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Privacy Policy

U-Explore Limited (“We”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting www.u-explore.com, www.startprofile.com and www.plotr.co.uk you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

For the purpose of the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 (GDPR), the data controller is U-Explore Limited (registered number 8544080) whose registered office is at One Embankment, Neville Street, Leeds, LS1 4DW.

We understand that protection of your personal data is extremely important. As such, if you are in secondary education and have any concerns about any aspect of this policy and how your data is being used, we would advise that you discuss this with your parent or legal guardian.

 

Please note that references in this policy to:

– an “Authorised User” means any teacher or careers advisor/ consultant who satisfies the Establishment’s own internal data protection and student security protocols;

– an “Establishment” means any school, college or other organisation that has registered to use the U-Explore Services;

“our Websites” means one of our collection of online software tools hosted at the domains listed above, which you may choose or be directed to use including “Start”, “U-Explore Online”, “Plotr” and “Pathways Tracker”.

 

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following data about you:

Information you give us

You may give us information about you at various stages in using our websites as follows:

– when you register and use our Websites you will provide us with registration details (which include name, gender, the Establishment you attend and (if applicable) year group and, optionally, your email).

Other information you have the option to provide within our Websites will include (but not be limited to):

– personal statement(s), skills and qualifications;

– details of work experience and references;

– details of your action plan: goals and the steps you intend to take to reach them;

– examples of work and achievements you may optionally choose to upload to our site.

You are not obliged to provide further information. However, the more information you provide, the better the quality of the recommendations you will receive from the site.

If your school makes use of our Pathways Tracker tool to record careers guidance discussions which take place directly with you, then we may additionally collect information that you provide to your advisor during those meetings. This could include details of destinations such as colleges and sixth forms that you are considering or applying for, and personal information you may provide such as your grades, date of birth and contact details. Your school may use this system to record information on your history of attendance, behaviour or if your circumstances entitle you to additional support.

Information we collect about you

With regard to each of your visits to our site we may automatically collect the following information:

– technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;

– information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.

 

Uses made of the information

Information you give to us

We will use the information that you provide and that we collect to improve the quality of our service to you in the following ways:

– the provision of the information about you to your Establishment and to any parent/guardian to support careers guidance advice. Where they register to use the service, Authorised Users at your Establishment will be able to access your information both individually, to assist you individually, and also on an aggregated basis with all other users at your Establishment to assist in developing the careers service at that Establishment. Guidance advisors may be subcontracted, for which safeguards are in place including DBS checks and Establishment-approved access. Your Establishment is responsible for determining who is an Authorised User. Please contact your Establishment if you require further information on their rules of access;

– to tailor your experience whilst on our Websites, ensuring it is relevant for your age and stage of progress through the careers guidance journey;

– to make you aware of other relevant products and services provided by U-Explore Limited or its partners;

– to make you aware of relevant training courses, apprenticeships and jobs provided by third parties;

– to build statistical modelling to understand labour market trends;

– to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us;

– to notify you about changes to our service;

– to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.

Information we collect about you

We will use this information in the following ways:

– to administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;

– to improve our site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;

– to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so; as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure.

 

Disclosure of your information

Your personal information will only be shared between companies within our group, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.

Whilst we will use your information to inform you of relevant third party products and services, we will not sell, rent or share your personal details to any third parties for marketing purposes. We may sell, rent or share elements of your data as part of anonymous aggregated data from your Establishment, but this will not include any personal information. We may share your information with analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.

We have carried out a Privacy Impact Assessment and determined that the storage and processing of your data is within the ‘Legitimate Interests’ of both yourself and your learning provider, so that our products can support you in the most effective manner. In doing so we have been mindful of your privacy issues and have determined that these have not been compromised by pursuing this disclosure. If you feel there are particular issues, relating to your privacy, please contact us via data@u-explore.com.

We do not share your personal information with any employers or other educational establishments although we may pass their details on to you.

We take steps to ensure that your personal details are not accessible to technical contractors or developers, and safeguards are in place for any contracted Guidance Advisors supplied to your Establishment to be DBS checked and that your Establishment will have approved their access to your personal information in order to support you in your career planning.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

– in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets;

– if U-Explore Limited or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets;

– if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use or any End User Licence Agreement between us; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of U-Explore Limited, our customers, or others.

 

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our cookies policy.

 

Where we store your personal data

The data that we collect from you is stored on systems owned and maintained by U-Explore Limited in secure data centres within the UK with access limited to authorised individuals. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

If we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure, and for this reason we conduct your entire visit to our Websites within a secure session which encrypts information transmitted between yourself and our site. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to us through mediums such as email; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

 

Other Websites

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from other websites of interest. 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 these websites.

 

Access to information

GDPR gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised by emailing data@u-explore.com providing us, for validation, with your name, username, school and (if applicable) year group for these requests. By doing so this will begin the validation process, which will require you to later log back in and confirm the request before we then respond with a report on the data we hold in a timely manner.

 

Retention of data

Data will only be retained for as long as you maintain a relationship with our Websites. We hope you will continue to find our services of use to you but after two years of inactivity beyond Year 13 (age 18) we will remove your personal data. We will contact you first via email, and you only need to log back in to indicate that you still intend to use our Websites periodically.

 

Removal of your data

GDPR gives you the right to request that we remove all personal data held about you. If you make such a request, we would remove all your personal details including your activity on our Websites such as liked content, completed activities and achievements that you may have provided, so please be sure that you do wish to remove all of this data before proceeding.

Please email data@u-explore.com providing us with your name, username, school and (if applicable) year group for these requests. By doing so this will begin the validation process, which will ultimately lead to the removal of your data in a timely manner and will require you to later log back in and confirm the removal request.

 

Data breach process

We have taken all steps possible to ensure the protection of your data via secure storage and transmission, limited access even within our own team and through our retention policy. However, in the unlikely event that we were to discover that there had been a personal data breach, or one was reported to us via data@u-explore.com, we would investigate and respond within 72 hours, where feasible, as dictated by the GDPR guidelines.

 

Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

 

Contact

The continued provision and improvement of our services is dependent on you being prepared to share personal information with us. It is therefore essential that you are confident to share your information with us. Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to data@u-explore.com, in particular if:

– you have any questions or comments about our policies and procedures in respect of your data;

– you require details of personal information that we hold about you or you wish us remove your personal data from our systems.

– you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes and have changed your mind;

– you believe that any information we are holding is incorrect or incomplete. However, you should be able to amend this information yourself through your profile.