EHCP - Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how EHCP Limited (“EHCPL”) uses and protects your personal data. This privacy policy is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below. Alternatively, you can download a copy of the policy here: [LINK].

  1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE (Paragraph 1)
  2. TYPES OF PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU (Paragraph 2)
  3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED? (Paragraph 3)
  4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA (Paragraph 4)
  5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA (Paragraph 5)
  6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS (Paragraph 6)
  7. DATA SECURITY (Paragraph 7)
  8. DATA RETENTION (Paragraph 8)
  9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS (Paragraph 9)
  10. CONTACT DETAILS (Paragraph 10)
  11. COMPLAINTS (Paragraph 11)
  12. CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES (Paragraph 12)
  13. THIRD PARTY LINKS (Paragraph 13)

1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE

This privacy policy gives you information about how EHCPL collects and uses your personal data such as through your use of this website, including any data you may provide when you register with us or sign up to our newsletter; or when you volunteer or work for us.

Although EHCPL is intended to help parents and guardians to apply for an Education, health and Care Plan (EHCP), this website is not intended for children.

In relation to the purpose set out in this privacy policy, EHCP Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as ”EHCPL”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy). ECHP Limited is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under registration reference: ZB723275.

As a data controller, ECHP Limited is responsible for protecting your personal data, ensuring that you can exercise your rights effectively and complying with the data protection legislation. The data protection legislation includes the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights (Paragraph 9), please contact the us at dataprotection@EHCP.org.uk, or using the information set out in the contact details section (Paragraph 10).

EHCP AS A DATA PROCESSOR

For the main service that we provide via SEND Strength™, we will act for you as a data processor, whilst you will remain the data controller for the information. This means that we will only process the personal data that you provide to us in accordance with your instructions, and not for our own purposes.

When you sign up to our service, we will have a data processing agreement in place with you. This agreement will outline our respective roles and responsibilities in relation to the processing of the personal data that you have provided.

As a data controller for the personal data, you remain responsible for compliance with the data protection legislation, including ensuring that you have appropriate lawful grounds (such as consents) to provide us with any personal data. The data processing agreement that we have with you will outline any support and cooperation that we will provide to you to help you comply with any obligations you have under the data protection legislation.

Where we do utilise information that has been provided by you for our own purposes, we will become the data controller for these purposes and will process that personal data in accordance with this privacy policy.

2. THE TYPES OF PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data and Contact Data which includes first name, last name, email address, telephone number, username or similar identifier, password, marital status, title, date of birth and gender of both parents/guardian and their children.
  • Financial Data and Transaction Data which includes [bank account and payment card details and details about payments to and from you].
  • Technical Data which includes [internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website].
  • Usage Data includes [information about how you interact with and use our website, products and services].
  • Employee/Volunteering Data which includes information we collect about you to enable you to apply for a role (such as your contact details, volunteering, employment, education experience), to facilitate your employment or volunteering (such as log-ins, email addresses, use of IT infrastructure) and to conduct pre-volunteering or pre-employment checks (this may include information relating to criminal records, references and right to work in the UK checks).
  • Criminal Offence Data which includes information that we may need to conduct pre-employment or pre-volunteering checks (such as Disclosure and Barring Service, Access NI, or Disclosure Scotland); or information we may use to prevent, detect or investigate fraud or other criminal activity.
  • Special Categories of Personal Data which includes information concerning or revealing racial or ethnic origin; religious or philosophical beliefs; health; sex life or sexual orientation.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes [our preferences in receiving updates from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data which is not personal data as it does not directly (or indirectly) reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate individuals’ Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature and the success rate of EHCP applications in order to analyse general trends in how users are interacting with our website to help improve the website and our service offering.

3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Your interactions with us. You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
  • create an account on our website;
  • subscribe to our service or publications;
  • give us feedback or contact us.
  • Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies [server logs] and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy [LINK] for further details.
  • Third parties or publicly available sources. We will receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources such as analytics providers like Google (who may also be based outside the UK).

4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

LEGAL BASIS

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

  • Performance of a contract with you: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you, for example when you set up an account with us of if you are employed by us.
  • Legitimate interests: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure customer experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
  • Legal obligation: We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis.
  • Consent: We rely on consent where you have created an account with us and are uploading information regarding your EHCP application (especially in relation to you have parental/guardian consent to provide us with your child’s personal data). In this case we are acting as a ‘data processor’ as we are processing personal data on your behalf. When you subscribe to an email newsletter or similar ‘electronic marketing’ communications we will ask for your consent at the time (usually asking you to tick a box to agree to it).

PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE WILL USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use the various categories of your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Please note, that this does not mean that we use everyone’s personal data for these purposes; the purposes for which we may use your personal data will depend on the relationship we have with you, for example where you have an account with us, or where you are a volunteer or employee. We have outlined who we will process this personal data bout in the table below.

Purpose / Use Who Types of Personal Data Legal Basis Retention Period

To register you for an account

Who: Service Users
  1. Identity Data and Contact Data
  2. Technical Data

We need to collect this data in order to provide you with an account and therefore it is in accordance with the performance of a contract with you

For the length of time that you are provided with our service, plus six years.

To maintain your registered account

Who: Service Users
  1. Identity and Contact Data
  2. Technical Data

We need to process this data in order to maintain your account and provide you with the service in accordance with the performance of a contract we have with you.

We have a legitimate interest to maintain our systems and processes in accordance with our core aims and objectives as an organisation

For the length of time that you are provided with our service, plus six years.

To manage our relationship with you which will include:

  1. Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy
  2. Dealing with your requests, complaints and queries
Who: Service Users
  1. Identity Data and Contact Data
  2. Marketing and Communications

We need to collect this data and correspond with you to provide you with the best possible service and therefore it is in accordance with the performance of a contract with you

We have a legitimate interest to communicate with you in relation to a number of matters to ensure compliance with our internal policies and procedures.

For the length of time that you are provided with our service, plus six years.

To administer and protect our online tool/this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

Who: Service Users; Website visitors
  1. Identity Data and Contact Data
  2. Technical Data
  3. Usage Data

To ensure that the online tool/website is operating at maximum/peak performance and in order to ensure that it operates in the most optimal way for its users, it is necessary for our legitimate interests (including provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) to collect and process these types of personal data

You can find this information in our cookie policy [Link]

To use data analytics to improve our online tool/website to measure the effectiveness of our information and advice and success rates; for statistical and research purposes.

Who: Service Users; website visitors
  1. Technical Data
  2. Usage Data

We will anonymise any personal data that we use for this purpose so that it can no longer identify you.

In order to monitor the effectiveness of our services and to help as many parents/guardians as possible it is necessary for our legitimate interests to monitor interactions and usage of our website/online tools and the success rates of the EHCP applications.

We will not keep this personal data in an identifiable format for longer than is necessary.

We will anonymise it as soon as possible so that it can no longer identify you.

To send you relevant ‘marketing communications’

Who: Service Users; Website visitors
  1. Identity Data and Contact Data
  2. Marketing and Communications Data

When we send you marketing communications, we will do so only with your consent.

When you apply for a role with us such as a volunteering or a job. This includes receiving and reviewing any applications you make; and conducting any onboarding checks.

Who: Volunteers; Employees
  1. Identity Data and Contact Data
  2. Employee/Volunteering Data
  3. Special Categories of Personal Data
  4. Criminal Offence Data

One year following the date of your application.

To maintain records about your role within the organisation and use your information to facilitate your volunteering or employment.

Who: Employees; Volunteers
  1. Identity and Contact Data
  2. Technical Data
  3. Employee/Volunteering Data

Employees and Volunteers: We have a legitimate interest to maintain volunteering and employment records to enable you to fulfil your role and to manage your activity within the organisation.

Employees: Maintaining employee records is necessary for the employment contract that we have with you;

We also have legal obligations under employment, legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, reporting requirements, health and safety legislation, and other financial regulations to maintain employment records.

Volunteers: Generally, for two years following the end of your volunteering.

Employees: Generally for 6 years following the end of your employment.

To maintain business records including policies, reports, compliance returns, tax and other regulatory records.

Who: Service Users; Employees; Volunteers
  1. Identity and Contact Data
  2. Employee/Volunteering Data

We have a legal obligation to maintain these types of records

We also have a legitimate interest to maintain records to ensure the effective and compliant operation of our organisation

This will depend on the legal obligation concerned.

Though generally, this will be for six years following the creation or collection of the information.

When you make a donation to us.

  1. To facilitate the donation
  2. To maintain records relating to the donation
Who: Supporters
  1. Identity and Contact Data
  2. Financial Data and Transaction Data

We have a legitimate interest to process this information to enable us to process any donations which helps fund the achievement of our core aims and objectives as an organisation

We have legal obligations under tax, business and company regulations to maintain financial records.

We will retain this information for a period of six years following the end of the tax year in which the donation was made.

DIRECT MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

During the registration process on our website you will be asked to indicate your preferences for receiving ‘updates and marketing communications’ from EHCPL via email, SMS, telephone or post, however, we will include a tick box so that you can ‘opt-in’ to receiving such messages.

We will also get your express consent before we share your personal data with any third party for their own direct marketing purposes.

OPTING OUT OF MARKETING

You can ask for us to stop sending you marketing communications at any time [by logging into your account and checking or unchecking relevant boxes to adjust your marketing preferences OR by following the opt-out links within any marketing communication sent to you].

If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, you will still receive service-related communications that are essential for your EHCP application.

COOKIES

For more information about the cookies we use and how to change your cookie preferences, please see [LINK TO YOUR COOKIE POLICY].

5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We may share your personal data where necessary with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table Purposes for which we will use your personal data above.

  • Internal Third Parties such as employees and contractors and advisers.
  • IT Services providers who provide us or support the running of our IT Infrastructure, this includes web hosting, systems and email services.

In relation to personal data that we process on your behalf when processing your EHCP application, you agree that sharing the personal data you upload with local authorities in necessary for the provision of the services we provide.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. When we use third parties to process your personal data, we will ensure that we have a contract with them to. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

There may be situations where we need to share information with other organisations without your consent, such as with law enforcement agencies for the purposes of the prevention and detection of crime. There may also be circumstances where we have a legal obligation to share personal information, such as with the courts when there is a court order in place or with other public authorities under relevant legislation. We will only do this when there is a legal obligation to do so, where it is necessary and consider all disclosures on a case by case basis – we will attempt to seek your permission before we share any information about you; however, this may not always be possible.

6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

We may transfer your personal data to service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. This may involve transferring personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to service providers, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that the following safeguards are in place:

  • We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed by the UK to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data; or
  • We may use specific standard contractual terms approved for use in the UK which give the transferred personal data the same protection as it has in the UK, namely the International Data Transfer Agreement. To obtain a copy of these please Contact Us (Paragraph 10).

7. DATA SECURITY

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

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

8. DATA RETENTION

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our account holders (including Contact Data, Identity Data, Financial Data and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax] purposes.

Please see the table at Paragraph 4 for more details of how long we will keep your personal data].

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Paragraph 9 below for further information.

In some circumstances (such as to monitor the success of the EHCP applications) we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object. You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (see OPTING OUT OF MARKETING in Paragraph 4 for details of how to object to receiving direct marketing communications).
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data (see the table in section 4 for details of when we rely on your consent as the legal basis for using your data). However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.]
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
  • If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
  • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
  • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
  • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us see Contact details (Paragraph 10).

APPLICABILITY OF RIGHTS

Please note, that not all these rights are applicable in every circumstance, and they may be restricted in some circumstances. For example, the right to object to processing is only available when we process your personal data under legitimate interest, and the right of access may not apply when the information about you being disclosed could identify a third party. When we consider any exemption or restriction, we will consider our obligations under the data protection legislation and on a case-by-case basis.

NO FEE USUALLY REQUIRED

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

WHAT WE MAY NEED FROM YOU

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

TIME LIMIT TO RESPOND

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex,if you have made a number of requests or we require further information to help us confirm your identity. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

10. CONTACT DETAILS

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us in the following ways:

  • Email address: dataprotection@ehcp.org.uk
  • Postal address: 5th Floor, 167-169 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5PF

11. COMPLAINTS

You have the right, under the Data Protection Act 2018 to make a complaint to us as a Data Controller. We are obliged to acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receipt. We are obliged to look into your complaint without undue delay. You can make a complaint via the contact details above.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

12. CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES

We aim to keep our privacy policy under regular review and will notify you of any significant changes to it via email.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.