Privacy Policy
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our clients and visitors to our website.
1.2. This policy applies where we are acting as a data controller with respect to the personal data of our website visitors and service users; in other words, where we determine the purposes and means of the processing of that personal data.
1.3. We use cookies on our website. You will be asked for your consent to the use of cookies when first you visit our website.
1.4. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" refer to SOTC Ltd, its employees and selected contractors authorised to act as data controllers on its behalf.
1.5. We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to the homepages of our websites or sending you an email notification). We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.
2. OUR DETAILS
2.1. The website www.spires.co is owned and operated by SOTC Ltd.
2.2. We are registered in England and Wales under registration number 09328574, and our registered office is at 185 Ashburton Triangle Drayton Park, London, England, N5 1GD.
2.3. You can contact us:
a) via the ‘chat’ function on our platform;
c) by post, to the postal address given above
3. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
3.1. In this Section 3 we have set out:
a) the general categories of personal data that we may process;
b) the purposes for which we may process personal data; and
c) the legal bases of the processing.
3.2. Personal data means information about an identifiable individual. This privacy policy does not address business contact information, such as name, title, business address and business telephone number when used for business communications.
3.3. We only collect and process personal information as required to meet the purposes that we have identified. We do not indiscriminately collect or retain personal information and will delete all provided information within 6 years of the termination of the usage of our services, save for information required for tax and regulatory purposes for a longer period of limitation.
3.4. We typically collect personal information that is voluntarily provided by the individual in question. At times, however, personal information is obtained from other sources, such as government bodies or third parties such as employers, references and service providers, as permitted by law. Where the purpose for the collection of personal information is unclear, you can ask the representative with whom you are dealing to provide an explanation of the purpose for the data collection. More generally, we are happy to provide you with all personal information we hold upon request in writing to [email protected].
3.5. Our reason for collecting personal information about tutors, students, parents, staff and consultants is to establish and maintain our contractual or other business relationship with that individual.
3.6. The purpose for collecting personal information about tutors and students is primarily to facilitate the provision of educational tutoring services online, including to allow students to quickly and easily assess the professional and educational background of tutors, as well as allowing us to communicate effectively with tutors, students and parents and to maintain mailing lists. We may also use your personal information to:
a) Respond to your comments, questions and requests and provide customer service.
b) Communicate with you about services, offers and promotions and provide news and information we think will be of interest to you. We will seek separate consent for marketing and promotional emails as required by GDPR regulation.
c) Manage your account and send you technical notices, updates, security alerts and support and administrative messages. Monitor and analyse trends, usage and activities.
d) Link or combine with information we get from others to help understand your needs and provide you with better service.
e) Carry out any other purpose for which the information was collected.
3.7. As appropriate, we will ask for specific consent to collect, use and disclose personal information. Such a request, and your consent to such request, may be given in writing, orally or via our platform. In some cases, consent can be implied through an individual relationship or conduct with us, depending on the sensitivity of the information.
3.8. Classes delivered via our platform using Lessonspace are usually recorded automatically. These recordings ("class recordings") are stored on our platform and can be accessed by the student and tutor, and by our staff where required. The purpose of this processing is to facilitate the provision of our services, specifically access to recorded classes, and to ensure compliance with our Terms of Service, Tutor Licence Agreement and Code of Conduct. Class recordings will only be reviewed by senior company staff in order to investigate a possible breach of our platform rules. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our business.
3.9. We may process data about your use of our website and services ("usage data"). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your use of our website or services. The source of the usage data is Google Analytics, and our website server logs. This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing the use of our website and services. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our company, namely the monitoring and improvement of our website and services.
3.10. We may process information needed to set up and maintain an account with our company, in order to provide you with our services ("account data"). This account data may include your name and email address. The source of the account data is the information you provide. The account data may be processed for the purposes of: providing our services, ensuring the security of our website and services, maintaining back-ups of our databases and communicating with you. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our business, in particular facilitating communication.
3.11. We may process information to be included in your personal client profile on our platform (" profile data"). This profile data may include your name, address, telephone number, email address, profile pictures, gender, date of birth, educational details and employment details. Profile data may be processed for the purposes of enabling your use of our services. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our business.
3.12. We may process your personal data that are provided in the course of the use of our services (" service data"). This service data may include information about your academic performance and any factors relevant to this, your current, past or future academic institutions, your availability for tuition sessions, your preferred tuition location, and your experience or qualifications. We gather this information directly from you. Service data may be processed for the purpose of effectively providing our services, specifically in effecting suitable introductions between tutors and students. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our business.
3.13. We may process information that you post for publication on our website or through our services ("publication data"). The publication data may be processed for the purposes of enabling such publication and administering our website and services, e.g. the maintenance of accurate tutor profiles. The legal basis for this processing is consent, which is sought and recorded separately prior to publication.
3.14. We may process information contained in any enquiry you submit to us regarding our services ("enquiry data"). Enquiry data may be processed for the purposes of offering or providing relevant services to you. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our company, namely to respond to enquiries concerning our services and to make our services available to potential clients.
3.15. We may process information relating to our customer relationships, including customer contact information ("customer relationship data"). The customer relationship data may include your name, your contact details, and information contained in communications between us and you. The source of the customer relationship data is you. The customer relationship data may be processed for the purposes of managing our relationships with customers, communicating with customers, keeping records of those communications and promoting our services to customers. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our company, namely the proper management of our customer relationships.
3.16. We may process information relating to transactions, including purchases of goods and services, that you enter into with us and/or through our website ("transaction data"). Transaction data may include your contact details, details of the payment method used, including details of specific payment cards, your billing address, and the details of the transaction itself. The transaction data may be processed for the purpose of supplying the purchased goods and services and keeping proper records of those transactions. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract and our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business.
3.17. We may process information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our email notifications ("notification data"). The notification data may be processed for the purposes of sending you the relevant notifications. The legal basis for this processing is the legitimate interests of our company, namely the need to inform clients of relevant developments in relation to their use of our services, for example any charges to be levied in respect of those services.
3.18. We may process information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our email newsletters, and/or promotional information (“marketing data”). This marketing data may be processed for the purposes of sending you the relevant newsletters. The legal basis for this processing is consent, collected separately.
3.19. We may process information contained in or relating to any communication that you send to us, or to other users via our platform ("correspondence data"). The correspondence data may include the communication content and metadata associated with the communication. Our website will generate the metadata associated with communications made using the website contact forms. The correspondence data may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you, record-keeping, and the investigation of potential breaches of our platform rules. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business and communications with users.
3.20. We may process information necessary to verify the identity and registered address of tutors (“verification data”) in order to facilitate payment processing, and in order to satisfy ourselves of their suitability as users of our platform by means of background checks, as set out in our Tutor Licence Agreement. The basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our company, specifically the facilitation of our administrative support services, and the protection of our users.
3.21. We may process information relating to background checks on tutors (“background check data”), specifically certificates from the Disclosure and Barring Service of the UK (DBS) or local equivalent, criminal record checks, and employment or character references. This is to ensure that tutors using are platform are suitable individuals to be introduced to students. The basis for this processing is the legitimate interest of our business, namely the protection our users and the reputation of our service, and our legal obligations to obtain references for work-seekers under the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003.
3.22. We may process personal data belonging to certain ‘special categories’ as defined under the UK General Data Protection Regulation. This data may include your state of health, both physical and mental. The source of this data is you, the data subject. This data may be processed for the purposes of more accurately and effectively providing our services, and only insofar as it is necessary to achieve this; for example, where a medical condition may affect the manner in which tuition is best delivered. The legal basis for this processing is consent, and data of this kind will only be processed where clear consent is given.
3.23. We may process any of your personal data identified in this policy where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection and assertion of our legal rights, your legal rights and the legal rights of others.
3.24. We may process any of your personal data identified in this policy, that is not in a “special category”, where necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, or obtaining professional advice. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper protection of our business against risk.
3.25. In addition to the specific purposes for which we may process your personal data set out in this Section 3, we may also process any of your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
3.26. Please do not supply any other person's personal data to us, unless we prompt you to do so, and unless the data subject has also given their consent. For instance, it may be necessary to process some data relating to a student, who is not the account holder. You will need to ensure that the individual in question has consented to their personal data being processed in this way.
4. COMPLIANCE WITH DIGITAL PLATFORM REGULATION
4.1. If you are a tutor, we may also collect the following information for the purposes of reporting to the UK’s tax authorities (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs):
1) Your name.
2) Your primary address.
3) Your tax identification number (in the UK this will be your National Insurance number)
4) Your date of birth.
4.2. For the same purpose, to the extent we are aware of it:
1) Your jurisdiction, if you are outside the UK, which will usually be based on your primary address.
2) The amount you are paid for tuition and the number of classes you give.
3) Any fees we may charge.
4) Information that would assist the authorities in tracing payment (“financial identifiers”) .
4.3. If we think this information has changed, we may need to ask you for it again. In particular, we will have to ask you to confirm your primary address at least every three years. We will only process information where we are required to do so, which may vary on a jurisdictional basis.
4.4. We will share this information with HMRC on a regular basis. We retain it for a period of five years starting on the 31 January following the year in which we collected it.
4.5. Our legal basis for processing this information is that we are required to do so by law.
5. PROVIDING YOUR PERSONAL DATA TO OTHERS
5.1. We may disclose your personal data to any member of our group of companies (this means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and all its subsidiaries) insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes, and on the legal bases, set out in this policy.
5.2. We may disclose your personal data to our partner companies, (details of which are provided below). Direct sharing of data will occur only in respect of clients who have entered into, or sought to enter into, a contractual relationship with both or all of the companies participating in the sharing of data, and only insofar as is necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in Section 3. In particular:
a) to maintain the reputation of our companies by limiting membership of our tutor network to suitable individuals
b) to allow us to meet our legal obligations
5.2.1. Our’ partner companies are:
5.3. Financial transactions relating to our website and services may be handled by our payment services providers, Stripe, (https://stripe.com/gb). We will share transaction data with our payment services providers only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing your payments, refunding such payments and dealing with complaints and queries relating to such payments and refunds. You can find information about the payment services providers' privacy policies and practices on their websites, via the links above.
5.4. We may disclose your transaction data to our accountant(s) for the purpose of enabling them to manage our financial records. This third party will act as a data controller in relation to the data that we supply to it. Our legal basis for doing so is our legitimate interest in managing our company finances, and our legal reporting obligations.
5.5. In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 4, we may disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person. We may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.
6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
6.1. Our website usage analytics service, Google Analytics, is provided by Google LLC situated in the USA. They participate in the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, requiring them to protect your personal data as strongly as it would be protected in the United Kingdom.
6.2. Our preferred Social Media platform, Facebook, is situated in the USA. They participate in the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, requiring them to protect your personal data as strongly as it would be protected in the United Kingdom.
6.3. Our preferred accounting platform, Xero, is situated in New Zealand. The European Commission has made an "adequacy decision" with respect to the data protection laws of New Zealand, which means that for the purposes of the European General Data Protection Regulation New Zealand law gives adequate protection to your personal data. That adequacy decision was retained by the United Kingdom after it left the European Union.
6.4. Personal data that you submit for publication through our website or services may be available, via the internet, around the world. That is an inevitable part of publication on our website. Since you are free to choose whether to publish information on our website and what information to publish, we consider that this is publication by you and not us. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such personal data by others.
7. RETENTION AND DELETION OF PERSONAL DATA
7.1. This Section 6 sets out our data retention policies and procedures, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data.
7.2. Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
7.3. We will retain your personal data as follows:
a) account data, profile data, service and customer relationship data will be retained for a minimum period of one year from the time of the receipt of this data, and for a maximum period of six years from the end of the period in which you are in receipt of our services.
b) Our web server logs are cyclically deleted after 30 days unless an incident (such as a suspected system failure, security breach or violation of our policies) occurs, in which case we will retain any relevant information for long enough to make sure that we have dealt with the incident.
c) Class recordings will be retained for a minimum period of one year from the time of recording, and a maximum period of six years from the end of the period in which you are in receipt of our services.
7.4. In some cases it is not possible for us to specify in advance the periods for which your personal data will be retained. In such cases, we will determine the period of retention based on the following criteria:
a) The period of retention of publication data will depend upon how long the data subject wishes for this information to be publicly available via our website.
b) The period of retention of enquiry data will be determined on a case by case basis, and retained long enough for us to engage properly with the enquiry and then, if the data becomes relevant to some other purpose, such as our providing services to you, for as long as needed for that other purpose.
7.5. Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section 6, we may retain your personal data where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
8. AMENDMENTS
8.1. We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.
8.2. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.
8.3. We may notify you of significant changes to this policy by email.
9. YOUR RIGHTS
9.1. In this Section 8, we have summarised the rights that you have under data protection law. Some of the rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.
9.2. Your principal rights under data protection law are:
a) the right to access;
b) the right to rectification;
c) the right to erasure;
d) the right to restrict processing;
e) the right to object to processing;
f) the right to data portability;
g) the right to complain to a supervisory authority; and
h) the right to withdraw consent.
9.3. You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee. You can access your personal data by visiting http://spires.co and logging into your personal client account.
9.4. You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed. You may make such amendments yourself by visiting http://spires.co and logging into your personal client account.
9.5. In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; you object to the processing under certain rules of applicable data protection law; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data have been unlawfully processed. However, there are exclusions of the right to erasure. The general exclusions include where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
9.6. In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.
9.7. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
9.8. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.
9.9. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes on grounds relating to your particular situation, unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.
9.10. To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:
a) consent; or
b) that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract,
and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
9.11. If you consider that our processing of your personal data infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
9.12. To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
9.13. You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us, specifically via email to [email protected], in addition to the other methods specified in this Section 8.
10. ABOUT COOKIES
10.1. A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
10.2. Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.
10.3. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but will usually constitute personal data, for example when information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.
11. COOKIES THAT WE USE
11.1. We use cookies for the following purposes:
a) advertising - we use cookies to help us to display advertisements that will be relevant to you. Cookies used for this purpose are provided by: Google AdSense; gstatic.com; facebook.com; linkedin.com; doubleclick.net, youtube.com; q.quora.com; typeform.com; bing.com; connect.facebook.net;
b) analysis - we use cookies to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services. Cookies used for this purpose are provided by: Google Analytics Tracking Code; Facebook Pixel; Bing Universal Event Tracking; gstatic.com; Cloudflare; imgsct.cookiebot.com; typeform.com
c) survey response collection - we use cookies to collect answers to surveys and questionnaires. Cookies used for this purpose are provided by: cdn.rudderlabs.com
d) user verification - we use cookies to distinguish between human users and bots. Cookies used for this purpose are provided by: calendly.com; gstatic.com
e) user preferences - we use cookies to enable our website to remember information that changes the way the website behaves or looks, like your preferred language or the region that you are in. Cookies used for this purpose are provided by: linkedin.com; maps.google.com; typeform.com,
12. COOKIES USED BY OUR SERVICE PROVIDERS
12.1. Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.
12.2. We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google's privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. The relevant cookies are: Google Analytics Tracking Code.
13. MANAGING COOKIES
13.1. Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:
13.2. Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.
13.3. If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.
