Protecting Patron Identifiable Information
Where possible, we limit the collection of Patron Identifiable Information and provide tools for Privacy Scrubbing all PII information from your LibAnswers system.
Privacy is Important to You and
it's Important to Us, Too!
Patron Identifiable Info
Patron information is never sold, shared, or distributed outside of Springshare
At minimum, LibAnswers collects:
- Patron Email Address
- Phone Number (SMS / Texting Module)
Optionally, you can enable collection of:
- Name
- Demographic information via custom questions
- IP Address (enable / disable on ticketing queue level)
- Type of Browser & Operating System used (enable / disable on ticketing queue level)
Your LibAnswers Data
Springshare never shares, sells, or distributes your data
When using LibAnswers, you may share information about yourself which may be considered private information including your name and email address.
We are extremely careful when handling your data.
We take every effort to protect your data online.
We will never misuse your data internally, or resell it externally.
You have the right to know what data you submitted to us and how we use it.
We care about protecting your data as much as you do!
Scrubbing Patron Identifiable Information from LibAnswers
Springshare provides an option to regularly scrub personally identifiable patron information from your LibAnswers data. We offer two types of scrubbing.
- Patron information scrubbing, including any or all of the following: name, email, IP address, and SMS/phone numbers.
- Full information scrubbing of tickets, chat and Chatbot transcripts, and Reference Analytics transactions. This includes patron info when applicable plus the full text of what we think of as the main content of tickets, transcripts, and transactions -- the original patron question, all of the back-and-forth replies between patrons and staff, internal notes, attachments, etc.
GDPR-Compliant & Regionally Hosted Data Servers
GDPR Compliance
As of May 25, 2018 - Springshare is fully compliant with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.
View Springshare's GDPR Compliance Statement including what we've done to ensure compliance.
- Customizable Data Submission Notice - Add a customizable data submission notice that allows you to tell your patrons:
- What data is stored
- Why it is stored
- Where it's stored
- And for what purposes will their data be used
- Even if you don't reside in the EU, the data submission notice is a great way to engender trust with your users by being completely transparent with how their personally identifiable information is being handled.
Data Submission Notice
Regionally Hosted Data-Servers
Springshare currently has four data servers around the world to ensure that your LibAnswers data, including patron-data, does not flow into or out of the United States.
Regional Server Clusters
- Canada - All Canadian LibAnswers systems are stored on a server cluster in Canada.
- Europe - All European LibAnswers systems are stored on a server cluster in Europe.
- Australia / New Zealand / Asia - All LibAnswers systems in these regions are stored on a server cluster in Australia.
- United States - All LibAnswers systems in South America, United States, Africa, and all remaining countries are stored on a server cluster in the United States of America.