Privacy Notice - West Academic

Your privacy is important to West Academic, and we go to great lengths to protect it. This Privacy Notice applies to the collection of information about you via this West Academic website (the “Site”), via email, over the phone, or from third parties.  Our goal is to provide you with a personalized experience that delivers the information, resources and services that are most relevant and helpful to you.  To achieve this goal, we collect information from you and about you. We will not disclose your information to any person or organization outside West Academic, except as described in this Privacy Notice.

To demonstrate our commitment to your privacy, we have prepared this notice disclosing our privacy practices.  Here, you will learn what personal identifying information of yours is collected, how and when we might use your information, how we protect your information, who has access to your information, and how to correct any inaccuracies in the information.

Types of Information That We May Collect

To create an account, you will need to provide us with certain personally identifiable information, including type of customer (e.g., student, faculty, etc.), and contact information.  You will need to give us accurate contact information, keep that contact information accurate, and set a unique password that you keep confidential.  When you access products and services through that account, we may collect information about your use of those products and services.

To make a purchase, you will need to provide us with contact information and payment card information.

When you interact with our customer service representatives or communicate with us via email, we may collect the information that you provide to us.

When you purchase some of our products, such as those that contain quizzing functionality, you are authorizing us to communicate with representatives of your school about your use of those services.  In those instances, we may obtain your contact information and other information about you that will us to better service you and the school.

Web server logs: When you visit the Site, we may track information to administer the site and analyze its usage, and we may use third party online analytics services. Examples of information we may track include:

  • your internet protocol address
  • browser used (user-agent)
  • links clicked
  • the state or country from which site was accessed
  • the date and time of your visit
  • the website you visited before you entered our Site
  • the pages viewed within our Site

Cookies: Our websites use cookies (i.e., small bits of text that our servers place into a file on your computer’s hard drive). This is used to save your preferences user name, and provide personalized functionality. You can reject cookies by changing your browser settings, but be aware that this will disable some of the functionality on our websites.

How We Use the Information That We Collect

We will use the information we collect to provide products and services to you, and to allow you to access products and services using your account credentials. 

We may use the information we collect to provide you with promotional information about additional products and services we think you may be interested in.  If you don’t want to receive promotional materials from West Academic, you can contact us to opt out at any time. To make such a request, please send an email to  privacy@westacademic.com, or opt out within your user account profile.  If you have questions about opting out, send an email message to privacy@westacademic.com.

We will not sell, rent or lease mailing lists or other customer data to others, and we will not make your personal information available to any unaffiliated parties, except as follows. 

  • To agents and/or contractors who may use it on our behalf or in connection with their relationship with us (for example, we may use third parties to fulfill your request for products or services or help us with promotional campaigns).These agents or contractors may have access to your information if needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for their own purposes.
  • West Academic includes quizzing functionality that is available for students or schools to assess progress in conjunction with certain designated casebooks or subject areas. When you use this functionality, you agree that representatives of the school may have access to the results of your quizzing. In certain situations, West Academic may have a written contract with your school.
  • In connection with our Site, we use third-party online analytics services such as those of Google Analytics. These analytics services use automated technologies to collect information (such as email address, IP address, and device identifiers) to evaluate use of our products and services and to diagnose technical issues. You can obtain more information about how Google Analytics collects, and processes and uses this data at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en and https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/
  • To respond to your requests, or otherwise with your consent.
  • As required by law, in a matter of public safety or policy, as needed in connection with the transfer of our business assets (for example, if we are acquired by another company) or if necessary to enforce our Terms and Conditions or other legal rights.
  • We may share information that does not identify you personally for any reason at our sole discretion.

How We Protect Your Information

West Academic uses reasonable physical, technical, and administrative measures to prevent the loss, misuse and alteration of information under our control.  We allow our employees and service providers to access your information only when the information is necessary for them to do their jobs. Our employees and service providers who have access to your information are required to protect it and keep it confidential.

When customers provide financial information (such as a credit card number), that data is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology.  Although no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, we maintain PCI-DSS compliance. 

We will keep your information for as long as needed to provide you with our products and services and otherwise at our discretion or in accordance with applicable law.

Process to Review and Opt Out

West Academic will upon your request disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. You can also request that we delete information we collect from you.  You can also designate an agent to make a request by having them execute a notarized power of attorney to act on your behalf. To make either a request for information or request to delete information, you can contact us at 1-877-888-1330 for instructions or, if you have created an account with us, please link to either or signin.westacademic.com/RequestToKnow  or signin.westacademic.com/RequestToDelete and sign on to your password protected account to make your request. We will send you an email and ask you to confirm your request. We will evaluate your request and respond within 45 days.

Sales of Information: West Academic does not sell your data to third parties, but you may opt out of any future sales of personally identifiable information.  If you have not created an account with West Academic, please call our toll-free number at 1-877-888-1330 or if you have an account,  sign in to change your preferences. When you elect this option, we will record your preference. If we start selling customer information, we will not sell yours.

We will not discriminate against you because you have made this request. You can designate an agent to make a request by having them execute a notarized power of attorney to act on your behalf.

Do Not Track Disclosures

Some web browsers may transmit “do-not-track” signals to the websites with which you are communicating. Because of differences in how web browsers incorporate and activate this feature, it is not always clear whether you intend for these signals to be transmitted, or whether you even are aware of them. Because there currently is no industry standard concerning what, if anything, websites should do when they receive such signals, we currently do not take action in response to these signals.

Children's Information

We will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children, without permission from a parent or guardian. If we become aware that we have collected information personally identifiable information about a person who is under the age of 13, we will remove that information from our files.

We are an American Company so We Follow US Law

Our products and services are directed towards users who live in the United States. By establishing an account, making a purchase, or using the Site, you consent to the collection, storage, processing, and transfer of your information in pursuant to US law.

Your California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosures of your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to  privacy@westacademic.com or a mail us at the address below.

Our Privacy Notice is designed to meet the standards in the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and the California Privacy Rights Act of 2023 (“CPRA”). Even so, we need to specifically advise you of the following information and rights of California residents.

We have disclosed, above, the categories of personal information we have collected about consumers in the past 12 months, the categories of third parties with which we share this information, the categories of information shared, and the purposes for the sharing. 

You have the right to opt out of the sale of your information, which is described above under “Process to Review and Opt Out.”

You have the right to obtain information about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:

  • The categories of personal information we collected about you
  • The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you
  • Our business purpose for collecting that personal information
  • The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information
  • The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
  • The right to request correction of inaccuracies of personal information we have collected about you. By visiting your account settings, you can correct and change certain personal information associated with your account.
You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:
  • Provide contact information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
  • Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.  To make a request for information contact us at 1-877-888-1330 for instructions or, if you have created an account with us, please link to signin.westacademic.com/RequestToKnow.

Upon confirming your request, we will evaluate and respond to your request for information within 45 days.

You have the right to ask us to delete certain personally identifiable information about you which we have collected.

To submit a request to delete, you must:

  • Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
  • Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request to delete personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you. You may call Customer Service at 1-877-888-1330 for instructions or, if you have created an account with us, please link to signin.westacademic.com/RequestToDelete. 

West Academic will notify you once the deletion of your data has been completed, but certain personal information may be retained by us if we need to do any complete any of the following activities for which we may need to retain your data:

  1. Provide goods or services to you;
  2. Detect and resolve any issues related to security or functionality;
  3. Comply with legal obligations

Privacy Policy Changes

If our information practices change in a significant way, we will post the policy changes and/or email you at the address you have provided to us. 

Questions? 
Please send an email message to privacy@westacademic.com. 

Our address: 

860 Blue Gentin Road, Suite 350
Eagan, MN 55121
Phone: 877-888-1330 Ext. 4

Effective Date: January 1, 2022