UKESC Limited ("We") are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
You can contact us at any time by email at: enquiries@ukesc.co.uk
We provide educational counselling and advice to students from the Caribbean who are interested in studying in the UK. We work with a number of British universities and provide free application assistance, guidance and support in post-application matters, to students from the Caribbean region wishing to apply to any of these universities. We cannot guarantee admission; admissions decisions lie with the respective universities. We collect personal data in order to provide these advisory and application support services. Protection of your personal data is important to us. This Privacy Statement describes our approach to privacy. It includes information about the type of personal data that we collect and how it is used and managed, for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulations in Europe (GDPR).
The data controller and data processor for the purposes of the GDPR is UKESC Limited.
We will collect and process the following data about you to facilitate the advisory and support services we provide to you:
· Information you give us. This is information you provide by filling in forms on our site www.ukesc.co.uk (our site) or by corresponding with us by e-mail, phone, in person or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you register on our site or on meeting with us in your country and information you provide in correspondence and in any application form you send us or that we help you to complete via our UCAS centre or university agent portal. The information may include your name, date of birth, address, nationality, e-mail address, phone number and education information. An application form may also include passport details and declaration of criminal conviction, or disability / special needs; these details would be stored on our systems as part of your application but are not recorded in a database or processed further by us. Likewise, if you apply to any of the universities we work with you might send us information to pass on to the universities eg. a copy of your passport, or evidence of fees payments; these are transmitted so will be on our systems but are not used by us further. Your information is held to enable us to provide our advisory services, to support you in relation to your application and/or to respond to your enquiries.
· Information we receive from other sources. If you apply for a course through our UCAS centre or university agent portal, we may receive your reference from your referee so that we can insert this into your application for you. Where you have used our services we may also receive information about the decision on your application, correspondence about your application and enrolment at the university.
We use information held about you in the following ways:
· to provide you with relevant information and advice about studying in the UK, information about the universities we work with in particular, and to support you throughout the application process if you choose to apply to any of the universities we work with, including with making applications and helping resolve queries and issues and to guide in post-application matters. The information we send you may typically include suggestions of courses appropriate for you based on your interests, qualifications and other factors you mention; information about our universities; information as appropriate, about the application process, costs and scholarships, visas, accommodation, travel, orientation and Welcome events. We may also send you information about our services and in particular about our forthcoming visits to the region and planned advisory sessions, news and events.
· if you attend one of the universities we work with we may contact you on rare occasion after you have started your course or in the future, for feedback on your experience, to inform you of a visit we might be making to your university or your country, to see if you are interested in further study in the UK, or for other occasional alumni purposes.
We do not share your information with third parties except in the following circumstances:
· with your agreement where you ask us to make enquiries with particular universities, then information relevant to the enquiry will be shared with that / those universities.
· where you have applied to one of the universities we work with, we will share your application information with that / those universities to the extent it would already be accessible to them on their systems. We will pass on information to the relevant university that you send to us for that express purpose eg. a copy of your passport, evidence of a deposit payment, evidence of meeting conditions of your offer.
· with providers of support services used for our business such as software and IT functionality providers, for the purpose only of them providing these services (these parties are also subject to data protection laws).
· or otherwise where you specifically authorise or request this.
We would need to disclose your personal information to third parties:
· if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation (including visa or other authorities).
Our processing is necessary for our legitimate interests. As an education adviser and student recruiter, the receipt and holding of personal information from enquirers interested in studying in the UK and applicants is an essential part of the process. We need the information to be able to recommend appropriate courses, help with applications, provide relevant information about scholarships and visas for example, and to support and guide applicants coming to the universities we work with throughout the application process. We do this to support our [prospective] applicants’ study aspirations. If you tell us that you are no longer interested in studying at one of our universities, we will cease to process your data and will delete or anonymise it in accordance with our Privacy Statement.
We will also ask for your consent when you register for our services to ensure you are happy for us to collect and process your personal data as set out in our Privacy Statement.
Your personal data is stored on our computer systems and we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that once we receive it, your data is treated securely and in accordance with our Privacy Statement and UK data protection laws.
Your information will be stored in accordance with our internal data retention policies. We will not store your information for longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is held, also bearing in mind legal and accounting factors and obligations. After this time your information will be securely destroyed or anonymised.
You have rights relating to your personal data. You have the right to:
· Be informed: about the collection and use of your personal data, the purposes for processing it, how long it will be held for and who it will be shared with. This Privacy Statement addresses this requirement.
· Ask for access to a copy of the personal data held about you.
· Ask for correction of personal data you think is inaccurate.
· Request erasure of your personal data, including where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. This is not a general right, there are exceptions, including where the information must continue to be held to comply with legal obligations which would be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
· Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
· Request restriction of processing of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data: where you want us to establish the data's accuracy; where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or you have objected to our use of your data and this is being reviewed.
· Request transfer of certain personal data you have provided to us, to you or to a third party.
· Withdraw consent at any time for the processing of your personal data. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide services to you. We will advise you of this as relevant at the time you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above please contact us at enquiries@ukesc.co.uk .
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your data please let us know. You have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection regulator in your country or with the Information Commissioner’s Office, online at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or by calling 0303 123 1113.
Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of the universities we work with or other institutions or authorities. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to their websites.
UKESC Limited is a company registered in England with company number 04502552. The registered office address is 78 Loughborough Road, Quorn, Leicestershire LE12 8DX.
Questions and requests regarding this Privacy Statement and our use of your data should be addressed to enquiries@ukesc.co.uk .