Privacy

Protecting your privacy is of the utmost importance to the TDA. While we may collect information about you from time to time, using it to satisfy your particular requirements, we will always take appropriate measures to safeguard your privacy.

Collecting personal information

We may collect personal information about you (eg contact details, date of birth, details of your qualifications) from a number of sources, including:

  • from you when you agree to take a service from the TDA;
  • from you when you contact the TDA with an enquiry or in response to a TDA communication; and
  • from publicly available sources, such as the electoral register.

Upon collecting personal information, we will always provide the opportunity for you to indicate if you do or do not (as applicable) wish to receive information from the TDA about other services. Normally this will be done by way of a tick box on an application form or contract. You may revise the choice that you have made at any time by writing to inform the TDA of the change.

Some of the personal information we collect from you may be sensitive personal data within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 – eg information about your health or ethnic origin. We will not use such data about you other than for the specific purpose for which you provide it.

Use of information

Information you provide or the TDA holds about you (whether or not under the TDA's contract(s) with you) may be used by the TDA and/or our agents to:

  • identify you when you make enquiries;
  • help administer, and contact you about improved administration of, any services provided by the TDA previously, now or in the future;
  • carry out marketing analysis and applicant profiling (including with transactional information) and create statistical and testing information;
  • help the TDA to prevent and detect fraud or loss; and
  • contact you by various means (including mail, email, telephone or SMS or multimedia messages) about other services offered by the TDA and selected partners. We will only contact you in this way if you have previously indicated your consent. In addition, we will only contact you by email, SMS or multimedia message about other people's services, or services which are not similar to those you have sought from the TDA, if you have explicitly opted in to receiving such material.

Disclosure and transfer of information

We may disclose your information to other related education sector bodies such as the DfES for them to carry out any of the above uses.

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we may be required to release information we hold about you to any requesting body. This may include collated statistics from information you have provided us with, but it will in no way affect your right to privacy under Data Protection.

We may disclose information held about you to third parties where legitimately requested for legal or regulatory purposes, or as part of legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings.

We may also find it necessary to transfer your personal information to third parties located outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This may happen where companies who process data on behalf of TDA are based outside of the EEA. The data protection and other laws of these countries may not be as comprehensive as those in the UK or the EU, in which cases steps will be taken to ensure an adequate level of protection is given to your information.

Monitoring

You should also note that communications with you (including phone conversations and emails) may be monitored and recorded by us for quality assurance, legal, regulatory and training purposes.

Protection of information

We maintain strict security measures in order to protect personal information and ensure compliance with all applicable legal requirements. This includes following certain procedures, such as checking your identity when you telephone us and encrypting data on our websites.

Providing information via the internet

Please be aware that communications over the internet, such as emails/webmails, are not secure unless they have been encrypted, and your communications may route through a number of countries before being delivered. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.

Using cookies

Like many websites, we may use 'cookies' to monitor website user traffic patterns and site usage. This helps us to understand how applicants and potential applicants use our websites so that we can develop and improve their design, layout and functionality.

A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive and which records your navigation of a website so that, when you revisit that website, it can present tailored options to you based upon the stored information about your last visit. You can normally alter the settings of your browser to prevent acceptance of cookies.

If you do not want us to deploy cookies in your browser, you can set it to reject cookies or to notify you when a website tries to put a cookie on your computer. However, rejecting cookies may affect your ability to use some of the services on our websites.

Turning off cookies

Following these instructions will stop your computer from accepting cookies in future.

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0:

  • From your browser menu, select 'Tools'.
  • Then select 'Internet options'. This will bring up the 'Internet Options' dialogue box.
  • On the top of the dialogue box, select 'Security', then 'Custom level'. This will bring up the 'Security settings' box.
  • Scroll down using the scroll bar on the right-hand side of the box, until you come to the section carrying the title 'Allow cookies to be stored on your computer'.
  • Of the options available, select 'Disable', and then select the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box.

If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0:

  • From your browser menu, select 'Tools', and then 'Internet options'. This will bring up the 'Internet options' dialogue box.
  • On the top of the dialogue box, select 'Privacy'. This will bring up the 'Privacy settings' box.
  • On the 'Privacy' tab, move the slider up for a higher level of privacy or down for a lower level of privacy.
  • Move the slider to the top to block cookies from all websites.

If you're using Netscape 4.7:

  • First, on your top menu, select 'Edit', and then 'Preferences'. This will bring up the 'Preferences' menu box.
  • From the options on the left-hand side, select 'Advanced' which will bring up another menu.
  • Halfway down, you will see a section on cookies, and if you wish to turn cookies off, you should select 'Disable', and then the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box.

If you're using Netscape 6.0:

  • First, on your top menu, select 'Tasks', and then 'Privacy & security'.
  • From here you have the option to 'Block cookies from this site', 'Unblock cookies from this site' or view and remove and prevent cookies from being reaccepted from selected sites.

Pixels and GIF files

The TDA uses pixels, or transparent GIF files, to help manage online advertising. These GIF files are provided by our advertising management partners, Advertising.com, Accelerator Media and DoubleClick. The files enable our partners to recognise a unique cookie on your browser, which lets us know which advertisements bring users to our website. The cookie is placed by us, or by another advertiser who works with one of our partners.

With both cookies and Spotlight technology, the information we collect and share is anonymous and not personally identifiable. It does not contain your name, address, telephone number, or e-mail address. For more information about our partners, Advertising.com, Accelerator Media and DoubleClick, including information about how to opt out of these technologies, go to:

http://uk.advertising.com/privacy/index.php

http://www.accelerator-media.com/privacy.html

http://www.doubleclick.net/us/corporate/privacy

Further information

If you would like any further information or have any comments on our privacy policy then please write to or email us using the details below. We may amend this policy from time to time in which case the amended version will be published on our website and a copy may be obtained by writing to:

Data Protection Officer
Training and Development Agency for Schools
151 Buckingham Palace Road
London
SW1W 9SZ

data_protection_officer@tda.gov.uk

This policy applies to personal information held about individuals. It does not apply to information held by the TDA about companies and other organisations.