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This is for any learners who do a learndirect course and is in full on your home page when you log on.
In short:
The information we collect during the enrolment process
When you enrol with us, you (or the person enrolling you) must tell us:
- your full name;
- your gender
- your date of birth;
- your address (and correspondence address if different);
- primary telephone number;
- your employment status;
- where you heard about us;
- if you have done any learning in the last three years.
We also request other information including your title, middle name, email address, National Insurance number and if you are a Welsh speaker, but you don’t have to give us these details. Following enrolment via the website, we, or our approved learning providers, may request additional personal data from you in order to further support your learning. You do not have to provide this information, but if you do not, you may not get the most out of your learning. However, we ask you to tell us whether you have achieved Level 2 in English and Maths.
Please note that when you enrol on a learndirect course that leads to qualification such as an NVQ, we send non sensitive personal information to the relevant awarding bodies so that they can undertake the administration associated with your qualification.
Before you enrol, we will give you a username and ask you for a password. You will also be given a learner reference number and asked to give the answer to a question you choose which will identify you.
Other information we collect to see if you can have government funding
If government funding is available for any of our courses, you need to answer some other questions to see if you are eligible for funding. If you wish to take advantage of any such funding, you will be asked about :
- your age;
- your education so far;
- your citizenship status; and
- where you live and how long you have lived there.
We, or our approved learning providers, may require additional information from you in order to support an application for funding. If you do not want to provide us with this information, we will not be able to offer you the course at the reduced price.
The information we collect when you access course materials
We collect information about how you use course materials to monitor your learning and improve our users’ learning experience.
* learndirect may record calls to helplines for quality and training purposes only. They will store calls for about three months and will keep them confidential. In general, if you contact them, they may keep a record of your query or complaint for a reasonable time in case you contact us again.
Sensitive personal data
Sensitive personal data includes details of your:
- race or ethnic origin
- political opinions
- religious or other beliefs
- trade-union membership
- physical or mental health
- sexual life; or
- criminal record (including information about criminal proceedings and suspected criminal activities).
At or before enrolment you may be asked for sensitive personal information but you do not have to provide it. Where we invite you to provide such information, we will ask you to consent to our proposed uses of such data. If you do not wish to provide this information you may select the “Not Known/Not Provided” option.
You may also volunteer sensitive personal data to us or our approved learning providers, for example, when you submit a query or comment to us via the website or some other means of communication. If you do so, you explicitly consent to our using such information as described in this Privacy Statement.
How we use the information we collect
We use your personal information:
- to answer your queries or complaints;
- to deliver our services, for example on-line tools to test your skills;
- to support your learning;
- to provide course materials;
- to carry out administration;
- for general statistics and research;
- for obtaining any relevant professional advice;
- as may be required by law or in connection with legal proceedings (including where we intend to take legal proceedings), or as may be necessary to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.
Keeping you informed
learndirect, and their approved learning providers, will use your information to send you regular updates about :
- services and materials;
- additions to the website; and
- specific activities such as customer feedback surveys and competitions.
If you enrol on a learndirect course but do not wish to receive this information, untick the relevant boxes on the ’contact permissions’ page (inviting us to contact you by post and for customer feedback purposes). If you do wish to receive information about learndirect developments and offers by telephone, email and/or SMS, please invite us to contact you by ticking the appropriate boxes. If at any time, you change your mind about receiving updates, you can change your preferences using “your details” on your learner home page.
We will never use your sensitive personal data for marketing purposes or to target you for customer feedback purposes without your express consent.
Statistics
learndirect and/or the approved learning providers delivering and supporting your learning are also required to provide statistics to all of the government agencies mentioned under the heading ‘Funding’ and to the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, in order that they can carry out checks on our funding arrangements and our performance and for research and statistical purposes. This helps us, and our approved learning providers, to maintain our funding. Where such information is supplied, it is provided in an aggregated manner so that whilst such authorities may be aware of, for example, the number, geographic location and sex of persons using learndirect, you cannot be personally identified from this information.
However, we may provide information that identifies you (your name, date of birth, address and postcode) to the Department of Work and Pensions so that they can check whether learndirect learners have progressed into employment and compile statistical information about such progression. You will not be identifiable from the statistical information compiled.
The information collected on Welsh speakers is passed in an aggregate manner to the Welsh Assembly. You cannot be personally identified from this information.
Requests for information
If you have not registered as a learner but are simply making an enquiry or request for information, we will use your personal information to reply to your enquiry or request. We will not use this information for marketing purposes without your permission or unless you invite us to do so.
Protecting your personal information
We are registered as a data controller (in our registered company name of Ufi Limited) in line with the UK Data Protection Act, 1998. As a registered data controller, we are required to take appropriate technical measures to protect your personal information including making a regular backup of our system and data. We have security measures in place to make sure any personal information we collect is secure. Your account is password protected and all information including your password is on a secure server, which only a limited number of employees and sub-contractors can access. All parties with access to your information are subject to confidentiality obligations. If you think someone else knows your password, or is using it, tell us immediately and change your password using the “change my password” option under “your details” on your learner home page.
Even though we take appropriate technical steps to protect your security, you should remember that data transmission over the internet cannot always be guaranteed as 100% secure so you use the website at your own risk.
Please look at the terms and conditions on this website for our policy on purging emails and webspace. The terms and conditions tell you when we may close your account and delete all your records, files and information.
Keeping your personal data
learndirect keep personal data:
- for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for;
- as required by law; or
- to enforce or defend legal claims.
Sometimes we will keep information that you have deleted, for example messages sent by you to your tutor, as a record of your learning experience. We will keep this information for a reasonable time.
Cookies and other technologies
Cookies
Cookies are small text files which are sent to your browser by a web server and stored on your personal computer’s hard disk. We use cookies on our site to :
- cut down the number of times you have to type in data;
- record the success of advertising, to target advertising and to track visitor usage; and
- track responses to regular customer surveys and to make sure you don’t see the same survey more than once.
In general, we use third parties to conduct online surveys on our behalf. We do not issue the cookies used in these online surveys and these cookies may require your browser to connect to sites that are not run by us. You can find out more about the cookies used in online surveys conducted on our behalf by clicking through to the website of the third party that is conducting the online survey.
Transparent gif files
Some of our webpages may contain invisible electronic tags that allow us count users that have visited certain pages. These files are only used to identify which advertisements bring customers to our website and you cannot be identified by them. They are not issued by us but by the relevant advertising provider. You can find out more about cookie type devices issued by third party advertisers by clicking through to the website operated by the relevant advertiser.
Last updated : 4th August 2008
