The TDA considers protection of your privacy to be of utmost importance and we are committed to providing you with a personalised service that meets your requirements in a way that safeguards your privacy.
This policy explains how we may collect information about you and then use it in order to satisfy your particular requirements. It also outlines some of the security measures that we take in order to protect your privacy and gives certain assurances on things that we will not do.
When we first obtain personal information from you we will give you the opportunity to indicate if you do or do not (as applicable) wish to receive information from us about other services. This may be done by:
- a tick box on an on-line or paper registration or application;
- verbal confirmation by a telephone adviser.
You may revise the choice that you have made at any time by writing to us informing us of the change.
Some of the personal information we hold about you may be sensitive personal data within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 - for example, information about your health or ethnic origin. We will not use sensitive personal data about you other than for the specific purpose for which you provide it.
1. Collection of information
We may collect personal information about you from a number of sources, including:
- from you when you agree to take a service from us in which case this may include your contact details, date of birth, details of your qualifications;
- from you when you contact us with an enquiry or in response to a communication from us, in which case this may tell us something about your preferences;
- from publicly available sources.
2. Use of information
2.1
Information you provide or we hold about you (whether or not under our contract(s) with you) may be used by us and/or our agents to:
- identify you when you make enquiries;
- help administer, and contact you about improved administration of, any services provided by us previously, now or in the future;
- carry out marketing analysis and applicant profiling (including with transactional information) and create statistical and testing information;
- help us to prevent and detect fraud or loss; and
- contact you by various means (including mail, e-mail, telephone, text or multimedia messages) about other services offered by us, and our contracted partners. We will only contact you in this way if you have previously indicated your consent. In addition, we will only contact you by e-mail, text or multimedia message about other people's services, or services which are not similar to those you have sought from us, if you have explicitly opted in to receiving such material.
3. Disclosure and transfer of information
3.1
We may disclose your information to other related education sector bodies such as the Department for Children, Schools and Families, for them to carry out any of these purposes as set out in clause 2.1 above.
3.2
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we may be required to release information held by the TDA 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.
3.3
We may disclose information we hold about you to third parties where legitimately requested for legal or regulatory purposes, or as part of legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings.
3.4
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 these instances we take rigorous steps to ensure an adequate level of protection is given to your information.
4. Monitoring
You should also note that communications with you (including phone conversations and e-mails) may be monitored and recorded by us for quality assurance, legal, regulatory and training purposes.
5. Protection of information
We maintain strict security measures in order to protect personal information. This includes following certain procedures, for example to check your identity when you telephone us, encrypting data on our websites and in order to ensure compliance with all applicable legal requirements.
6. The internet
6.1
If you communicate with us via the internet then we may occasionally use e-mail to contact you about our services. When you first provide personal information to our website we will normally give you the opportunity to indicate whether you would prefer us not to contact you in this way. However, you can contact us at any time to change your preferences.
6.2
Please be aware that communications over the internet, such as e-mails/webmails, are not secure unless they have been encrypted. Your communications may route through a number of countries before being delivered - this is the nature of the World Wide Web/Internet. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.
6.3
We may use "cookies" to monitor website user traffic patterns and site usage. This helps us to understand how our applicants and potential applicants use our websites so that we can develop and improve the design, layout and functionality of the sites. 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.
Your privacy – how cookies are used by the TDA
6.4
If you do not want us to deploy cookies in your browser, you can set your browser 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 at our website.
You can learn more about managing cookies through Internet browser cookies – what they are and how to manage them.
7. 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
http://www.doubleclick.net/us/corporate/privacy
http://www.accelerator-media.com/privacy.html
8. Links
This website may contain links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected on this website.
9. Further information
If you would like any further information or have any comments on our Privacy Policy then please write to us or send us an e-mail at data_protection_officer@tda.gov.uk. 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 the address below.
- Data Protection Officer
- Training and Development Agency for Schools
- Piccadilly Gate
- Store Street
- MANCHESTER
- M1 2WD
10. Transfer to the Teaching Agency
On 31 March 2012 the TDA will cease to exist in its current form as a non-departmental public body (NDPB) of the Department for Education (DfE). From 1 April 2012 some of the functions of the TDA will be undertaken by the new Teaching Agency, which will be an executive agency of the DfE. This will mean the transfer of relevant personal data gathered and held by the TDA to the new Teaching Agency, which will become the data owner (under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 the DfE will be the Data Controller for this information). This will not affect your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998 or the way that your data is used. Where your consent was given in gathering this data, the right to withdraw your consent will still apply.
This policy applies to personal information held about individuals. It does not apply to information we hold about companies and other organisations.