Legal notices

Legal notices regarding the Electronic Headquarters.

1. Objective and meaning

This legal notice regulates use of the IAC's electronic headquarters: iac.sede.gob.es

Owner of the electronic headquarters

This electronic headquarters is the property of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias public consortium (CIF Q3811001A), located at Calle Vía Láctea, S/N, 38205 – La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife(Spain), telephone 922605200, and fax 922605210.

The services offered by this electronic headquarters are provided through the platform ACCEDA of the Ministry.

2. General conditions concerning access and use

Navigating this electronic headquarters attributes the condition of user of the site and implies full unconditional acceptance of each and every item included in this legal notice, which may undergo modification.

The user is obliged to make proper use of this electronic headquarters in accordance with the law, in good faith, with due regard for public order, traffic use, and the present legal notice. The user will be answerable to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium and to third parties for any damage or injury that might be caused as a consequence of failure to comply with the said obligation.

3. General conditions of access and use

Access to and use of this Electronic Headquarter, including the services and contents that may be accessed through it, are subject to the terms set out in this legal notice.

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium reserves the right to make changes to the site without prior notice for the purpose of modifying, updating, adding, or deleting contents on the site in order to maintain the quality of the information provided, and to avoid and minimize possible errors.

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium will not be held responsible for any damage or injury caused by decisions taken on the basis of the information it provides; for any inaccuracies, omission, or errors contained therein; for any problems originating from use of this site or of any external connection; or for any damage and/or injury to the user's software or hardware deriving from access to this electronic headquarters.

The contents and servides offered by this site are regularly updated. Because the updating of information is not immediate, we suggest that you always check the validity and correctness of the information, services, and content accessed on this site.

This electronic headquarters and its services are of open and free access, although access to certain contents is conditional on prior registration as a user, or through user identification by means of electronic identity document or digital certificate.

The user guarantees the authenticity and validity of all data communicated to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium and will be solely answerable for any false or inexact statements made.

The user expressly undertakes to make proper use of the contents and services offered and not to use them to:

  • Spread content that is criminal, violent, pornographic, racist, xenophobic, offensive, or supportive of terrorism, or which generally contravenes the law or public order.
  • Introduce into the internet computer viruses, or carrying out any acts liable to alter, damage, interrupt, or generate errors or damage to the electronic documents, data or physical and logical systems of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium or third parties, or prevent the access of other users to the electronic headquarters and its services.
  • Attempt to access restricted areas of the computer system of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium or of third parties, or to extract information therefrom.
  • Infringe intellectual property or industrial rights, or breach the confidentiality of information of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium, or a third party.
  • Falsely assume the identity of another user, public administrative bodies, or a third party.
  • Reproduce, copy, distribute, make available or by any other means publicly communicate, transform, or modify the contents of the site, unless explicitly authorized by the owner of the corresponding rights or unless it be legally permitted to do so.
  • Gather data for the purposes of publicity and send any kind of publicity material, or communications for financial gain or for any other commercial purpose without prior request or consent.

3.1. Rules of use and password confidenticality

Users shall access their accounts via a 'username' and 'password'. Users shall keep their passwords under their exclusive control and custody, taking care to keep them in the strictest confidence. Users will be held responsible for any damage, costs or injury of any kind deriving from the revealing of their passwords, or for misuse by a third party arising from such breach of confidentiality.

In order to prevent misuse of passwords by third parties, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium advises users not to reveal their password to third parties or to access their account from public or any other insecure site. If users in any way suspect that a thrid party has gained access to their password, they should pass on their suspicions to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium via email to the technical support service.

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium, having first ascertained negligent use of an account by a registered user or third parties, may unilaterally, without previous warning, modify, suspend or revoke any approved password or account.

3.2. Procedure to be followed in the case of illicit activities

Should any user or third party consider that there exist facts or circumstances that reveal improper use of any content and/or the carrying out of any activity en the web pages included in or accessible through the electronic headquarters, he/she should duly notify the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium, specifying the nature of the suspected infractions and specifying under his/her responsibility that the information provided in the notification is correct.

4. Privacy policy

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium undertakes to fulfil current legislation in the matter of treatment of personal data, particularly with regard to Organic Law 15/99, 13 December, concerning the Protection of Personal Data (henceforward LOPD, after its Spanish initials).

Further information on our data protection policy can be found in the 'privacy policy' link.

5. Cookies policy

What are cookies?

A cookie is a text file that a web server may store on the hard disk of your computer in order to store some kind of information concerning you as a user. Cookies are used for a number of reasons, such as storing information for your next visit, to recognize the user in order to avoid repeating requests for authentication, to log the pages visited, to store your preferences in personalized areas, etc. Web sites normally use cookies to obtain statistical information on their web pages and to analyse the behaviour of their clients/users.

Types of cookies

Cookies can be classified according to the following criteria:

According to who installs cookies, they can be:

Own cookies: those sent to the user's terminal from a computer or domain managed by the editor of the cookies and from which the service requested by the user is provided.

Third-part cookies: those sent to the user's terminal either from a computer or domain managed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium or by a third party, but where the information gathered by the cookies is managed by a third party distinct from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium.

According to time limit, cookies may be:

Session cookies: those that last only while the user is actually navigating through the web page, and which are eliminated once navigation is terminated.

Persistent cookies: those that remain stored in the user's terminal for a longer period in order to monitor chosen preferences without the need to repeat certain parameters each time the website is visited.

According to their purpose, cookies may be:

Technical cookies: those that are absolutely necessary for the correct functioning of a website and use of various options and services offered; for example, those required for maintaining a session, those that enable security elements, content sharing with social networks, etc.

Personalization cookies: those that enable the user to choose or personalize certain characteristics of the web page, such as language, regional configuration, or type of navigator.

Analytical cookies: Those used by web portals to build navigation profiles and to discover user preferences with a view to improving products and services offered, and which permit the monitoring of geographical areas of most interest to the user, that web information of most appeal, etc.

Advertising/publicity cookies: those that permit the managing of advertising spaces on the basis of specific criteria; for example frequency of access, edited material, etc.

Advertising cookings permit, through the management of advertisements, the storage of behavioural information based on observation of habits through the study of accesses, and the builing of a user preference profile with a view to offering users advertisements related to the interests revealed by their profile.

6. Notifications

All notifications and communications between users and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium are considered to be effective in all respects when they are carried out by post, electronic mail, and telephone.. Users must contact the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium by:

Post to the following address: Consorcio Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias – Calle Vía Láctea, S/N 38205 – La Laguna – Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Electronic mail to any of the addresses given in the portal of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium.

7. Industrial and intellectual property

All Electronic Headquarters content, such as texts, photgraphs, graphics, images, icons, technology, and software, together with its graphic design and source codes, constitutes a work that is property of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium whose rights of exploitation cannot be construed to be ceded to the user, beyond that which is strictly necessary for correct use of the site.

In conclusion, users accessing this electronic headquarters may visualise its contents and make, where needed, duly authorized private copies provided that the elements reproduced are not then passed to third parties, installed on servers connected to the web, or made the object of any kind of exploitation, and solely and exclusively provided that the service is in force.

Similarly, all trademarks, commercial names and distinctive signs of any kind that appear in the electronic headquarters are the property of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium, and it cannot be construed that use of or access to them in any way attributes to the user any rights to the same.

The distribution, modification, ceding, or public communication of the contents, or any other act that has not been expressly authorized by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium are forbidden. In the case of any breach of this prohibition, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium shall proceed to take any opportune legal measures.

8. Exemptions of responsibility and modification of this legal notice

The information communicated in this electronic headquarters is solely and exclusively for informative purposes, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium reserving the right to eliminate or suspend its communication, in toto or partially, and to modify the structure and content of this electronic headquarters without giving prior notice, even to the point of limiting or denying access to the said information. The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium tries to maintain the quality of and update this information, and to avoid or minimize possible errors; however, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium will not be answerable for any damage or injury caused by decisions taken on the basis the information so communicated; nor for a ny inaccuracies, omissions, or errors contained in the same; or for any problems that might arise from use of this electronic headquarters or any other to which it is externally connected; or for any damage and/or injury to the software or hardware of the user arising from access to this electronic headquarters.

The user expressly accepts that the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium will not be held responsible for any unauthorized access or alteration of its transmissions or data of any material or data sent or received, or not sent or received, or for any transaction carried out through its electronic headquarters.

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Public Consortium reserves the right to modify this legal notification unilaterally and without prior warning in such terms and conditions as it deems fit with the sole obligation of informing the user, via the electronic headquarters, of any modifications effected.

9. Law applicable and competent tribunals

This electronic headquarters is subject to the rules established by Spanish legislation. Any dispute arising from, or in relation to, the use of the electronic headquarters will be submitted to the non-exclusive juristictions of Spanish courts and tribunals.