Privacy and Cookie Policy

The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you and / or your child(ren).

Introduction

This document refers to personal data, which is defined as information concerning any living person (a natural person who hereafter will be called the Data Subject) that is not already in the public domain.

The Data Protection Act (DPA), Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which is EU wide and far more extensive, seek to protect and enhance the rights of data subjects. These rights cover the safeguarding of personal data, protection against the unlawful processing of personal data and the unrestricted movement of personal data within the EU. It should be noted that GDPR does not apply to information already in the public domain such as Companies House data.

Dickinson School Consulting Ltd (“DSCL”) is pleased to provide the following GDPR information:

Who we are

DSCL is an educational consultancy that provides advice and assistance to families, predominantly from outside the UK, in finding an appropriate UK boarding school for their child(ren) (“Our Service”).

Personal Data

In providing Our Service DSCL uses personal information about you and your child(ren), collected from forms and surveys you complete, from records of our correspondence and phone calls in the following ways:

• to communicate with you;
• to understand you and your child(ren)’s requirements in respect of a UK boarding school;
• to understand your child(ren)’s academic record and proficiency in English;
• to recommend schools to you that we consider may be appropriate in the light of the information provided;
• to understand any visa requirements to enable your child(ren) to be permitted to attend a boarding school in the UK;
• to understand any other issues and requirements relevant to your child(ren)’s proposed attendance at a UK boarding school;
• to communicate information considered relevant to UK boarding schools with which DSCL has established commercial relationships in order to establish whether they may be able to consider accepting your child(ren) as a pupil(s);
• to communicate planned visits by DSCL employees to your country of residence where face to face appointments may be arranged; and
• to communicate marketing information to you, such as information about Our Service, the UK educations system and UK boarding schools which DSCL believes may be of interest to you.

In your making initial contact with DSCL you consent to DSCL maintaining a service and marketing dialogue with you until you either opt out (which you can do at any stage) or we decide to desist in promoting our services. Whenever you provide personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy.

Legal basis for processing personal data

In order to respond to enquiries and deliver our service.

Legitimate interests pursued by DSCL

In order to promote and deliver our service.

Data storage & security

When you give us personal information we take steps to ensure that it is treated securely and strive to protect it on our internal systems.

Your personal information in the European Economic Area (EEA) is protected by data protection laws; but other countries do not necessarily protect your personal information in the same way.  The EEA covers all countries in the EU plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.  DSCL uses online tools that host data outside of the EEA.  Prior to selecting such tools, we review their privacy policy and check that the company is GDPR compliant and/or signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield agreement.  Companies who have signed up to this agreement commit to securing personal data in line with EU data protection legislation.

Copies of personal information may be maintained on DSCL’s computers, which are backed up to on-site external hard drives at regular intervals as well as to DSCL’s online tools. These external hard drives are kept within the EU. On occasion DSCL employees may be located with their computers in another country for a short period, usually though not exclusively within the EEA.

Consent

Through agreeing to this privacy notice you are consenting to DSCL processing your personal data for the purposes outlined. You can withdraw consent at any time by emailing [email protected] or by phoning +44 (0) 1367 870858 or writing to us, see last section for full contact details.

Disclosure

DSCL may on occasion engage third parties exclusively in order to assist in providing and promoting our service. DSCL requires these parties to agree to process this information based on our instructions and requirements consistent with this Privacy Notice and GDPR. DSCL does not broker or pass on information gained from your engagement with the company without your consent. However, DSCL may disclose your Personal Information to meet legal obligations, regulations or valid governmental request.

Retention policy

DSCL will hold, process and store personal data according to the following parameters:

Once the period for retention of records has elapsed we will delete all personal information other than that which may remain of use in our analysis of DSCL’s activities. To the extent that such information is retained it will anonymized so that the individual(s) cannot be identified from the information retained.

Our website

Our website uses a content management system (CMS) to allow us to update content and images. Our site is hosted at Rackspace in London and uses Cloudfare to provide a secure barrier that provides complete DDoS protection. The hosting is run by an infrastructure management company called M Group contracted by Maxx Design Ltd to manage the servers and their operation.

This website does not automatically capture or store personal information, other than logging the user's IP address and session information such as the duration of the visit and the type of browser used. This is recognised by the web server and is only used for system administration and to provide statistics.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. Cookies cannot be used to identify you personally. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.  Unless you have set your browser to block cookies, this site will place the following cookies on your computer.

Cookies are stored in the computer's memory only during your browsing session, they are never written on the hard drive and they do not collect any information from your computer. These session cookies usually store a session ID that is not personally identifiable to users, allowing you to move from page to page without having to log-in repeatedly. They expire at the end of your browser session and become inaccessible after the session has been inactive for a specified length of time, usually 20 minutes.

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings.  To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

Our use of cookies

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google"). It uses cookies to collect anonymous information about users’ activity on the site, for example the number of users viewing pages on the site, to monitor and report on the effectiveness of the site and to help us improve it. The User and Event Data Retention within Google Analytics is set to ‘Do Not Automatically Expire’ and Google Analytics data will be stored indefinitely, subject to acceptance and interaction of Google Analytics cookies.

The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for our website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.

Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. However, please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website

To opt-out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Our website works better with cookies enabled. Our cookies don’t give us, or anyone else, access to your personal data. We advise you to keep cookies enabled. However, you can choose to reject cookies. There are instructions on the ‘About Cookies’ website: http://www.aboutcookies.org.uk/managing-cookies

For more information about how Maxx Design Ltd processes data, please view their privacy policy:

https://www.maxx-design.co.uk/privacy-policy

For more information about how Cloudfare processes data please view their privacy policy:

https://www.cloudfare.com/security-policy/

Your rights as a data subject

At any point whilst DSCL is in possession of or processing your personal data, all data subjects have the following rights:

• Right of access – you have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you.
• Right of rectification – you have a right to correct data that we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Right to be forgotten – in certain circumstances you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records.
• Right to restriction of processing – where certain conditions apply you have a right to restrict the processing.
• Right of portability – you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation.
• Right to object – you have the right to object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing.
• Right to object to automated processing, including profiling – you also have the right not to be subject to the legal effects of automated processing or profiling.

You can request the following information:

• Identity and the contact details of the person or organisation (DSCL) that has determined how and why to process your data.
• Contact details of the data protection officer, where applicable.
• The purpose of the processing as well as the legal basis for processing.
• If the processing is based on the legitimate interests of DSCL or a third party such as one of its partner schools, information about those interests.
• The categories of personal data collected, stored and processed.
• Recipient(s) or categories of recipients that the data is/will be disclosed to.
• How long the data will be stored.
• Details of your rights to correct, erase, restrict or object to such processing.
• Information about your right to withdraw consent at any time.
• How to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority.
• Whether the provision of personal data is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract, as well as whether you are obliged to provide the personal data and the possible consequences of failing to provide such data.
• The source of personal data if it wasn’t collected directly from you.
• Any details and information of automated decision making, such as profiling, and any meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and expected consequences of such processing.

All requests should be made to [email protected] or by phoning +44 (0) 1367 870858 or writing to us at the address further below.

In the event that DSCL refuses your request under rights of access, we will provide you with a reason as to why, which you have the right to legally challenge.

To access what personal data is held, identification will be required

DSCL will accept the following forms of ID when information on your personal data is requested:

• a copy of your driving licence, passport or birth certificate;
• a utility bill not older than three months.

A minimum of one piece of photographic ID listed above and a supporting document is required. If DSCL is dissatisfied with the quality of the information provided further evidence may be sought before personal data can be released.

Complaints

In the event that you wish to make a complaint about how your personal data is being processed by DSCL or its partners, you have the right to complain to DSCL’s Finance Director. If you do not get a response within 30 days you can complain to your respective supervisory authority.

The details for each of these contacts (in the United Kingdom) are:

DSCL

Dickinson School Consulting Ltd, FAO the Financial Director

The Elms, Oakwood Park Business Centre, Fountains Road, Harrogate, HG3 3BF.

Telephone +44 (0) 1367 870858 or email [email protected]

The Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF

Telephone +44 (0) 303 123 1113 or email: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/

Disclaimer

As far as is reasonably possible, we will ensure that information provided on this website is accurate. DSCL cannot accept any liability whatsoever for omission or error. Equally, as we regularly virus check materials, we cannot accept any responsibility for any disruption of damage that may occur during use of this website.

Intellectual property

Users of this site may not print, download or in any manner copy images or text from the site, except for personal, non-commercial use, without permission from DSCL.

Links to other websites

Links to other websites do not imply any endorsement, validation or responsibility by Dickinson School Consulting Ltd as to the content or privacy policies of such sites. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and we have no control over the availability of the linked pages.