Contact
SGS reference person for data protection: Francesco Bellotti (contact@seriousgamessociety.org, franz@elios.unige.it, +39 010 3532227 or +39 380 1950922)
Last updated: 23rd August 2022
Thank you for visiting the SGS website. This policy explains what information we collect when you visit our website, register to the Games and Learning Conference (GaLA Conf) or subscribe to the SGS, as well as how and why we collect and use it.
The SGS website is owned and managed by SGS (Serious Games Society). GaLA Conf is managed by the SGS.
We take your privacy seriously and are proactive in ensuring the necessary steps are taken to protect your personal data.
Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer’s hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server, to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.
Some cookies used on our website are essential to its functionality. For example, in multi-page forms, cookies are set to enable inputted data to be transferred from one page to another. Cookies used for this purpose are set to expire upon form completion, after an elapsed time, or when a visitor closes their browser.
Our website uses the cookies set by wordpress.com, whose policy can be found here. The privacy policy of Automattic, the company that manages the wordpress.com blog hosting service, can be consulted on this page. The Automattic cookie policy is available on this page.
You can at any time disable cookies on your browser. The setting allowing you to do this can usually be found in your browser’s Tools or Preferences menu. Certain parts of the SGS website’s functionality might be affected by disabling cookies.
Whilst using our website, registering to GaLA Conf, or subscribing to the SGS, you may be required to provide personal data (name, address, email, academic/professional affiliation, country, etc.). We will use this data essentially to allow participation at GaLA Conf and/or inform you on academic and industrial activities about development and deployment of serious games, as detailed later. We will ensure that all personal data supplied is held securely in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679.
You have the right at any time to request a copy of the personal data we hold on you. Should you wish to receive a copy of this, or would like to be removed from our database, please contact us at contact@seriousgamessociety.org, franz@elios.unige.it (Tel. +39 010 3532227 or +39 010 353 2795 or +39 393 976 2508)
The WordPress platform hosting this website site does not collect personal data about visitors and only collects the data shown on the User Profile screen by registered users. However, some plugins may collect personal data, as specified below. The privacy policy of Automattic, the company that manages the wordpress.com blog hosting service, can be consulted on this page. The Automattic cookie policy is available on this page.
We normally collect the following personal data from individuals when they register for GaLA Conf and/or as members of the SGS:
We normally collect the following personal data from individuals when they sign up for a webinar or for the SGS mailing list (typically issues call for papers, and a newsletter), which is also included in the membership:
When visitors leave comments on the site, the WordPress platform could collect the data shown in the comment form over the visitor's IP address and the browser's user agent string to facilitate detection of spam.
An anonymized string created from your email address (otherwise known as hash) can be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The privacy policy of the Gravatar service is available here. After approving your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
If you leave a comment on our site, you can choose to save your name, email address and website in cookies. They are used for your convenience so you do not have to re-enter your data when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for a year.
If you have an account and access this site, a temporary cookie will be set to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie does not contain personal data and is deleted when you close the browser.
When you log in, several cookies will be set to save your login information and screen display options. The access cookies last two days while the cookies for the screen options last one year. If you select "Remember me", your access will persist for two weeks. If you exit your account, access cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie does not include personal data, but simply indicates the ID of the just edited article. Expires after 1 day.
This data is collected in order to participate to GaLA Conf and/or to subscribe to the society (which includes also inclusion in the mailing list) and to allow interested people to receive information about activities related to the SGS via the mailing list.
The information about the research Lab, company or school, the field of employment, the website addresses and the Twitter accounts, which are not mandatory, will be used for anonymous statistics and for improving the networking and communication on the event.
The Webinar registration form is used to grant access to webinars.
Cookies for comments are used for your convenience, so you do not have to re-enter your data when you leave another comment.
SGS collects this data in two possible ways:
When you complete the online payment you enter your details in a text box. All this information requires a direct action by you at that time in order for us to receive it.
For the conference registration (and for the serious game Competition and Exhibitions as well) we use Google Forms by Google, whose terms and conditions can be read here, and GDPR compliance here.
For the payment we use the Quick Paypal Payments plugin, which leads to Paypal, whose privacy notice can be read here.
We also use the plugin Better Payment.
For the Webinar registration, we use WordPress Form Builder Lite version.
The website has been built using WordPress and a plugin called Elementor.
Note: GaLA Conf 2021 was held fully online through the Brella platform, whose privacy notice can be read here and the attendees terms here.
You may give us written permission (e.g. via email or a sign-up form) or oral (e.g. by telephone or in-person) for us to set up an account on your behalf.
Information about data collection for blog comments is specified here.
If you register to GaLA Conf and/or as a SGS member, and/or as a person interested in receiving from the SGS mailing list, your personal data will be stored on a database on our server (currently hosted at the University of Genova and backed up at Dropbox, whose policy can be read here Inc.). All your personal data will be accessible by SGS, which takes the security of this database seriously.
The SGS president, council and secretary of the SGS have access to your email address, name, affiliation and country to fulfil the societal activities (members only) and to allow the sending of news to the mailing list. The above SGS people and the yearly GaLA Conf chair and local organizers and the proceeding chair (https://conf.seriousgamessociety.org/organization-structure/) have access to the above data, and the postal address, in order to manage participation (e.g., printing the conference participant receipts and badges, preparing the proceedings). Data are shared via Dropbox, whose policy can be read here Inc. and/or Google Drive, whose terms of service are stated here.
A third party will have access to the database only where strictly necessary for server maintenance or development and only of the duration of the project. We take your privacy very seriously and actively take steps to ensure access is providing securely.
Visitor comments may be checked via an automatic spam detection service available on the WordPress platform.
For conference, game competition and exhibition registration, data are stored through Google Forms by Google, whose terms and conditions can be read here, and GDPR compliance here.
Webinar registrations are collected by WordPress Form Builder Lite, which, according to their information, does not store data on their server.
Note: GaLA Conf 2021 was held fully online through the Brella platform, whose privacy notice can be read here and the attendees terms here.
Data collected for registering to the conference (conference, competition, exhibition) will be used just to allow participation at the conference.
The names and email addresses of the SGS members and of the SGS mailing list members will be used to provide them information about SGS-related activities, and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
The authors' twitter account, the name of the research Lab, company or school and the webpage will be cited in tweets about their presentation. As said above, all this information is not mandatory to be provided. The emails about the conference organization might be adapted depending on the field of employment of the attendees. All this non-mandatory information will also be used to produce anonymous statistics for the SGS and the GALA conference organizers.
For the webinars, we use the email addresses received from WordPress Form Builder Lite to notify participants about the connection modalities.
Subscription Renewal
SGS may contact members and old members for subscription renewal
Consent Renewal
SGS may contact any registered user before their data is deleted (see below) to provide them with the opportunity to renew consent and remain on the system.
SGS Mailing list
If you sign up to the SGS mailing list, you will receive emails from the SGS president and/or secretary (approx. twice/three times a month) about opportunities (e.g. Call for papers, exhibitions, summer schools, serious games competitions, etc.), and new SGS blog posts.
Direct Emails
On rare occasions, SGS may directly contact SGS mailing list subscribers for specific issues/opportunities.
SGS will not retain the personal data of the members longer than necessary. The data you provide as a member will be stored for up to 5 years after the deadline of your latest subscription, unless otherwise requested by you.
If you sign up to the SGS mailing list, your personal data will be stored until your un-subscription request.
If legally required or if it is reasonably necessary to meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, or enforce our policies, we may also retain some of your data for a limited period of time as required, even after it is no longer needed to provide the Services to you.
Concerning blog comments, if you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are kept indefinitely. This is how we can automatically recognize and approve any subsequent comments instead of keeping them in a moderation queue. For users who register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can view, modify or delete their personal information at any time (except for their username that they can not change). Website administrators can also view and edit this information.
We understand that you trust us with your personal data and we are committed to ensuring you can manage the privacy and security of your personal data yourself.
With respect to the data relating to you that ends up in our possession, and recognise that it is your choice to provide us with your personally identifiable data, we commit to giving you the ability to do all of the following:
Please note, we are constantly reviewing how we process and protect data. Therefore, changes to our policy may occur at any time. We will endeavour to publicise any changes.
Complaints or questions relating to your data protection and privacy should be directed to the SGS reference person for data protection: Francesco Bellotti (contact@seriousgamessociety.org, +39 010 353 2227 or +39 010 353 2795 or +39 393 9762508).