Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility (TaiBIF) Website and Data Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

last update: 2024/08/16

Scope

• This website is maintained and operated by the Biodiversity Research Center of Academia Sinica. The data and materials on this site are published according to the license or dedication specified by the contributor during submission, other data and materials without contributor labels are owned by the maintenance and operating organization.
• The copyright policy on this page is applied to your activities on the TaiBIF website.
• By subsequently using TaiBIF website service, a user indicates his/her acceptance of the terms of use as listed below to do so, including use restriction and compliance of technical specifications, as well as the updating policy applied to these terms of use.

Data Licensing and Sharing Method

• All data and materials published on the TaiBIF website are provided for exploitation in accordance with the designation of the contributors during submission and by one of the following public copyright licenses and dedication, including:
  1. 1. CC0 (public domain dedication): By adopting the public domain dedication, the contributor declares to waive his/her copyright onto the work to the fullest extent allowed by law, so that the public can use the work freely without any restriction, which is the most permissive way to provide material.
  2. 2. CC BY (Attribution): This license allows users to reproduce, distribute, transmit and modify the work (including commercial use), however the exploitation must be in accordance with the attribution condition specified by the contributor. For example: Users can use photos anywhere, including for-profit purposes, but no matter how they are used, the users must indicate the contributor’s name, pseudonym, or other designated authorship information. Users can also exploit the data and materials provided by the contributor to reproduce new work.
  3. 3. CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial): This license allows users to reproduce, distribute, transmit and modify the work, but not for commercial purposes. User must attribute the contributor’s name in the manner specified by the contributor.
• Except for some purely factual record information, which is not protected by copyright at law, or otherwise stated, the rest of the data and materials on this website are provided to the public by one of the three aforementioned licenses and dedication which is CC0, CC BY, and CC BY-NC. Users may reproduce, modify, compile, publicly transmit, and perform other exploitation activities based on the premise of the copyright grant to the data provided for commercial purposes or non-commercial purposes, perpetual and worldwide. This license or dedication is irrevocable, and users do not need to obtain a license deed in writing or otherwise. The provided data and materials can also be reproduced, distributed and transferred to other hosting platforms for public performing utilization under the selected license or dedication method. The granted exploitation includes, but is not limited to, transmitting or transferring to Global Biodiversity data Facility (GBIF) or other nodes for further utilization. If provided under a CC BY or CC BY-NC license method, the contributor’s name and data paternity must be indicated in the subsequent exploitation as recommended format listed below. And if provided under a CC0 dedication method, the public domain dedication does not require any attribution obligation, but it is still encouraged that users can retain the contributor’s name and data paternity as recommended format listed below based on the standpoint of research ethics and scientific accountability. The attribution information can be annotated either in Chinese or English:
  1. 資料集或資料庫名稱-貢獻者顯名資訊@TaiBIF 臺灣生物多樣性資訊機構-CC BY / CC BY-NC / CC0
  2. Title of the Dataset or Database-Contributor’s Attribution@TaiBIF-CC BY / CC BY-NC / CC0
• The CC license suites and CC0 public domain dedication adopted by this website is not version specified, which means that when the public license or dedication method has been invoked, users can choose any version of the license and dedication published by the Creative Commons organization for applying. Take CC BY as an example, users can choose CC BY 3.0 TW or CC BY 4.0 license to apply. And when the CC license suite or dedication is updated on version in the future, users may use the data under the new subsequent license with the same licensing elements.
• This website is not intended to expand, limit, or lead the explanation of limitation scope defined by CC non-commercial element, the independent judgment and self-interpretation of the contributors and users of the data or materials shall be equally respected. However, it is reminded that non-commercial element might have different recognition standards in existence and understanding in gray area. In the event of judicial disputes, this website shall assert the exemption status of Internet service providers in the law, and will not participate in any substantive legal proceedings initiated by either party.

Miscellaneous

• Except for data that provided initiatively by this website or those who can get access through the API upon permission, the services of this website are only for natural persons use. Other types or frequently mechanical automation operations are prohibited. When the traffic monitoring and management program finds that the website system resources are being used abnormally, and it can be reasonably estimated that it is caused by mechanical automatic data or material extraction, this website may interrupt or terminate the subsequent service of that account.
• This website is not responsible for maintaining the submitted and contributed materials on public transmitting status permanently. When it comes to biodiversity-sensitive materials or similar situations, in which the species data contained in the materials may cause species damage or related environmental damage, this website may require contributors to properly cover the sensitive data and then upload it again, or the platform may assist in masking and filtering then has the sensitive data replaced.
• This website provides download function of data and materials on some pages. Regarding the preservation of download function enabled data and materials, this website shall perform due diligence to maintain it completely, but the data and materials may still be lost due to other unexpected causes, such as natural disasters, system errors, and etc … This website and the maintenance unit are not responsible for the aforementioned loss. To avoid the loss explained above, contributors and users should keep copies of the data and materials actively by themselves.
• This website will not monitor the contributed data and materials uploaded by users on case surveillance. However, if such a data and materials are later reported as unlawful or inappropriate by a third party, this site may remove them in a reasonable time after notification to the original contributors. And when the relevant data and materials in dispute are involving in lawful rights infringement to others, legislation violations, public offense against reputation and credit, personal attack in improper language, and inappropriate information embedded to do so, this website shall immediately remove them without prior notification to the original contributors.
• The scope of license of TaiBIF website is limited to copyright and related rights protection, not extended to other intellectual property rights, which means including but not limited to patent, trademark, organization logo or business mark is not provided.
• When using the data and materials provided by the TaiBIF website, whether they are protected by copyright or not, the user shall not maliciously alter the relevant information. If the compiled or adapted information causes damage due to the inconsistency with the original information disclosed, the users shall bear the legal responsibility by themselves in civil and criminal matters.
• This website does not guarantee correctness and fitness of the data and materials provided. If users suffer damage or loss, or cause damage or loss to a third party due to the utilization of data and materials provided by this website on a free-of-charge basis, unless otherwise stipulated at law, this website and its maintenance unit, complying with the Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability statement of CC license and CC0 public domain dedication, claim to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law a disclaimer, to not liable for any indemnification or compensation thereof.

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last update: 2024/08/16

Scope

• The privacy policy stated here applies to the personal data collection, processing, and utilization for the contributors and users’ activities involved in the usage of the TaiBIF website, including but not limited to membership registration services, consultation with the maintenance team for opinions exchange, contribution of data and materials, and website information browsing.
• Users who continue to use TaiBIF website services are deemed to have agreed to the following data collection, processing, and utilization methods.

Personal Data collected

• When a user logs into the relevant account of this website service, the personal data being provided initiatively shall be collected, including name, email, and service unit, however will only be used for membership identification, contribution license labeling for authorship, and for related notification and contact.
• The TaiBIF platform utilizes the latest version of Google Analytics (GA4) and Google Tag Manager (GTM) for traffic analysis and program management. These tools assist website and application administrators in understanding interactions between visitors and their sites or apps. The new version of Google Analytics does not collect cookie information directly from users' devices. Instead, it tracks user behavior through a floating user ID on this website. This data collection is solely for traffic analysis and website service monitoring by the management team. Additionally, the platform does not use behavioral records to identify individual visitors or capture users' actual IP addresses. If users wish to prevent their information from being collected, they can adjust their browser security settings or implement information blocking mechanisms (Do Not Track).
• The related information of geographic locations, which is recorded or embedded in the contributed data and materials, shall be collected, and is only used for the display, analysis and compilation purpose of biological data.
• This website adopts CC license and CC0 public domain dedication to receive contributions. When contributors provide data or materials involving the personal data description in the authorship attribution, such personal data shall be regarded as making public by the data subjects themselves. According to the personal data protection act and regulations, the subsequent collection and processing for those personal data does not require an additional written consent of the data subjects, and hence rendering those personal data utilization scope as being reached for the purpose of scientific data verification support for public good.
• This website may push the content submitted by contributors forward to other platforms under the designated license or dedication methods selected by the contributors, including but not limited to transmitting or transferring to Global Biodiversity data Facility (GBIF) or other nodes, or push forward to other social media network platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This push mode might involve the cross-border transfer of personal data, and when the personal data has been pushed, the further use of those transferred personal data shall be managed in accordance with the received platform’s privacy policy.

TaiBIF’s de-identification and quantification of relevant personal data

• Contributors agree that TaiBIF shall be able to process the de-identification or quantification disposal to the personal data involving in the data and materials they reported, in a reasonable and appropriate manner.
• The processed data and materials, which cannot be linked to the personal identification of their contributors or other data subjects, are no longer personal data, and shall be able to use in the subsequent exploitation without restriction within the reported purpose.

Privacy Policy Amendment

• TaiBIF shall revise this policy from time to time to comply with the latest personal data act and related lawful rights protection regulations.
• When the Privacy Policy is updated, it will be proactively notified through the contact email provided by members of the IPT data Publishing Tool when registering, and will also be announced under the “Latest News” category of this website.
• By subsequently using TaiBIF website service, a user indicates his/her acceptance of the updated version of the privacy policy.

Request Mechanism

• TaiBIF has fulfilled the fundamental requirements of the Personal Data Protection Act and related regulations for the collection of relevant data, and has enhanced the privacy protection of users through the procedures of compilation or de-identification in the processing and utilization practice of data. When the relevant data has been well processed, it will be shared for scientific research purposes.
• If the user of the website service or the contributor of the data and material has privacy concerns about the personal data of him/her as the data subject, please contact the maintenance team through the website contact information. Opinions and requests for reviewing, correcting, cessation of utilization, and erasing to the data subject’s own personal data involved, can also be reported through the website Request Mechanism. The maintenance team of this website shall properly manage the request within 30 days, after the submitted opinions has been further clarified and the data subject identity has been well confirmed.