Last Updated: April 7, 2026
Who we are:
ƵAPP
Scope:
Campus websites under the ucmerced.edu domain.
What we collect:
- From you: Registration info; payment info; inquiries; emails; survey responses; application info
- Automatically: Device and connection log data; authentication data; analytics data; location data; cookies and tracking data
- From others: UC info; social media info; marketing and surveys; analytics data; community partners data; public sources
Why we use your data:
- Contractual obligations
- Day-to-day operations
- Registration
- Communication
- Respond to your inquiries
- Surveys and feedback
- Marketing and advertising
- Features and functionality of the website
- Personalize our Services
- Research, educational, and publication
- Analyze trends, administer the website, track movement
- Improve and customize our Services
- Test, enhance, update our Services
- Distinguish you from other users
- Maintain the safety, security, and integrity
- Enforce our Terms of Use and agreements
- Legal and regulatory obligations
- Other lawful purpose
Sharing of data:
- Within the University of California
- Marketing Providers
- Customer Service and Communication Providers
- Other Service Providers (e.g., website hosting, payment processing)
- Survey Providers
- Academic Research and Education
- Online Advertising Partners
- Legal Obligations and Rights
- With Your Consent
- Refuse cookies
Your rights:
- Access records
- Modify and in some cases delete
- Withdraw consent
- Not use our services
Safeguards:
- Legal, administrative, physical, and technical
Please read the full statement below for details and more information.
I. WHO WE ARE
ƵAPP, a campus operated by the Regents of the University of California, is a higher education research institution in the United States. ƵAPP is transforming California and a diverse global society by educating, by generating and disseminating knowledge and creative works, and by engaging in public service.
II. SCOPE
This Privacy Notice explains how the ƵAPP (“ƵAPP”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise processes personal information in connection with our website and other websites we own and operate that link to this Privacy Notice (the “Sites”), and the related content, platform, and other functionality offered on or through our Sites (collectively, the “Services”). When we collect personal information that is part of a student or an applicant’s educational record (“Student Data”), we collect, use, store, and otherwise process such information in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). To the extent that our processing practices in connection with Student Data differ from this Privacy Notice, the practices described in this Privacy Notice will not apply. Our services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Except where they post, link to, or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Statement, or have a contract in place with the University, this Privacy Statement does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third-party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties. To learn more about the personal information practices of third parties, please visit their respective websites.
III. WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?
When we use the term “personal information” in this Privacy Statement, we mean any data or information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular natural person or household or any other data or information that constitutes “personal data”, “personal information,” or “personally identifiable information.” As noted above, it does not include protected health information under HIPAA.
IV. OUR COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We collect personal information in a variety of ways. For example, you may provide us your personal information when you contact us or send us messages, conduct a search on our Sites, subscribe to our mailing lists, newsletters or other forms of marketing communications, submit a job application, participate in a survey, make a purchase at our gift shop, or use some other feature of our Service.
We may link or combine your activities and information collected from you on our websites and mobile apps with information we receive from third parties, as well as information we collect automatically through tracking technologies (defined below).
Personal Information Collected from You
We may collect the following categories personal information submitted to us by individuals through the Services:
- Contact Information, including first and last name, email address, your country or region and communication preferences. We use this information to fulfill your request, to communicate with you directly, and to send you marketing communications in accordance with your preferences.
- Payment Information, if you make a purchase at one of our gift shops or register for one of our Events or Conferences, we may collect payment information in order to complete your transaction. Please note that we use third party payment processors to process credit card payments made to us. As such, we do not retain any personally identifiable financial information in connection with credit card payments, such as credit card numbers. Rather, all such information is provided directly by you to our third-party processor. The payment processor’s use of your personal information is governed by their privacy notice.
- Inquiry and Communications Information, information provided in custom messages sent through the forms, in chat messages, to one of our email addresses, or via phone. We use this information to investigate and respond to your inquiries, and to communicate with you, to enhance the Services we offer to our users and to manage and grow our organization.
- Newsletter and Marketing Emails, including email address and applicable interests and communication preferences. We use this information to manage our communications with you and send publications highlighting the latest findings in medicine, research and wellness to support healthy active living. If you wish to stop receiving email messages from us, simply click the “unsubscribe link” provided at the bottom of the email communication. Note that you cannot unsubscribe from certain services-related email communications (e.g., account verification, technical or legal notices).
- Surveys and Feedback Information, we may collect information from you relating to our Services through surveys or other means. Information collected may include responses to questions, testimonials, and demographic information. We use this information to administer and facilitate the Services, to respond to your submission, to communicate with you, to conduct market research, inform our marketing and advertising activities and improve and grow our business.
- Events and Conferences Registration Information, including account login information and event registration information.
- Employment Application Information, including your contact and demographic information, educational and work history, employment interests, information obtained during interviews and any other information you choose to provide, if you apply for employment.
Personal Information We Collect Automatically
We and our third-party partners may automatically collect certain information from or in connection with your device when visiting or interacting with our Services, such as the list below and in the sub-sections here:
- Log Data, including internet protocol (IP) address, operating system, device type and version, browser type and version, browser id, the URL entered and the referring page/campaign, date/time of visit, other user agent string data, the time spent on our Services, and any errors that may occur during the visit to our Services). Log data may overlap with the other categories of data below.
- Analytics data, Including the electronic path you take to our services, through our services and when exiting our services, UTM source, as well as your usage and activity on our services, such as the time zone, activity information (first and last active date and time), usage history (flows created, campaigns scheduled, emails opened, total log-ins) as well as the pages, links, objects, services you view, click or otherwise interact with.
- Location data, such as general location information we derive from your IP address.
We and our third-party providers may use (i) cookies or small data files that are stored on an individual’s computer and (ii) other, related technologies, such as web beacons, pixels, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, and logging technologies (collectively, “cookies”) to automatically collect this personal information. We may also use this information to distinguish you from other users of our Services. This helps us monitor and analyze how you use and interact with our Services. It also helps us and our partners to determine products and services that may be of interest to you.
For more information about these practices and your choices regarding cookies, please see the Cookie Notice.
Personal Information from Third Parties
We also obtain personal information from others, and sometimes we combine it with personal information we collect either automatically or directly from you. We may receive the same categories of personal information as described above from the following entities:
- University of California: We may receive personal information from other units or departments that are part of the University of California.
- Social Media: When you interact with our Services through various social media networks, such as when you “Like” us on Facebook or follow us, comment, or share our content on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, we may receive some information about you that you permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon your privacy settings with the social network and their privacy and data practices, and it may include certain profile information.
- Service Providers: Our service providers that perform services on our behalf, such as survey and marketing providers and payment processors, collect personal information and often share this information with us. The information may include contact information, demographic information, transaction information, and information about your communications and related activities.
- Analytics Tools: We utilize Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information about your interactions with our Services. The information generated by the cookie, including your IP address, browser type, operating system, referring URLs, pages visited, and the date and time of your visit, is transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. If you have a Google account, Google has information about you, such as your age, gender, interests, and online behaviors that it can combine with other information about you. Adsense and DoubleClick tracking data are also used to ascertain a user's interests based on browsing behavior, eventually forming a pattern that can be assigned to market segments.
- Community Partners: We may receive your personal information, such as name and email address, from our community partners through which we may offer events, programs, or services that contribute to improving the lives and livelihoods of our communities.
- Other Sources: We may also collect Personal Information about individuals that we do not otherwise have from, for example, publicly available sources, third-party data providers, or through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions.
Through the provision of our Services, we may also process anonymous and otherwise deidentified information that cannot reasonably be used to infer information about, or otherwise be linked to, a particular consumer or household. ƵAPP commits to maintain and use the information in deidentified form and will not attempt to reidentify the information, except in instances where necessary for determining whether the deidentification process used by ƵAPP satisfies the requirements under applicable law.
Additional Uses of Personal Information
We may use personal information we collect to:
- Fulfill or meet the reason the information was provided, such as to fulfill our contractual obligations, to deliver the Services you have requested and to process transactions;
- Manage our organization and its day-to-day operations;
- Register you for and provide you access to events and conferences;
- Communicate with individuals, including via email, social media and/or telephone calls;
- Request individuals to complete surveys about our organization, organizations we partner with, and Services;
- For marketing and advertising purposes, including but limited to, marketing to you or offering you through digital display, search, email or direct mail, information and updates on products or services we think that you may be interested in (where applicable, we may send you marketing messages if you have given us your consent to do so); to conduct market research, and to inform our marketing and advertising activities;
- Administer, improve and personalize our Services, including by recognizing an individual and remembering their information when they return to our Services;
- Identify and analyze how individuals use our Services, and to improve and customize our Services to address the needs and interests of our user base and other individuals we interact with;
- Test, enhance, update and monitor the Services, or diagnose or fix technology problems;
- Help maintain the safety, security and integrity of our property and Services, technology assets and business; and
- To resolve disputes, to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights, and to protect our business interests and the interests and rights of third parties; and
- To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide personal information and or any other lawful purpose, or other purpose that you consent to.
Where you choose to contact us, we may need additional information to fulfill the request or respond to inquiries.
V. OUR SHARING AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We may also share, transmit, disclose, grant access to, make available, and provide personal information with and to others, as follows:
- Within the University of California: We may share personal information with other locations, units, or departments that are part of the University of California.
- Marketing Providers: We may coordinate and share personal information with our marketing providers in order to communicate with individuals about the Services we make available.
- Customer Service and Communication Providers: We share personal information with third parties who assist us in providing our customer services and facilitating our communications with individuals that submit inquiries.
- Other Service Providers: In addition to the third parties identified above, we engage other third-party service providers that perform business or operational services for us or on our behalf, such as website hosting, infrastructure provisioning, IT services, analytics services, employment application-related services, payment processing services, and administrative services.
- Survey Providers: We share personal information with third parties who assist us in delivering our surveys and processing the responses.
- Academic Research and Education: Data may be provided for research, educational, and publication purposes 1) in accordance with IRB, Campus Privacy Office, and Office of Information Assurance requirements, if in identifiable form, or 2) in aggregated format such that no identifying information from you will be contained in the release.
- Online Advertising Partners: We may also share personal information with advertising networks or permit these partners to collect information from you directly on our websites to facilitate online advertising, such as search engines and social network advertising providers, to serve targeted ads to you or to groups of other users who share similar traits, such as likely interests and demographics, on third-party platforms. For more information, including how to opt out of interest-based advertising, please see the Cookie Statement.
- Legal Obligations and Rights: We may disclose personal information to third parties, such as legal advisors and law enforcement:
- in connection with the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims;
- to comply with laws or to respond to lawful requests and legal process;
- to protect our rights and property and the rights and property of others, including to enforce our agreements and policies;
- to detect, suppress, or prevent fraud;
- to protect the health and safety of us and others; or
- as otherwise required by applicable law.
- With Your Consent: We may disclose personal information about an individual to certain other third parties or publicly with their consent or at their direction.
VI. YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES OVER YOUR INFORMATION
You may control your information in the following ways:
- Email Communications Preferences: You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the link identified as “manage” or “unsubscribe” or a similar term provided in such communications. You may opt-out of service-related communications (e.g., account verification, transactional communications, changes/updates to features of the Services, technical and security notices).
- Modifying or Deleting Your Information: If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting your information, you can contact us directly at privacy@ucmerced.edu. We may not be able to modify or delete your information in all circumstances.
Depending on your jurisdiction or state of residence, you may also have a right to:
- Access records associated with your account;
- Rectify or correct inaccurate or incomplete information concerning you, taking into account the purposes of the processing, and the right to have incomplete data completed;
- Have your personal information erased in certain circumstances;
- Withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal information collected through our Services. The withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on your consent before its withdrawal.
UC may be obligated to retain your personal information as required by law, regulation, or policy.
You may exercise your rights and submit any questions or concerns using the procedure under “Contacting Us.” Please do not include any sensitive information in an email or voicemail message.
VII. HOW WE SAFEGUARD YOUR INFORMATION
ƵAPP’s information management practices conform to the requirements of the Information Practices Act of 1977 (Civil Code Section 1798, et seq.), the California Public Records Act (California Government Code Section 7920.000-7931.000), California Government Code Section 11015.5, and other applicable laws pertaining to information privacy.
Any information acquired by the ƵAPP through the Services is subject to the limitations set forth in the Information Practices Act. Electronically collected personal information is exempt from requests made pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1).
VII. CHILDREN’S PERSONAL INFORMATION
Our Services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit personal information from children under the age of 13. If an individual is under the age of 13, they should not use our Services or otherwise provide us with any personal information either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the personal information from our systems. If we learn that any personal information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that personal information.
VII. LINKS TO THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES OR SERVICES
Our Services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Except where we post, link to or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Notice, this Privacy Notice does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third-party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties. To learn about the personal information practices of third parties, please visit their respective privacy notices.
IX. UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. When we make changes to this Privacy Notice, we will change the date at the beginning of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we will notify individuals by email to their registered email address, by prominent posting on our Services, or through other appropriate communication channels. All changes shall be effective from the date of publication unless otherwise provided.
X. CONTACT US
If you have any questions or requests in connection with this Privacy Notice or other privacy- related matters, please send an email to privacy@ucmerced.edu.
Cookie Notice
Last Updated: April 7, 2026
If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to change the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser to: (i) notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies. Be aware that disabling cookies may negatively affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionalities and features of the Services.
Depending on your device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all cookies. In addition, if you want to reject cookies across all your browsers and devices, you will need to do so on each browser on each device you actively use. You also may set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.
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Scope of Notice
This Cookie Notice supplements the information contained in the Privacy Notice and explains how we and our third-party partners and service providers use cookies and related technologies in the course of managing and providing our online services and our electronic communication to you. It explains what these technologies are and why we use them, as well as your rights to control our use of them. This Cookie Notice does not apply to protected health information under HIPAA. We may use cookies and related technologies described in this Cookie Notice to collect personal information or to collect information that becomes personal information if we combine it with other information.
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What Are Cookies and Related Technologies?
Our Services use cookies, which are files downloaded to your device that allow us and our third-party partners to access and collect certain information about your interactions with our Services and that improve your experience. We and our third-party partners and providers may also use other, related technologies to collect this information, such as web beacons, pixels, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies and logging technologies (collectively, “cookies”).
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What We Collect When Using Cookies
We and our third-party partners and providers may use cookies to automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit or interact with our email communications and Services. For example, we and our third-party partners may (i): collect log data about your device and its software, such as your IP address, operating system, browser type, date/time of your visit and other similar information; (ii) collect analytics data or use third-party analytics tools to help us measure usage and activity trends for our online services and better understand the individuals using our services; (iii) record information you enter when you interact with our Services or engage in chat features through our Services; or (iv) collect location data, including general geographic location based on IP address.
We may include or engage in the following as part of our Services:
- Social Media Widgets. Our Services may include social media features or other widgets. These social media companies may recognize you and collect information about your visit to our Services, and they may set a cookie or employ other tracking technologies. Your interactions with those features are governed by the privacy policies of those third-party companies.
- Social Media Platforms. We may display targeted advertising to you through social media platforms and other social media forums. These companies have interest- based advertising programs that allow us to direct advertisements to users who have shown interest in our Services while those users are on the social media platform, or to groups of other users who share similar traits, such as likely commercial interests and demographics. We may share a unique identifier, such as a user ID, with these platform providers or they may collect information from our website visitors through a pixel, in order to direct targeted advertising to you or to a custom audience on the social media platform. These advertisements are governed by the privacy policies of the third-party social media companies that provide them. If you do not want to receive targeted ads on your social networks, you may be able to adjust your advertising preferences through your settings on those networks.
- Third Party Partners. We work with a variety of third-party partners to provide analytics and advertising services. For example, we may use Google Analytics or similar products on some Services to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Services on your browser or mobile device. We may also utilize certain forms of display advertising and other advanced features that enable us to use first-party cookies (for analytics purposes) and third-party cookies (for advertising purposes) or other third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and display ads based on your past visits to the Services.
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How We Use Information Collected via Cookies
We use cookies for a variety of reasons outlined below:
- If you create an account with us, we may use cookies for the management of the signup process and general administration. The Services may offer payment capabilities and some cookies are essential to ensure that your order is remembered between pages so that we can process it properly.
- When you submit data through a form, such as those found on the contact pages, cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.
- In order to provide you with a great experience on the Services, we may provide the functionality to set your preferences for how the Services run when you use it. In order to remember your preferences, we may set cookies so that this information can be called whenever you interact with a website page.
- We may use cookies to provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Services, monitor online usage and activities of our Services, and facilitate the purposes identified in the Our Collection and Use of Personal Information section of this Privacy Notice, including to assist us with our promotional and marketing efforts.
- We may also use the information we collect through cookies to understand your browsing activities, including across unaffiliated third-party sites, so that we can deliver information about products and services that may be of interest to you.
- Tracking technology used in emails helps us measure the effectiveness of our marketing email campaigns, make the emails we send to you more relevant to your interests and understand whether you have opened and how you interacted with our email.
Please note that we link some of the personal information we collect through cookies with the other personal information that we collect about you and for the purposes described in our Privacy Notice.
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Your Choices About Cookies
If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to change the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser to: (i) notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies. Be aware that disabling cookies may negatively affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionalities and features of the Services.
Depending on your device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all cookies. In addition, if you want to reject cookies across all your browsers and devices, you will need to do so on each browser on each device you actively use. You also may set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.
