Next Steps

Our Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy

1. What’s in this policy?

This policy tells you:

  • what information we might collect about you
  • how we might use that information
  • when we might use your details to contact you
  • what information of yours we might share with others
  • your choices about the personal information you give up

2. What does this policy cover?

This policy covers the services that are offered by Next Steps Tutors.

What’s not covered in this policy?

Our website sometimes links to services run by other companies’ services, like Blooket or YouTube. Those companies have their own privacy and cookies policies, so remember that the information you give them will follow their rules and not ours.

3. How do you protect my personal information?

We’re strongly committed to keeping you and your family’s information safe. And to do this we design our services with your safety in mind. At the same time, no service can be completely secure – if you have any concerns that personal information has been put at risk, for example if someone could have found out your password, please get in touch straight away.

Where we store your information

Your information is only ever stored within our secure systems, held in the UK 

4. What types of personal information do you collect about me?

We’ll give you details about why we need your personal information and how we’ll use it before you begin, unless it’s obvious.

  1. Information that you give us

We might ask for your name and contact details, your date of birth or information relating to your children, depending on what you’re doing. When you register for an account on our website, or update your details or settings we ask for some personal information, like your email address and age.

  1. Device information

Devices are lots of things like:

  • your computer
  • your mobile
  • your TV
  • your tablet
  • your voice-enabled device

We automatically collect some technical information from these devices and web browsers even when you’re not signed into to an account on our website. This might include:

  • IP (internet protocol) address
  • device ID
  • app ID
  • vendor ID
  • advertising ID
  1. Location Information

We collect information about your location when you use our website. This helps us to determine whether you’re somewhere where our services are available.

Your location can be determined at a town or city level by:

  • GPS
  • IP address
  • Information about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi access point information

What type of location data (for example Country, Region, City or Town) is collected depends on the device you’re using (for example Apple or Android) and your device’s settings (whether permissions are enabled or disabled). You can change your permissions on or off any time in your device’s settings. 

  1. Information on your activities outside our website when you talk about us

Like if you’ve mentioned us in a Facebook post, we’ll collect your Facebook handle.

5. How long will Next Steps Tutors keep my personal information?

When you give us any personal information we’ll let you know how long we’ll hold it for. And always stick to these principles:

  • we only hold your information for as long as we do the activities we told you about or have a valid reason to keep it
  • we think about what type of information it is, the amount collected, how sensitive it might be and any legal requirements
  • we design our so that we don’t hold your information any longer than we have to
  • we may close your account on our website if you haven’t used it in the last year. We’ll send you an email to tell you that we plan to do this before we delete anything, so please check to see if we’ve sent you any emails about this

6. How can Next Steps Tutors use my personal information?

We have to have a valid reason to use your personal information. It’s called the “lawful basis for processing”. Sometimes we might ask your permission to do things, like when you subscribe to an email. Other times, when you’d reasonably expect us to use your personal information, we don’t ask your permission, but only when:

  • the law says it’s fine to use it, and
  • it fits with the rights you have

We use your information for these types of things:

  1. to deliver our services and to provide you with information about them
  2. to deal with your requests, complaints and enquiries
  3. to personalise emails and give you things more tailored to your requirements
  4. to show you relevant advertising on another company’s site
  5. to help us understand what kind of services you might use

And sometimes how you might share things with other people

  1. to recommend things we think might interest you
  2. to research and innovate

You’re not a guinea-pig here, but knowing how you use our services could help us to develop our offer

  1. to contact you about various things

7. When will Next Steps Tutors use my information to contact me?

We might use your information to contact you about different things, like:

  • to update you on any changes to our policies, practices and Terms of Use
  • to check with you about any service or activity you’ve signed up for. For example, we might tell you if your account hasn’t been used in a long time. Or it might be about creating a student account

 

  • to answer you when you’ve contacted us, or to respond to a comment or complaint
  • to invite you to take part in surveys about Next Steps Tutors, which are always voluntary
  • for marketing purposes
  • to send you notifications on your device depending on your settings

We’ll only contact you when we need to or when you’ve given us permission.

We’ll never contact you to ask for your account passwords.

8. Will I be contacted for marketing purposes?

We’ll only send you marketing emails or contact you about our services and your views on issues about Next Steps Tutors if you’ve agreed to this.

Keep in mind, even if you unsubscribe, we may still contact you.

Will my personal information be used when Next Steps Tutors advertises with other companies?

If you have a Next Steps Tutors account we might use information that we hold about you to show you relevant and targeted advertising for our services through other companies’ sites, like Facebook, Google, Snapchat or Twitter for example. This could be showing you a sponsored message where we know you have a Next Steps Tutors account and have used our services.

Where we do this, we will share your data in a hashed format with these providers so that, where you have an account on the same platform, you will see adverts from Next Steps Tutors. In these scenarios, we are joint controllers with these companies because we jointly determine the purposes and means of processing your personal data.

If you don’t want to see our targeted advertising, you can set ad preferences in your social media companies’ settings. 

9. When does Next Steps Tutors share my personal information with others?

We’ll never sell your personal information. We do share it with others in these ways:

  1. When you make something public

Like post a comment which the public can see.

  1. When we use other companies to power our services

In order for us to give you quality experiences and to understand how you’re using our services we often use other companies to process your personal information on our behalf. For example, sending you emails about things we think might interest you, card handling services, or to analyse data on how people use our tutoring services so we can improve them.

We make sure that your personal information is looked after as if we were handling it directly. We carefully select these companies, only share with them what they need to do the work and we make sure they keep your information secure.

  1. Sometimes by law we have to pass on your information to other organisations

We might also share your information if we have to by law, or when we need to protect you or other people from harm.

10. What about my family’s data?

Next Steps Tutors has services that are child-friendly and for teens.

Here’s what happens when you use them.

  1. Why do we collect information about you in the first place?

We keep information about you so that we can

  • get the right services for you
  • plan and improve our services
  • keep in touch with you
  1. We’ll always tell your parents why we’re collecting your personal information

We’ll explain why and how we use it and for how long. It’s called a “privacy notice”. And if we need your parent or guardian’s permission we’ll give you clear details about what’s needed at the time.

  1. We can only use your personal information if we have a valid reason
  2. We share personal information about you to others but we follow some rules

The main rule is we will never sell your personal information to anyone.

  1. Sometimes we’ll ask to get your parent or guardian’s consent

You’ll see a notification. We might also ask for some details from them, so that we can contact them. Other times we may contact your parent or guardian:

  • so you can get notifications from us
  • so we can show you more things we think you’ll like, based on what you do
  • so you can post comments
  • so you can upload your contribution to us
  1. Sometimes we’ll tell your parents about your activities

For example, if you complete great work, we might contact your parent.

  1. When we can contact you

Sometimes we need to get in touch with you but we’ll always follow these rules.

  1. It’s safe to use us

It’s our job to keep your personal information safe and secure. That’s why we design our services with your safety in mind. And we’re always looking for the best ways to improve this.

There are also things that you can do to keep safe, like thinking about what information you share and how to keep your devices secure.

  1. Human beings and not robots will make the big decisions that affect you
  2. You’re in control of how we use cookies and tracking

Cookies are small text files that transfer onto your device when you use a service.

We use cookies and tracking to get information about what type of device you’re using to access our services and we record things like what sites you visit, your IP address (a unique number your device creates every time you connect to the internet) and to make things easier for you, like remembering where you got to in a game or what emoji you selected.

You can switch off some cookies and similar tracking technologies. Or your parent or guardian can do this if you’re under 13.

But other cookies can’t be turned off.

11. Can I delete my information?

This depends on what information you’re talking about.

  1. If you’re talking about your Next Steps Tutors account

You can delete your account. Your account information is immediately deleted. Keep in mind:

  • we keep a record of how you’ve used our services, but this information can’t be linked back to you
  • we also keep anything you’ve uploaded or commented on
  1. What about other information I’ve shared with you?

We might have collected other personal information that you might ask to be deleted that has nothing to do with your Next Steps Tutors accounts..

12. What are my rights?

Remember, you’re in control of your personal information.

You have the right to:

  • request a copy of your information
  • not let robots make big decisions about you
  • to ask us to correct information that’s wrong, to delete it or to request that we only use it for certain purposes
  • to change your mind, and ask us to stop using your information. For example, unsubscribing from any marketing emails

Bear in mind, sometimes we might not be able to help. Like if the law tells us we can’t or we need information to keep you or others safe.

13. How does Next Steps Tutors use cookies and similar tracking?

  1. What are cookies and tracking technologies?

Cookies are small text files which are transferred to your computer or mobile when you visit a website or app.

There are also similar pieces of tracking information we collect.

  1. Why do we use cookies and other tracking?

To do a few different things:

  • to remember information about you, so you don’t have to give it to us again. And again. And again
  • to keep you signed in, even on different devices
  • to help us understand how people are using our services, so we can make them better
  • to find out if our emails have been read and if you find them useful
  1. What are the types of cookies?

Some cookies are always on when you visit us, and you can’t turn them off unless you change your browser settings. We call these “strictly necessary cookies”. We use them to make sure our digital services work correctly.

We also use functional, performance and advertising cookies to make your experience more enjoyable. You can switch these on or off at any time and you can always change your mind. We’ll only use them if you’ve agreed.

Bear in mind there are some other cookies out there from other companies. These “third-party cookies” might track how you use different websites, including ours. For example, you might get a social media company’s cookie when you see the option to share something. You can turn them off, but not through us.

  1. How do cookies last?

Some are erased when you close the browser on your website or app. Others stay longer, sometimes forever, and are saved onto your device so that they’re there when you come back.

  1. How do I control my cookies and tracking?

Strictly necessary cookies are always on when you visit us. On your first visit to us, we’ll tell you about our other types of cookies and ask you to choose which cookies we can use. You can always change your mind by going to your settings.

Stopping all cookies might mean you can’t access some of our website, or that it might not work properly for you.

Another way to control some tracking is in the settings on your device.

14. How will I find out about changes to this policy?

We update this policy sometimes. If we make important changes, like how we use your personal information, we’ll let you know. It might be a notice, an email or a message in your app.

If you don’t agree to the changes, then you can always stop using our services, delete your account and stop giving us any more personal information. We’d be sorry to see you go.

15. How can I contact Next Steps Tutors?

For any other questions or comments about this policy speak to our Data Protection Officer, Sarah Logan.

  • by email at Sarah@nextstepstutors.com
  • by post at Sarah Logan, Data Protection Officer, 2 Clevelands Park, Northam, Devon, EX39 3QH

We’re regulated by the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can also contact them for advice and support.