Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

CHTM Cooks ("we", "us", "our") serves as the official equipment borrowing and inventory management platform of the College of Hospitality & Tourism Management (CHTM) at Gordon College, Olongapo City, Philippines.

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This Privacy Policy informs you about how we handle your personal data when you visit and use our web application, your privacy rights, and how the law protects you. This policy is written in strict compliance with the Republic Act No. 10173, otherwise known as the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (DPA) of the Philippines, and its Implementing Rules and Regulations.

2. Scope of Application

This policy applies to all accounts registered on the CHTM Cooks platform, including students, instructors, custodians, and system administrators. It governs all data processed during equipment reservation, approvals, inventory audits, and offline-first data synchronization.

3. The Information We Process

We collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data: Includes your first name, last name, student number (for students), or employee number (for staff), and year level & block.
• Contact Data: Includes your official Gordon College institutional email address (e.g., username@gordoncollege.edu.ph) for automated borrow notifications.
• Academic Status Data: Year level, section block, and enrollment status within CHTM programs (Hospitality Management, Tourism Management).
• Borrowing & Transactional Data: Records of cooking equipment you have requested, borrowed quantities, reservation schedules, return statuses, QR verification histories, incident logs (e.g., damaged items), and your system calculated trust score.
• Technical & Session Data: IP addresses, browser cookies, local storage payloads, offline synchronization logbooks, and diagnostic crash data.

4. How We Collect Your Data

We use different methods to collect data from and about you, including:

• Direct Interaction: You provide your Identity and Contact data by filling out forms during account registration, modifying your profile details, or initiating borrowing requests.
• System-Generated Data: Our server generates QR codes, assigns borrow request logs, calculates equipment availability states, and records custodian transaction approvals.
• Automated Technologies: As you interact with our platform, we automatically collect Technical and Session data to support offline data storage (via indexedDB) and subsequent synchronization with university cloud endpoints.

5. Purposes of Processing

Under the Philippine Data Privacy Act, we process your personal data only for legitimate institutional purposes:

• Platform Operation: Authenticating user identity, managing your account, facilitating reservation flows, and verifying claims using QR scanner handshakes.
• Accountability & Inventory Control: Keeping track of high-value culinary equipment, enforcing return windows, logging incident reports, and calculating student liability or replacement requirements.
• Notification Dispatch: Sending real-time email updates regarding approval reviews, pickup readiness, overdue items, or inventory changes.
• Academic Record Matching: Ensuring students requesting equipment are actively enrolled in laboratory courses and assigned to classes of the approving instructors.

6. Legal Basis for Processing

We process your information based on the following legal grounds:

• Consent: When you register an account, upload a profile photo, or opt-in to Email alerts.
• Contractual/Academic Obligation: Processing is necessary to carry out Gordon College academic laboratory regulations, equipment rental policies, and student liability agreements.
• Legitimate Interests: To secure the platform against fraud, prevent the loss of university assets, audit inventory records, and maintain continuous offline service capabilities.

7. Disclosure and Data Sharing

Your data is highly protected and is shared exclusively for academic and security audits:

• Instructors & Approving Faculty: Access is provided to evaluate, approve, or reject student requests associated with their respective laboratory sections.
• Custodians & Lab Assistants: Access is provided to scan student QR codes, hand out requested items, evaluate returned item conditions, and record inventory metrics.
• Institutional Administrators: System administrators have dashboard access to maintain databases, investigate system errors, and export auditing reports for Gordon College CHTM administration.

Security Note: CHTM Cooks does not sell, lease, or rent your personal information to third-party commercial entities. All data processing is strictly confined to internal academic operations.

8. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the academic purposes we collected it for, including satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Student profiles and borrow histories are archived upon graduation, transfer, or when the account has been inactive for a period exceeding four (4) consecutive semesters, in compliance with university document retention schedules.

9. Data Security Measures

We have put in place appropriate technical, physical, and organizational security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorized way. All database communications are secured using TLS encryption. User passwords are encrypted using state-of-the-art hashing algorithms.

In the event of a suspected data breach, we will notify you and the National Privacy Commission (NPC) in accordance with the guidelines set forth under the DPA.

10. Your Rights Under the DPA

Under the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012 (RA 10173), you possess the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Right to be Informed: Knowing whether your personal data is being processed, and for what purposes.
• Right to Access: Requesting a copy of your personal data processed by the platform.
• Right to Object: Opposing processing based on legitimate interests (subject to academic requirements).
• Right to Rectification: Requesting corrections to inaccurate or outdated profile records.
• Right to Erasure or Blocking: Demanding suspension, withdrawal, or deletion of account records.
• Right to Damages: Seeking compensation for damages sustained due to inaccurate, incomplete, or unauthorized use of data.
• Right to File a Complaint: Lodging official complaints before the National Privacy Commission (NPC).

11. Data Protection Officer (DPO) Details

If you wish to exercise any of your privacy rights, or have questions about how Gordon College handles your personal data within CHTM Cooks, you may contact the Gordon College Data Protection Officer: