. To collect this information, Northwestern uses session “cookies” — that is, small text files that are placed on your computer hard drive or other device. The session cookies used by Northwestern do not give us access to your computer or other device and do not provide us with personally identifiable information other than analytics information such as pages viewed and number of viewers. Session cookies are deleted when you close your browser. You may modify your browser settings to disallow cookies, but this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website.
We use this information to:
- Generate anonymous, aggregated statistics to understand how visitors use our sites.
- Make our sites easier to use and faster to navigate.
- Evaluate and improve our resources and information.
- Enhance visitor experience improving navigation, content and overall site performance.
- Verify login activity, help prevent fraud or misuse, and protect the security of our sites.
Children’s Information
Northwestern does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children younger than thirteen years of age without obtaining prior parental consent as required by applicable law. Some Northwestern departments provide services to children. As a part of the online registration process for such services, we may request information from a parent or legal guardian such as a child’s name, address, cell phone, email, gender, grade level, birth date, school attended, clothing size, church and ethnicity. This information is not sold or otherwise provided to third parties, although some information may be provided to other Northwestern departments in order to provide the child with information about Northwestern. Before registering online for a service, Northwestern requests that all children have their parents read this Privacy Policy as well as any additional Privacy Policy associated with the service and have their parent or legal guardian register, and that parents continue their involvement throughout the registration process.
Use of Information We Collect
Use of Non-Personally Identifiable Information
We use non-personally identifiable information while you are browsing the website to improve your individual experience and provide you with more individualized responses. We also aggregate non-personally identifiable information from many users into statistical reports in order to better administer our website, diagnose server problems that may occur from time to time, and improve our website.
Use of Personally Identifiable Information
By providing personally identifiable information, you are providing consent to the collection and use of the information for the purposes for which it was provided. We use your information to provide relevant materials, products and services you request, and to facilitate relationships with Northwestern, such as the admissions process, your registration and administering your admission, and fund raising programs. We also use your information for security detection, prevention and enforcement.
You may opt out of receiving certain information from Northwestern by contacting the department from which the information came. Only those Northwestern employees who need personally identifiable information to perform a specific job are given access to the information.
Disclosure of personally identifiable information
We disclose information as necessary to provide our website and school services, as required by law, or as part of our practices as follows. We only disclose information on a need-to-know basis where appropriate safeguards and contractual arrangements are in place and as described below.
New Owner and Other Corporate Transactions. We may disclose or transfer your information to relevant third parties in the event of, or as part of the due diligence or during negotiations of, any proposed or actual reorganization, sale, merger, consolidation, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or part of our school (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceeding). Personal information may be part of the transferred assets. You may be notified thereafter of any such change in ownership or control through email or other means as applicable.
Event Sponsors. We may engage event sponsors. We may share information with them to provide and support our event.
Third-Party Service Providers. We disclose information with third-party service providers that require access to information to support our operations and delivery of our sites and school services. For example, we may use cloud hosting providers, professional services advisors, billing and payment providers, support providers, security providers, analytics providers and any other suppliers or sub-contractors acting on our behalf.
These service providers are authorized to use your information only as necessary to provide services to us. We may use and disclose aggregate information that does not identify or otherwise relate to an individual for any purpose unless we are prohibited from doing so under applicable law.
Legal or Public Authorities. We may disclose your information when:
It is reasonably necessary to comply with any applicable law or regulation;
We are required by law to comply or respond to any court order, legal process, government and/or regulatory request or we assist in an investigation;
Necessary to protect the security or integrity of our website, other individuals and/or Northwestern;
Necessary to protect against harm to the rights, property, or safety of Northwestern, its agents and affiliates, you, or the public as required or permitted by law; and
Necessary to respond to an emergency which we believe in good faith requires us to disclose information to assist in preventing the death or serious bodily injury of any person.
Any Other Party with Your Consent. We may disclose your information with other third parties with your consent. However, we do not sell any data to third parties.
We should include a specific subsection about not selling any data to third parties. We should be sure that is actually the case.
Rights
You may have certain rights, depending on applicable laws, such as the right to access your information, the right to know the data we have held about you, the right to update and correct
Security
In order to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of information gathered on our sites, Northwestern uses reasonable security measures designed to protect information within a controlled database environment accessible only to authorized Northwestern staff. However, as effective as any security measures implemented by Northwestern may be, no security system is impenetrable. Northwestern cannot guarantee the security of its database environment, nor can it guarantee that the information you provide will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the Internet.
Public Self-Disclosure
Northwestern does not control the actions of its site visitors nor the use that site visitors may make of publicly disclosed information. We encourage you to report any unsolicited/unwanted email or misuse of information to UNW.
Links to Other Websites
Our website may include links to other websites outside of Northwestern’s domain, including co-branded or affiliated sites that are not owned or operated by Northwestern. Because these sites are not covered by this privacy policy, we recommend reviewing their privacy practices before sharing any personal information.
Changes
We periodically review and update this privacy policy to describe new Services or changes to our practices. You can determine when this privacy policy was last revised by referring to the “Updated” date at the top of this privacy policy. We encourage you to review the privacy policy whenever you interact with us to stay informed about our privacy practices and the ways that you can help protect your privacy.
Contact Information
Questions about this privacy policy should be directed to the University at marketing@unwsp.edu
University of Northwestern – St. Paul
3003 Snelling Avenue North
St. Paul, MN 55113
