DAFNI Terms and Conditions

Outline

Using DAFNI requires a user to agree to a number of terms and conditions. This page gives users a central place to view these terms and conditions and to refer to when signing up for DAFNI.

The terms and conditions are listed below by title. Please read each carefully before using DAFNI.

Data Policy

Scope

DAFNI is the National Platform to satisfy the computational needs in support of data analysis, infrastructure research, and strategic thinking for the UK’s long term planning and investment needs. As a platform, DAFNI does not itself produce datasets or the tools to process and analyse them, but it hosts this type of content (hereafter referred to as assets) and as custodian assumes corresponding responsibilities and rights over it. The assets include datasets, models, workflows and visualisations.

This policy statement pertains to the curation, access, ownership, use and storage of the assets. The intent is to seek to maximize the scientific impact of the assets through maximizing opportunities for reuse and validation, while respecting restrictions on access where appropriate, for example while research work is ongoing within a particular group of users.

This is not an acceptable use policy nor a policy on privacy and data protection, though there is some overlap. Separate policy statements deal with these aspects.

In what follows, the owner of an asset is defined as a user of the DAFNI platform who is responsible for the asset (often its creator), to whom questions on the asset would be directed, and (as specified below) may choose who has access to it.

Submission policy

An asset is submitted to the DAFNI platform by the owner of the asset (or an authorised representative of the owner). There is no transfer of ownership on submission. However, the DAFNI platform may need to take control of the asset after its submission, for example to maintain dependencies or for curation (see below).

It is the responsibility of the creator to ensure that the DAFNI platform is permitted to host the asset.

Submissions should not contain any material that is offensive, defamatory, violates intellectual property rights of third parties, includes identifiable personal information, or contains a virus or other malware.

Submissions should have an associated licence governing the use of the asset1.

Submissions will be checked for compliance with the above conditions.

Access policy

The separate Acceptable Use Policy also governs conditions of access; the statements below relate specifically to access to assets.

Access to a particular asset may be either open to all registered users of the DAFNI platform, or restricted by the owner of the asset to particular individuals.

Licences on assets must be respected by users of the asset.

There is no transfer of rights or ownership on access.

DAFNI accepts no liability for the correctness of the content of assets or for its interpretation or use.

Retention, deletion and curation policy

The normal expectation is that assets submitted to the DAFNI platform will be retained indefinitely throughout the lifetime of the platform itself, even if the owner ceases to be a user of the platform, in order to maintain possible dependencies between assets.

Assets may be removed from the platform without notice if they are found to contravene the submission policy.

In some circumstances, after discussion and agreement with DAFNI management, assets may be removed from the catalogue (though not the platform) at the request of the owner.

The DAFNI platform has the right to curate the assets to enhance their value and ensure their continued usability in future. Such curation includes but is not limited to assigning persistent identifiers (PIDs), indexing and (possibly in future) file format migration.

Privacy Policy

STFC is one of nine Councils within UK Research and Innovation, an organisation that brings together the UK’s Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England. Our Privacy Notice, which describes how STFC and other UK Research and Innovation Councils handle personal data can be accessed on the UKRI website.

STFC may collect personal information from you via this website, for example, if you register with us for services, in order to receive news and announcements, and your information may be stored manually or electronically.

DAFNI services are part of STFC and in order to effectively provide that service to you, we need to collect information about you and may need to contact you from time to time with regards to its provision.

During the course of normal business we will automatically track certain information about you in the course of you using our website and facility. For Example, we will collect your IP address and browser identification. This information is used only for system administration and for providing statistics to evaluate use of these sites.

Here is a full explanation of the kind of information we collect:

What information do we collect about you?

We collect personal information about you (e.g. your name, contact details and organization) when you register with us or request to use our services. We also collect information when you voluntarily complete user surveys and provide feedback. Website usage information is collected using cookies and google analytics.

When you request a particular service we may collect more personal information about you in order to process the request. For instance, when requesting access to the DAFNI facility.

How do we collect personal data

DAFNI uses different methods to collect Data from users.  For example DAFNI would normally collect Personal Data directly when:

  • enquiring about using DAFNI's facilities;
  • applying to use, or use DAFNI's facilities;
  • attending a DAFNI event and signing up for the event through event online tools;
  • signing up for DAFNI mailing lists through send-in-blue to subscribe to news;
  • Social media links for example DAFNI LinkedIn site (https://www.linkedin.com/company/dafni-facility-for-national-infrastructure/), DAFNI YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRHp7bTVyeBC4F9p6fJbyGw/featured) and DAFNI Twitter Account (@dafnifacility)
  • developing partnership agreements and engaging in bids and grants;
  • participating in a DAFNI Committee or taking part in a DAFNI Pilot programme;
  • using our DAFNI website, we are using Google Analytics to analysis the usefulness of the DAFNI Website;
  • using the DAFNI facility, we will continually monitor user stats to further improve the system;
  • using the DAFNI facility, you will automatically be added to our Community User channel located on Slack;
  • completing our contact form on our website to ask to be contacted with further information;
  • registering information for the purposes of joining the DAFNI platform;
  • using online survey tools to improve our services.

In certain instances, DAFNI may receive Personal Data of a DAFNI User from a third party.

For example, DAFNI may receive identity Data and Contact Data from an organisation that a DAFNI User represents or from publicly available sources, such as for example, registering to newsletters, event management, LinkedIn or Twitter.

How will we use the information about you?

We collect information about you to process your application to use our facilities, manage your DAFNI/Slack account and, if you agree to join to our mailing list, we will email you about various topics to update you on latest news item from DAFNI. If you register for one of our events we will also contact you about the event and we will not share your personal details and any event analytics will be anonymised.

For how long will we keep the data?

DAFNI will keep Personal Data that is provided to it by DAFNI users for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which DAFNI has collected it. This may mean that DAFNI retains a user’s Personal Data for a period of ___(typically up to seven years -  must include EPSRC/ NERC/Alan Turning policy on this, anything funded from a grant will have its own policy on this? We need advice!) after a user has ceased to have a relationship with DAFNI. In the case of DAFNI Committee Members with a role of governance, DAFNI may keep a record of their Personal Data indefinitely.

Manage which lists you are subscribed to

You can request at any time to be removed from our DAFNI lists.

Manage who we share your name and organisations details with

Through the platform you will be able to share your user-name with other users on the platform.

Cookies

Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. They are widely used in order to make websites work (or work more efficiently). Cookies are also used to provide information to the owners of the website.

DAFNI use cookies as follows:  On our website to track visitor use of our websites and to compile statistical reports on website activity to help us improve our website to make it easier for you to access the services you require.  In this case we use Google Analytics to provide this tracking information.

On the DAFNI facility we issue a personal token identifier to help ensure the security and authenticity of registered users. When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. This sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, a computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:

  • enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information during multiple tasks,
  • recognising that you have already given a username and password so you don't need to enter it for every service requested,
  • measuring how many people are using services, so there is enough capacity.

You may refuse to accept cookies, however this would affect the quality or functionality of the service. by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue "session cookies" cookies when you visit our site.

For more information on cookies, and how to delete and control them visit AllAboutCookies.org.(waiting for the team to let us know if this is true)

Third-party services we use

This is the list of the current services we use. This list can change at any time.

These providers do however have their own privacy and cookie policies.

Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy and Conditions of Use (“AUP”) defines the rules and conditions that govern your access to and use (including transmission, processing, and storage of data) of the resources and services (“Services”) as granted by the DAFNI Governing Board for the use of the Data and Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (DAFNI) for the purpose of for the purpose of conducting activities furthering the science goals and missions supported by the DAFNI and its partner organizations. More information about DAFNI, its goals, structure and partners can be found at https://www.dafni.ac.uk).

Your access to DAFNI is described and enabled through your application to the DAFNI operational management team and subject to approval by the DAFNI Governing Board.

To further define and limit what constitutes acceptable use, the community, agency, or infrastructure may optionally add additional information, rules or conditions, or references thereto, here or at the placeholder below. These additions must not conflict with the clauses 1-13 below, whose wording and numbering must not be changed.

  1. You shall only use the Services in a manner consistent with the purposes and limitations described above; you shall show consideration towards other users including by not causing harm to the Services; you have an obligation to collaborate in the resolution of issues arising from your use of the Services.

  2. You shall only use the Services for lawful purposes and not breach, attempt to breach, nor circumvent administrative or security controls.

  3. You shall respect intellectual property and confidentiality agreements.

  4. You shall protect your access credentials (e.g. passwords, private keys or multi-factor tokens); no intentional sharing is permitted.

  5. You shall keep your registered information correct and up to date.

  6. You shall promptly report known or suspected security breaches, credential compromise, or misuse to the security contact stated below; and report any compromised credentials to the relevant issuing authorities.

  7. Reliance on the Services shall only be to the extent specified by any applicable service level agreements listed below. Use without such agreements is at your own risk.

  8. Your personal data will be processed in accordance with the privacy statements referenced below.

  9. Your use of the Services may be restricted or suspended, for administrative, operational, or security reasons, without prior notice and without compensation.

  10. If you violate these rules, you may be liable for the consequences, which may include your account being suspended and a report being made to your home organisation or to law enforcement.

  11. You shall respect licensing conditions related to assets made available on the DAFN platform and published with those assets.

  12. You shall on request report the results of the use of DAFNI for the purposes of services performance monitoring and reporting usage to the DAFNI Governing Board.

  13. You shall provide appropriate acknowledgement of support for your use of the resources/services provided, in accordance with recommendations for acknowledgement referenced below.

The administrative contact for this AUP is: info@dafni.ac.uk

The security contact for this AUP is: info@dafni.ac.uk