Privacy policy

This privacy policy was last updated on 29 October 2023.

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy is provided by Science Sanctuary Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under company number: 12660110 with registered office Suite 1-3 Hop Exchange, Southwark Street, London, England, SE1 1TY (Science Sanctuary’, ‘‘we’, ‘our’ or ‘us’) for purchase of our Digital Learning Materials and access to our Website available here https://sciencesanctuary.com (Services).

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on how and why we collect, store, use and share any information relating to you (your personal data).

It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or the relevant regulator in the event you have a complaint. Our collection, storage, use and sharing of your personal data is regulated by law, including under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

We are the controller of personal data obtained via the Services, meaning we are the organisation legally responsible for deciding how and for what purposes it is used.

Provisions relating to your registration for an account and your purchase of our Digital Learning Materials will apply when we have launched our online shop on our Website.

2. What this policy applies to

This privacy policy relates to your use of the Services only.

The Services may link to or rely on other apps, websites, APIs or services owned and operated by us or by certain trusted third parties to enable us to provide you with Services. These other apps, websites, APIs or services may also gather information about you in accordance with their own separate privacy policies. For privacy information relating to these other apps, websites or services, please consult their privacy policies as appropriate. For more information see the section ‘Who we share your personal data with’ below.

3. Age limitations

We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13, please do not attempt to register for an account, purchase Digital Learning Materials or send any information about yourself, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. Instead, please ensure this is done through your parent or guardian, and that they expressly consent to your use of our Website and purchase of Digital Learning Materials by checking the consent box upon sign up or prior to purchase of our Digital Learning Materials.

If you are a parent or guardian of a child under the age of 13 and become aware that your child has provided personal data to Science Sanctuary without your consent, please contact us using the contact details listed below, and you may request exercise of your applicable rights detailed in the section “Your rights” below.

If we learn that we have collected the personal data of a child under the age of 13 years who does not have parent or guardian consent to do so, we will take reasonable steps to delete the personal data. This may require us to delete the Science Sanctuary account for that child.

4. Personal data we collect about you

The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular activities carried out through the Services. Depending on how you use our website, we will collect and use the following personal data about you:

Category of data	In more detail
Data collected when you create an account on the Website to purchase Digital Learning Material	your name, billing address and contact details such as email address and telephone number; credit card or other payment information, so we can process payments (even if the payment information we have access to may be limited where we use a third party payment provider); details of any feedback you give us by phone, email, post or via social media; information about the services we provide to you and the Digital Learning Material you are interested in purchasing, or have purchased; your account details, such as username, login details; IP address, login data, browser type and version, operating system and platform, and device data; usage data on how you use our Website, and services; and your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.
Data collected if you are a parent/guardian and you create an account on the Website to purchase Digital Learning Material for your child/ren	information about the Digital Learning Material you have purchased through our Website; and confirmation of the age of the child/your children and your relationship to them (i.e., parent, guardian or other responsible person).
Data collected if you subscribe to our email newsletter	your name and email address
Data collected if you are a visitor to the Website, but do not have an account or have not purchased or subscribed to any Digital Learning Material via the Website, we only collect the following personal data about you	IP address, login data, browser type and version, operating system and platform, and device data; usage data on how you use our Website, and services; and your preferences in receiving marketing from us
Data collected when you make an enquiry with us	your name and email address details of any feedback you give us by phone, email, post or via social media

If you do not provide personal data we ask for where it is required, including the geo-localisation services, it may prevent us from providing services and/or the Services to you.

We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section ‘How and why we use your personal data’ below.

5. Sensitive data

Sensitive personal data (also known as special category data) means data revealing information such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, biometric data (where used for identification purposes), health information and sexual orientation.

Please note that we do not knowingly or intentionally collect sensitive personal data or information about criminal convictions from individuals and that you should not submit sensitive data to us.

If, however you do submit sensitive data to us, such as if you make this sensitive data available to other users of the Services (such as by publishing it through any forum feature we may make available from time to time) we will assume that you have purposefully made any such sensitive data manifestly public.

6. How your personal data is collected

We collect personal data from you directly when you sign up to the Services, contact us directly or reach out to us via social media, or indirectly, such as your activity while using the Services.

We use cookies on our Website. These help us to recognise you and your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions. Please see our Cookie Policy for more information.

7. How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.:

where you have given consent
to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, or
for our legitimate interests or those of a third party

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own. You can obtain details of this assessment by contacting us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.

What we use your personal data for	Our reasons
Create and manage your account with us	To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
To process and deliver your purchase including to manage payments, fees and charges	To perform our contract with you
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our materials/services and grow our business)
To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, or In other cases, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect our business, interests and rights or those of others
Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the Services or service or other important notices	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, or In other cases, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to provide the best service to you
Protect the security of systems and data	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations we may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training, and quality control or to provide support to you	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you
To use data analytics to improve our Website, materials/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of users for our materials and services, to keep our Website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, e.g., in relation to our performance, customer base, app and functionalities and offerings or other efficiency measures	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you and improve and develop our app
Updating and enhancing user records	To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, or Where neither of the above apply, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, eg making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about their accounts and new products or functionalities related to the Services and our services
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations	To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, or Where neither of the above apply, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about their accounts and new products or functionalities related to the Services and our services
To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency. In such cases, information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary.	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, or In other cases, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets

See ‘Who we share your personal data with’ for further information on the steps we will take to protect your personal data where we need to share it with others.

8. Marketing

We would like to send you email marketing (including newsletters) to inform you of our services such as promotions.

We will always ask you for your consent before sending you marketing communications, except where you have explicitly opted-in to receiving email marketing from us in the past or except where you were given the option to opt-out of email marketing when you initially signed up for your account with us and you did not do so.

You can opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by using the ‘unsubscribe’ link included in all marketing emails you may receive from us.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

For more information on your right to object at any time to your personal data being used for marketing purposes, see ‘Your rights’ below.

9. Who we share your personal data with

We routinely share personal data with service providers we use to help us run our business or provide the services or functionalities in the Services, including developers and cloud storage providers.

We only allow service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We or the third parties mentioned above may occasionally also need to share your personal data with:

external auditors, e.g. in relation to the audit of our accounts and our company — the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations
professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors) — the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations
law enforcement agencies, courts or tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with legal and regulatory obligations
other parties in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency—usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible, however, the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations

If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

We will not share your personal data with any other third party.

10. How long your personal data will be kept

We will keep your personal data for as long as you have an active account with us and for a period of up to 6 years thereafter to comply with any accounting or legal obligations including in the event of the pursuit or defence of legal claims. Once you have closed your account with us, we will move your personal data to a separate database so that only key stakeholders in our business on a ‘need to know basis’ have access to such data.

Following the end of the of the aforementioned retention period, we will delete or anonymise your personal data.

11. Transferring your personal data out of the UK

At this point in time, we do not transfer your personal data outside of the UK. If this changes, we would comply with applicable UK laws designed to ensure the continued protection and privacy of your personal data. Any updated destinations to which we send your personal data will be indicated in the present section.

Furthermore, under UK data protection laws, we can only transfer your personal data to a country outside the UK where: the UK government has decided the particular country ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data (known as an ‘adequacy regulation’) further to Article 45 of the UK GDPR; there are appropriate safeguards in place, together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or a specific exception applies under relevant data protection law. Accordingly, if we were to start transferring your personal data from the UK to:

The EEA: we would rely on the adequacy finding granted by the UK to the EU under the Withdrawal Agreement to do; for any transfers from the EU to the UK, we would rely on the adequacy regulation granted to the UK under the Adequacy Decision.
Any country located outside the UK/EEA: we would rely on appropriate safeguards under the UK GDPR, such as by including the relevant Standard Contractual Clauses in our data processing agreements

In the event we could not or choose not to continue to rely on either of those mechanisms at any time we would not transfer your personal data outside the UK unless we could do so on the basis of an alternative mechanism or exception provided by UK data protection law.

12. Your rights

You generally have the following rights, which you can usually exercise free of charge. For more information regarding these rights, please visit the ICO website here.

Access to a copy of your personal data	The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data.
Correction (also known as rectification)	The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data.
Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten)	The right to require us to delete your personal data — in certain situations.
Restriction of use	The right to require us to restrict use of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data.
Data portability	The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party — in certain situations.
To object to use	The right to object at any time to your personal data being used for direct marketing (including profiling). Additionally, the right to object in certain other situations to our continued use of your personal data, e.g. where we use your personal data for our legitimate interests.
Not to be subject to decisions without human involvement	The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you. We do not make any such decisions based on data collected by the Services.

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they do and do not apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below). You may also find it helpful to refer to the guidance from the UK’s Information Commissioner on your rights under the UK GDPR.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email us — see below: ‘How to contact us’. When contacting us please:

provide enough information to identify yourself (e.g., your full name and username) and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you, and
let us know which right(s) you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates

13. Keeping your personal data secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

14. How to complain

Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your information (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or telephone: 0303 123 1113.

15. Changes to this privacy policy

We update this privacy policy from time to time. Please check this page periodically to keep up to date with any changes.

16. How to contact us

You can contact us by email if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.

Our contact details are shown below:

gemma.sparrow@sciencesanctuary.com