Our Website includes links to other websites whose privacy practices are not under Focus and Achieve’s control. If you submit Personal Information to any of those websites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy on any website that you visit.

We will occasionally update this Policy to reflect company and customer feedback. Focus and Achieve encourages you to periodically review this Policy to be informed of how we are protecting your Personal Information.

Collection of your Personal Information

Focus and Achieve collects information that could be used to identify you (Personal Information), such as your full name age, gender, e-mail address, IP address, work history, physical address, qualifications, telephone number, or at times employment information. This information can be collected when you book, enrol or contact us using a range of methods that includes our Website, chat, forms, telephone, post, e-mail and other means.

Information you provide when you register and use our services

When you visit our Website, we collect information about your operating system, time of access, activities, IP address, browser type, cookie information, referring website addresses, and Internet Service Provider. We analyse and use this information to better understand how visitors and our candidates use our services. This will in turn help us to maintain and improve our services.

When you enrol, book or express an interest in any of our services, you voluntarily give us certain Personal Information, including your name, e-mail and billing information.

We also record your user information which consists of text, media, documents, content or information uploaded, entered, or otherwise transmitted by you in connection with your use of our Website and services.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose Personal Information through our Website's forums and during course activities this information will be available for others to review and see.

Use of your Personal Information

Focus and Achieve collects and uses your Personal Information to perform our contract with you and for our legitimate business interests, including to:

• register you with awarding bodies.
• operate the Website and deliver our services.
• communicate with you.
• assess you (if applicable).
• Monitor your candidate journey (if applicable).
• understand and improve how our users use and interact with our services.

When you register with us and set up an account to receive our services, the legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and Focus and Achieve. Signing up for our services means you are taking steps, at your request, to enter into a contract. When we process any payment made by you, we process your Personal Information to prevent or detect fraud, including fraudulent payments and fraudulent use of the Website. The legal basis for this processing is compliance with our legal obligations.

Storage of Personal Information

Unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law, we will only hold your Personal Information on our systems for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Policy, or until you request that the information be deleted in accordance with your right of erasure (see "Your rights" section below).

Even if we delete your Personal Information, we reserve the right to maintain a copy for legal, tax or regulatory purposes, but in such event, we will do so only as long as necessary to fulfil those legal, tax or regulatory purposes. Please contact our Data Protection Officer (dpo@focusandachieve.co.uk) for more information.

Personal Information access and disclosure

We will only disclose Personal Information to third parties:

• when we register you with awarding bodies.
• when we register or subscribe you with third party services as part of our overall service to you.
• when we use vendors such as Paypal to process payment.
• when we use services to assist us in meeting business or operating needs, such as providing legal services, delivering and improving our services, and analytics. These service providers may only access, process or store Personal Information pursuant to our instructions and to perform their duties to us, and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations; or
• when we have your explicit consent to share your Personal Information.
• when we determine that disclosure is required due to safeguarding and welfare concerns.
• to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of our staff and users of any of our services.
• to respond to lawful requests by public, regulatory enforcement authorities.
• if we sell some or all of our business or assets, we may disclose your Personal Information to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets, and if the transaction closes, then your Personal Information may be transferred to the buyer.

Transfers outside of the United Kingdom

As part of the services offered to you through the Website, the Personal Information you provide to us will be transferred to and stored mainly in the United Kingdom and in certain circumstances, other countries. By way of example, a transfer of your Personal Information may happen if one of our service providers is located outside the United Kingdom. We will only transfer Personal Information outside of the United Kingdom where it is compliant with data protection legislation and the means of transfer provides adequate safeguards in relation to your Personal Information.

To ensure that your Personal Information receives an adequate level of protection, we have put in place appropriate safeguards and procedures with third parties we share your Personal Information with. This ensures your information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with data protection laws.

Use of cookies

The Website uses "cookies" to help you personalise your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed by us or our analytics partners on your hard drive by a web page server. Our cookies do not run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to your computer, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to your computer.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenient feature to save you time. The cookie tells the server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalise the Website pages, or register with the Website, a cookie helps the Website recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your Personal Information, such as your billing address or site preferences. When you return to the same Website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the Website features that you customised. We may place the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of the Website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our Website or make use of e-billing services.
• Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the Website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our Website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to the Website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
• Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to the Website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our Website more relevant to your interests and for remarketing as described below.

If you want to check or change what types of cookies you accept, this can usually be done within your browser settings. Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control.

How to reject cookies?

If you do not want to receive cookies, you can usually choose to opt-out by modifying your browser settings to decline them. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to access all or parts of, or to fully experience the interactive features of, our services or web pages you visit.

For more information generally on cookies, including how to disable them, please refer to aboutcookies.org. This site also provides details on how to delete cookies from your computer.

Data security & integrity

Focus and Achieve is committed to taking reasonable and appropriate steps to protect the Personal Information that we hold from misuse, loss, or unauthorised access. We do this by using a range of technical and organisational measures including measures to deal with any suspected data breach. If you suspect any misuse or loss or unauthorised access to your personal information, please contact us as soon as possible.

The Website is designed to secure the Personal Information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, with protections from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. When Personal Information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.

However, while we do our best to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee the security of all data which is transmitted to the Website or to another website via the internet or similar connection. If we have given you (or you have chosen) a password to access certain areas of the Website, please keep this password safe.

Your rights

Under the GDPR, you have various rights in relation to your Personal Information, such as the rights of access, rectification, restriction, objection, portability, and erasure. Please note that these rights are subject to certain limitations set forth in applicable law.

To exercise these rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer (dpo@focusandachieve.co.uk). We will seek to deal with your request without undue delay, and in any event in accordance with the requirements of applicable laws. Please note that we may keep a record of your communications to help us resolve any issues you raise.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe we have failed to meet our obligations regarding your Personal Information.

Contact information

Focus and Achieve welcomes your comments regarding this Policy. Please contact our Data Procetion Officer (dpo@focusandachieve.co.uk), or write to us at:

Data Protection Officer
Focus and Achieve
Izabella House
Regents Place
Birmingham
B1 3NJ