Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice (also called Privacy Policy)

STEP Academy Trust considers the privacy of its users to be a serious issue. Please read the following to learn more about our privacy policy. STEP Academy Trust is a Trust based in the United Kingdom.

What this Policy Covers

This policy covers how STEP Academy Trust treats personal information that STEP Academy Trust collects and receives, including information to your past use of our website. Personal information, is information about you that is personally identifiable like your name, address, email address or phone number, and that is not otherwise publicly available.

This policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control, or to people that we do not employ or manage.

Information Collection and Use

STEP Academy Trust collects personal information whenever a user chooses to contact us via the web form within the contact us section.

When contacting us using this method we ask for information such as your name, e-mail address and telephone number.

STEP Academy Trust automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser, including your IP address, STEP Academy Trust cookie information, and the page you request.

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract with you: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Legitimate interests: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure user experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
• Legal obligation: We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis.
• Consent: We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose, for example if you subscribe to an email newsletter.

We use information for the following general purposes: to customise the content you see, fulfil your requests and for technical website administration purposes.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

We do not rent, sell or share personal information about you with other people or non-affiliated companies except to provide products or services you have requested, when we have your permission.

We will use reasonable efforts to ensure that your personal data is not disclosed to regional/national institutions and authorities, unless required by law or other regulations.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this policy. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by placing a prominent notice on our web site.

Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.

Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Your Legal Rights below for further information.

Your Legal Rights

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will 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 (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
  • If 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 but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact using the online form provided.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review.. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by placing a prominent notice on our website.

Privacy Support and Contact Information

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us using the online form provided.

© STEP Academy Trust 2023, United Kingdom.