Below is Dec-Assess Ltd new privacy Policy in compliance with GDPR as of 25/05/18 

Scope of our Privacy Policy

This privacy notice applies to anyone who interacts with us about our products and services (‘you’, ‘your’), in any way (for example, by email, through our website, by phone, through our app). We will give you further privacy information if necessary for specific contact methods or in relation to specific products or services.

This privacy notice applies to you if you ask us about, buy or use our products and services. It describes how we handle your information, regardless of the way you contact us (for example, by email, through our website, by phone, through our app and so on). We will provide you with further information or notices if necessary, depending on the way we interact with each other, for example if you use our apps we may give you privacy notices which apply just to a particular type of information which we collected through that app.

If you have any questions about this, please contact us at dataprotection@dec-assess.com.

How we Collect Personal Information

We collect personal information from you and from third parties (anyone acting on your behalf, for example, your employers or agents). Please see below for more information.

Where you provide us with information about other people, you must make sure that they have seen a copy of this privacy notice and are comfortable with you giving us their information.

We collect personal information from you: 

•    through your contact with us, including by phone (we may record or monitor phone calls to make sure we are keeping to legal rules, codes of practice and internal policies, and for quality assurance purposes), by email, through our website, through our apps, by post, by filling in application or other forms, through social media or face-to-face (for example your induction and initial assessment). 

•  any service providers who work with us in relation to your product or service, if we don’t provide it to you direct, such as SFA (Skills Funding Agency) and its LRS (Learner Registration Service)
  
•  organisations, such as Trustpilot or Google, who carry out customer-satisfaction surveys or market research on our behalf, or who provide us with statistics and other information to help us to improve our products and services;
  
• fraud-detection and credit-reference agencies; and
  
•  sources which are available to the public, such as the edited electoral register or social media.

Legitimate Interest

We process your personal information for a number of legitimate interests, including managing all aspects of our relationship with you, for marketing, to help us improve our services and products. More detailed information about our legitimate interests is set out below.

Legitimate interest is one of the legal reasons why we may process your personal information. Taking into account your interests, rights and freedoms, legitimate interests which allow us to process your personal information include:

• to manage our relationship with you, our business and third parties who provide products or services for us (for example, to check that you have received a service that you’re applied for, to validate invoices and so on);
• to a third party (for example, your employer or our accountants and awarding organisations);
• to keep our records up to date and to provide you with marketing as allowed by law;
• for statistical research and analysis so that we can monitor and improve products, services, websites and apps, or develop new ones;
• to contact you about market research we are carrying out;
• to enforce or apply our website terms of use, our policy terms and conditions or other contracts, or to protect our (or our customers’ or other people’s) rights, property or safety;
• to exercise our rights, to defend ourselves from claims and to keep to laws and regulations that apply to us and the third parties we work with.

Sharing Your Information

We share your information, with funders arranging services on your behalf, with people acting on your behalf (for example, employers and other agents) and with others who help us provide services to you (awarding organisations, the LRS and CSCS)  

• other organisations you belong to, or are professionally associated with, in order to confirm your entitlement to claim discounts on our products and services;
• for example, your trainer/ assessor/ IQA
•  
• people or organisations we have to, or are allowed to, share your personal information with by law (for example, for fraud-prevention or safeguarding purposes);
• the police and other law-enforcement agencies to help them perform their duties, or with others if we have to do this by law or under a court order;

How Long We Keep Your Personal Information

We keep your personal information in line with set periods calculated using the following criteria.

o   How long you have been a customer with us, the types of products or services you have with us, and when you will stop being our customer.

o   How long it is reasonable to keep records to show we have met the obligations we have to you and by law.

o   Any periods for keeping information which are set by law or recommended by regulators, professional bodies or associations. (e.g. 12 weeks from induction, 3 years from registration/completion)

o   Any relevant proceedings that apply.

If you would like more information about how long we will keep your information for, please contact us dataprotection@dec-assess.com 

Your Rights

You have the right to access your information and to ask us to correct any mistakes and delete and restrict the use of your information. You also have the right to object to us using your information, to ask us to transfer of information you have provided, to withdraw permission you have given us to use your information and to ask us not to use automated decision-making which will affect you. For more information, see below.

You have the following rights (certain exceptions apply).

•    Right of access: the right to make a written request for details of your personal information and a copy of that personal information
  
• Right to rectification: the right to have inaccurate information about you corrected or removed
  
•  Right to erasure ('right to be forgotten'): the right to have certain personal information about you erased
  
• Right to restriction of processing: the right to request that your personal information is only used for restricted purposes
  
•  Right to object: the right to object to processing of your personal information in cases where our processing is based on the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or we have let you know the processing is necessary for our or a third party’s legitimate interests. You can object to our use of your information for profiling purposes where it is in relation to direct marketing
  
• Right to data portability: the right to ask for the personal information you have made available to us to be transferred to you or a third party in machine-readable formats
  
• Right to withdraw consent: the right to withdraw any consent you have previously given us to handle your personal information. If you withdraw your consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of Dec-Assess Ltd.’s use of your personal information prior to the withdrawal of your consent and we will let you know if we will no longer be able to provide you your chosen product or service
  
• Right in relation to automated decisions: you have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you, unless it is necessary for entering into a contract with you, it is authorised by law or you have given your explicit consent. We will let you know when such decisions are made, the lawful grounds we rely on and the rights you have.
  
• Please note: Other than your right to object to the use of your data for direct marketing (and profiling to the extent used for the purposes of direct marketing), your rights are not absolute: they do not always apply in all cases and we will let you know in our correspondence with you how we will be able to comply with your request.
  
• If you make a request, we will ask you to confirm your identity if we need to, and to provide information that helps us to understand your request better. If we do not meet your request, we will explain why.
  
• In order to exercise your rights please contact dataprotection@dec-assess.com
  

Cookies

What is a Cookie?

A cookie, also known as a browser cookie, is a text file containing small amounts of information which a server may download to your computer hard drive, tablet or mobile device when you visit a website or use an app.

There are different types of cookies which are used to do different things. These include letting you navigate between different pages on a website efficiently, remembering preferences you have given and helping us to identify ways to improve your overall site experience. Others are used to provide you with advertising which is more tailored to your interests, or to measure the number of site visits and the most popular pages users visit.

A link to our website providers Cookie Policy is here: https://www.websites-madesimple.co.uk/info/terms/cookies

‘First Party’ and ‘Third Party’ Cookies

Cookies can be set and controlled by the operator of the website which the user is browsing such as Dec-Assess Ltd for this website (known as a ‘first party cookie’) or a third party such as Facebook, for example to display advertisements and social sharing features, (known as a ‘third party cookie’).

Due to their core role of enhancing and enabling usability or site processes, disabling certain cookies may prevent you from using certain aspects of the Dec-Assess Ltd website, such as generating a quote or placing an order.

Broadly speaking, there are two different types of browser cookie:

(1) Session cookies are stored in the computer's memory during a user's browsing session and are automatically deleted from the user's computer when the browser is closed or the session is deemed to have ended.

These cookies usually store a session ID that is not personally identifiable to users, allowing the user to move from page to page without having to log-in repeatedly. They are widely used by commercial websites; for example, to keep track of items that a consumer has added to a shopping basket.

Session cookies do not collect any information from the user's computer and they expire at the end of the user's browser session. They can also become inaccessible after the session has been inactive for a specified length of time, usually 20 or 30 minutes.

(2) Persistent cookies are stored on the user's computer and are not deleted when the browser is closed. Persistent cookies can be used to retain user preferences for a particular website, allowing those preferences to be used in future browsing sessions.

Persistent cookies usually assign a unique ID to the user’s browser and they are usually configured to identify a user for a prolonged period of time, from days to months or even years.

How does Dec-Assess Ltd use Cookies?

The cookies used by Dec-Assess Ltd help us to track basic visitor information and to learn about the behaviour of visitors to this website and how they respond to our marketing communications and for research and statistical purposes. The more we learn, the better we are able to provide relevant and interesting content and services.

The cookies that Dec-Assess Ltd uses do not collect personal information such as name, address, email address and do not link any information they collect to an individual. From time to time Dec-Assess Ltd may also analyse IP addresses, user agent strings or other anonymous data sources. All data is collected in an anonymous and aggregated form.

Sharing of Data from Cookies

As detailed in the privacy policy, Dec-Assess Ltd may disclose data collected from cookies, such as visitor trends, to third parties, in an anonymous form, for research and statistical purposes, and to help us optimise our websites and the targeting of advertisements.

How Can You Control the Use of Data From Cookies?

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies and your use of this website constitutes your consent to this website setting cookies on your computer or other device.

It is possible to disable cookies on most web browsers. We recommend that if you do not want this website to set cookies on your computer or other device you should either; not use the site and delete any Dec-Assess Ltd cookies that may have already been placed, or change the settings in your website browser to disable cookies. However, because cookies allow you to take advantage of some of this website's essential features, we recommend you leave them turned on.

Learn More About Cookies