Southwestern Law School Online Privacy Policy

This policy describes how Southwestern Law School (“Southwestern,” “we,” “our,” and/or “us”) uses and protects the information collected through its website (https://www.swlaw.edu/) (“Site”) and the choices that are available to you regarding the use of the information you provide.  Southwestern processes your information in accordance with relevant data protection laws and, where applicable, with the General Data Protection Regulation.

Southwestern provides this Site as a service to all law school constituents and stakeholders.  Nothing contained herein constitutes an inducement, promise, or contract of any kind.  Southwestern is committed to respecting personal privacy, and we believe the practices that we have put into place allow us to guard individual privacy.

Unless otherwise stated, Southwestern is the data controller for all information collected under this Privacy Policy.  Southwestern’s contact information is listed at the end of this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected from or about current or former employees, contractors, volunteers, and other workers of Southwestern as part of their employment or working relationship with Southwestern.

Southwestern complies with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) as it pertains to student records.  FERPA allows for the release of specified “directory information” at the discretion of Southwestern.  By submitting your personal information, you are consenting to Southwestern holding and using your information in accordance with Southwestern’s FERPA policy. 

We may collect and process the following information about you depending on your interaction or transaction with us:  contact information (including name, home or mailing address, telephone number, social media username/handle, mobile phone and/or email address, etc.); financial information (including social security number, passport number, credit card number, financial aid application history, salary information, tax forms, payment history, donation attribution and amount, etc.); academic history (including educational history, reference letters, areas of interest); health record information (including past medical history, family history, allergies, current medical conditions, current medications, medical record number); demographic information (including age, birthdate, marital status, income, etc.); passport data/images; immigration documents; and profile information (including admissions date, graduation date, alumni status, student identification number, username, password, relationship to Southwestern, etc.).  Please note that we do not store full credit card information on our servers.  But we may keep a record of any correspondence and any information provided.

If you have consented to our use of cookies:

Technical information:  For example, the type of device (and its unique device identifier) you use to access our Site, the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, mobile network information and platform.

Information about your visit to our Site:  This includes but is not limited to the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from the Site (including date and time), pages you viewed, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.

Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) or personal information
Personally Identifiable Information or personal information is any recorded information that is about you and from which you can be identified.  If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), “PII” or “personal information” consists of all personal data as defined under EEA laws, including “sensitive personal information” which is provided heightened protections under those laws.

Personal information allows us to provide you with products, services, and information and enables us to offer a customized experience on our Site.  We use personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or otherwise disclosed to you on our Site.

We process personal information for purposes arising from your use of our Site.  We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another related reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.  If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will seek your consent to use it for that new purpose.

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us (or through third-party vendors), including any personal information:

To furnish you with information that you seek from us.

To process application, registration and enrollment requests when you apply, register or enroll for our programs, services or events, or otherwise administer your participation in our programs, services or events, including without limitation classes, financial aid, housing, dining, employment, and other Southwestern events.

• To collect and process donations, gifts and donor information.
• To administer requests from students, faculty, staff, and other members of the campus community for various services, including requests for identification cards and parking permits.
• To communicate with you regarding Southwestern, including (i) providing notices, news, updates, security alerts, special offers, confirmations, and administrative messages, (ii) responding to your questions, requests, comments or complaints, and (iii) determining your satisfaction with our programs, services or events.
• To communicate and work with volunteers.
• To operate, maintain, and provide to you the features, services, and functionality of our Site and its contents, and to monitor and improve our Site and the user experience.
• To inform you of changes to our Site or any services we offer or provide through it.
• To review your personal information for errors, omissions, and accuracy.
• To prevent, detect or investigate any fraudulent, abusive or illegal act.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Site.
• For any other purpose with your consent.

We may share your personal information with third parties who provide services on our behalf, such as those who help us to operate our Site.  We use third-party services such as, but not limited to, MailChimp, Intercom, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram to send promotional materials, emails and customized advertising about upcoming programs and events.  You may opt-out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link on any email you receive from us or by emailing us at co-mark@swlaw.edu.

All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies.  We do not permit them to use your personal information for their own purposes.  We allow them to process your personal information only for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We may also share your personal information with a government authority that requests the information or third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with laws, regulations, or any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Site terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our Site, our users, and others.

Where your personal information is shared with third parties, we will seek to share the minimum amount necessary.

We may share your personal information with internal Southwestern partners, services, and systems to facilitate and manage the purposes listed above (How We Use Your Information Section).

Your general demographic data may be used in surveys compiled by Southwestern and shared with our school and/or business partners.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information
We automatically receive and retain certain types of information whenever you interact with this Site.  This information may be used to monitor Site traffic, assist with the navigation, generate statistics, measure Site activity, improve the usefulness of the Site, or deliver customized online advertising relating to upcoming programs.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information includes but is not limited to:

• Requested URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
• IP (Internet Protocol) address (this may or may not identify a specific computer)
• Domain name from which you access the internet
• Referring URL
• Software (browser/operating system) used to access the page
• Date and time pages were visited

You are able to correct and revise your personal information collected by Southwestern by logging into your profile on this Site or by emailing us at privacy@swlaw.edu for assistance.  For any other inquiries or requests regarding your personal information, you may email us at privacy@swlaw.edu.

Depending on the circumstances and the nature of your request, it may not be possible for us to do what you have asked.  For example, where it is a statutory or contractual requirement for us to process your personal information, it would not be possible to fulfill our legal obligations if we were to stop.

We will respond to your request without undue delay, and in any event in accordance with the requirements of applicable law.  Please note that we may keep a record of your communications to help us resolve any issues which you raise.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as we need it to fulfill our purposes, including any relating to legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

If you are located outside of the United States and provide us with your personal information, your personal information may be transferred to other countries such as the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those of your home country.  By providing us with your information you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to the United States and processed on servers in the United States.  However, all reasonable steps will be taken to protect your privacy in accordance with the applicable data protection laws.

We use "cookies" (small files placed on your computer) that enable us to recognize your browser to capture and remember certain information.  For example, we use cookies to identify you and maintain your signed-in status to help us remember and process the courses in your shopping cart, identify your preferences based on previous and current Site activity, and to help us aggregate Site traffic and behavior data.

Cookies are required to use certain features on this Site.  You can decline cookies if your browser permits, although doing so may interfere with your use of this Site.  Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session, such as when your browser is closed.  Your web browser may allow you to select a “Do Not Track” setting, which sends a signal to websites that you do not want information about your internet activity to be collected or tracked.  Like many websites, our Site does not respond to internet browser “Do Not Track” signals.

Cookies may be set by an organization other than Southwestern.  These “third-party cookies” may, for example, originate from websites such as, but not limited to, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or other social media services for which we have implemented plug-ins.  Since the cookie policies of these sites change over time, you should determine their policies by visiting their privacy policy pages directly.

We employ web analytics technology that helps us better manage content on our Site.  This technology can track your behaviors and activities on our Site.

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and to ensure the appropriate use of information we gather about you, we have taken commercially reasonable steps to protect the integrity of the Site and the information contained within.  Southwestern maintains industry standard security controls to ensure the integrity and security of data we collect.

While we take reasonable precautions to protect your data, no security measures can be 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of your data.

You can help protect your account and information by:

• Protecting your login information and keeping it secure and unique.
• Creating a sufficiently complex password that would be difficult to guess.
• Avoid storing your password in a place where others can view it.
• Logging out of our Site.  Not logging out could allow other individuals to inappropriately access your account and personal information.
• Avoiding posting any account information, including links, in public forums.  This could include posting pictures of account information on services like Instagram, Twitter, etc.

All of your information (PII and otherwise) discussed in this Privacy Policy may be transferred to third parties in the event of sale or merger of Southwestern, a transfer of its assets, or in the event of a bankruptcy.

This Privacy Policy applies to this Site only.  This Site may contain links to and from third party websites that are outside of our control.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites and recommend you read their privacy statements before submitting any personal information.

If you are an individual located in the EEA only, you have certain rights with regard to your personal data collected while you are in the EEA.  Your rights include the right of access, right of correction, right to be forgotten, right to restrict processing of your identifiable personal information, right to notice related to changes/deletion/limits on processing, right to data portability, right to object, right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing, right to withdraw consent, and right to complaint to a supervisory authority.  Some of your rights are limited by law or are limited by other conditions.  You have the right to contact us to exercise your rights under applicable EEA law, which you may do through the contact information below, or by sending an email to privacy@swlaw.edu.

We will respond to your written request without unreasonable delay and in accordance with any deadlines imposed by law.  We will not charge you any fee in connection with the exercise of your rights.  If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to or seek advice from a supervisory authority and/or bring a claim against us in any court of competent jurisdiction.

We do not knowingly collect or maintain PII on this Site from persons under 13 years of age, and no part of our Site is intended for persons under 13 years of age.  If you are under 13 years of age, please do not use or access our Site at any time or in any manner.  We will take appropriate steps to delete any PII of persons less than 13 years of age that has been collected through the Site without verified parental consent upon learning of the existence of such PII.

This Privacy Policy is subject to change without notice.  If Southwestern makes any changes to this Privacy Policy, we will change the "Updated" date below.  In some cases, we may provide you with additional notice, such as adding a statement to this Site.  We encourage you to review our Privacy Policy whenever you access this Site to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.

If you have questions or issues regarding Southwestern’s privacy practices or policies, please contact us by email at privacy@swlaw.edu or at:

Southwestern Law School
Attn: Privacy Officer / IT
3050 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010

April 10, 2019.

April 10, 2023.