Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Arcstone Tutoring provides online 1-to-1 tutoring for students in Key Stage 3 to GCSE. We are the data controller for the personal information described in this policy, which means we decide what is collected and why.

Contact for privacy:

privacy@arcstonetutoring.com

2. What we collect

What we hold depends on who you are and how you use Arcstone.

3. Why we use it, and our legal basis

Data protection law says we need a reason - a “lawful basis” - for everything we do with your information. Here is ours, line by line.

We do not send marketing emails. Everything we email you about is something you asked for or need to know: a message, a lesson, a reminder, or a receipt. If we ever want to send you anything else, we will ask your permission first and update this policy.

Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting anything we did before you withdrew it. Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object and we will look at it again.

4. Sensitive information

Some information needs extra care under the law. There are two kinds we may hold.

5. Children’s data

Almost everyone we teach is under 18, so this section matters more than any other. We follow the ICO’s Children’s Code, which asks services used by children to put their interests first.

• Children do not get their own account. A parent or guardian holds the account and adds the child to it.
• A child joins their lesson through a link, and their tutor lets them in. They do not need to sign up or give us anything themselves.
• We do not show children adverts, we do not profile them, and we do not use their information to market anything.
• We do not sell or share children’s information with anyone for their own purposes.
• Only the child’s parent, their assigned tutor, and our admin team can see their information.
• Lessons are not recorded. We do keep a record of who joined a lesson and when, and any chat or files shared during it, so a concern can be looked into.

If you are a student reading this and you want to know what we hold about you, ask your parent or guardian to contact us, or email us yourself at privacy@arcstonetutoring.com. You have the same rights as anyone else.

6. Who we share it with

We do not sell your information. We do use a small number of companies to run the service. They may only act on our instructions.

Some of these companies are based outside the UK. Where your information goes abroad, it is protected by the safeguards UK data protection law requires, such as an approved contract between us and them.

We will also share information if we have a safeguarding duty to do so, or if the law requires it - for example with a local authority, the police, or a regulator.

7. How long we keep it

• While your account is open, we keep your information so the service works.
• When you close your account, we permanently disable your login and strip the personal details from your profile: your name and phone number, and, if you are a tutor, your photo, CV, bio, and DBS details.
• Messages, attendance records, lesson reports, and any safeguarding report are kept even after you leave. We are not able to delete these on request, because they may be the only record if a concern is raised later.
• Files attached to a message are different: we delete those automatically 30 days after they are uploaded. The message they were attached to stays. Work shared inside a lesson is kept.
• Because those safeguarding records are about your child, we also keep your child’s basic details - their name, year group, and date of birth. Without them the records would be about an unnamed person and would be useless if we ever had to act on a concern. Removing a child from your account hides them from it, but does not erase this.
• Payment and accounting records are kept for as long as UK tax law requires.

8. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:

• Give you a copy of the information we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete your information (sometimes called the right to be forgotten).
• Stop or limit what we do with it.
• Hand it over in a portable format, or send it to someone else.
• Stop using it where we rely on legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent where we asked for it, such as anything you told us about how your child learns.

If you have an account, you can download a copy of your data or close your account for good at any time from the “Privacy & data” section of your account settings - no need to email us and wait.

Not all of these rights are absolute, and we would rather be straight with you about it than promise something we cannot do. As explained in “How long we keep it”, message history, safeguarding records, and the child details attached to them stay with us even after you close your account, and we will turn down a request to erase those. The same goes for records we are required by law to keep, such as our accounts. If we refuse a request we will tell you why, and you can challenge it with the ICO.

These rights are free to use, and we will reply within one month. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. We would rather you came to us first so we can put it right.

9. Cookies

We only use cookies that are strictly necessary to run the site - essentially, the ones that keep you logged in and keep your session secure. We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not track you across other websites. Because of that, we do not ask you to accept cookies: there is nothing optional to accept. If that ever changes, we will ask you first and update this policy.

10. Contact us

For anything in this policy, or to use any of the rights above, email us at privacy@arcstonetutoring.com.

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page.