Privacy & Cookie Policy

1Who we are and how to reach us

Acadame Ltd, trading as Acadame Training Solutions and Acadame, company number 12921273, registered at Trent House, 234 Victoria Road, Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 2LW. Our UKPRN is 10087409.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZA801226.

Martin Blakemore is our Head of Centre and Data Protection Officer. For anything to do with your personal data, email martin@acadame.co.uk, or write to the address above. For anything else, hello@acadame.co.uk or 0330 124 2165.

2The two websites this covers

This notice covers both of the websites we run:

• acadame.co.uk, our main site, where you browse courses, check dates and prices, book, enquire, apply for a business account, validate a certificate and apply for a job
• acadame-online.com, our eLearning platform, where you take our online courses, sit online assessments and download your certificates

acadame-online.com is the only learning platform we operate. We do not use any other learning management system, and any reference elsewhere to another platform is out of date.

3What we collect, and why

We collect different things depending on what you are doing with us.

• Enquiries and callback requests. Your name, email, phone number, company, the course or card you are asking about, your preferred centre and timing, and whatever you write in the message. We also note how you reached the site: the website, search engine or campaign link that brought you, and the first page you landed on. We use this to answer you, and to see which of our posts and adverts lead to enquiries. The lawful basis is legitimate interest, or steps taken at your request before entering a contract.
• Bookings and course registrations. Your name, contact details, employer, date of birth where an awarding body requires it, job role, and any evidence of prior qualification. We use this to place you on a course and register you with the awarding body. The lawful basis is contract, and legal obligation where a body requires it.
• Assessment and results. Your work, assessment records, results, and any reasonable adjustment or special consideration that was applied. The lawful basis is contract and legal obligation.
• eLearning accounts on acadame-online.com. Your account details, course progress, assessment attempts and scores, and the certificates issued to you. The lawful basis is contract.
• Business accounts and invoicing. Company details, purchase order references, billing contacts and payment records. The lawful basis is contract and legal obligation.
• Job applications. Your CV, the qualifications and experience you send us, and your right to work evidence if we take an application forward. The lawful basis is steps taken before entering a contract.
• Site chat. What you type into the chat assistant and what it replies. The assistant is our own software, running on our own sites, and it uses the Anthropic Claude API to write its answers. To answer you, your message, the recent part of the conversation and the pages or course material it is drawing on are sent to Anthropic, who process them on our instructions and send back an answer. We do not attach your name, email address or account details, but anything you type into the chat, including contact details you choose to give it, is sent as you typed it. On acadame.co.uk we keep the conversation for 12 months so our team can pick it up if you ask for a person, and see it if you get in touch again, then delete it. We also count each answer the assistant gives, how it answered and whether it offered you a person, without keeping what you asked, so we can make it better. On acadame-online.com we keep only when a message was sent and which course it was about, not what you typed, unless you use the assistant to message a Learning Advisor, in which case what you sent is kept because it was emailed to a person. The lawful basis is legitimate interest in answering you quickly.
• Marketing. Your name and email where you have asked to hear from us or where you are an existing customer and we are telling you about similar training. You can opt out at any time, in every email and by telling us.
• Website analytics and advertising. Pages viewed, referring site, approximate location, device and browser. Only ever with your consent, given through the cookie notice.

Where a form asks for something we do not strictly need, it is marked optional. You never have to give it.

4Where the data comes from

Almost all of it comes from you, through a form on the site, over the phone, by email, or through your employer when they book you onto a course.

Some comes from an awarding body: your results, your certificate number, and confirmation of a card or registration. Some comes from your employer, where they are the one arranging your training and paying for it.

5Who we share it with

We share only what is needed, with:

• Awarding and registration bodies, so you can be registered and certificated. Depending on your course that means NEBOSH, IOSH, CITB including the ITC, ECITB, QNUK, GQA, ProQual or NPORS
• Pearson VUE, where your course involves a CITB HS&E test
• Your employer, where they arranged and are paying for the training, so they can see attendance and outcome
• Our processors, listed below, who act only on our instructions

We do not sell personal data and we do not share it for anyone else's marketing.

6The processors we use

Each of these has a GDPR-aligned processing agreement with us:

• Arlo, for course scheduling, bookings and the customer record
• WordPress, for acadame.co.uk
• Moodle, which is what acadame-online.com runs on
• Stripe, for card payments where they apply
• Google, for Analytics and Ads
• HubSpot, for lead management and marketing email
• Anthropic, whose Claude API writes the chat assistant's answers

Where a transfer outside the UK is involved, it is covered by adequacy regulations or by contractual safeguards.

7How long we keep it

• Course paperwork: the validity of the qualification plus two years
• Qualifications valid for life: five years
• eLearning accounts on acadame-online.com: for the duration of your course access, plus the audit and certification retention period required by the awarding body
• Employee and contractor data: six years
• Financial records: seven years
• Marketing data: two years after your last engagement with us
• Complaint records: six years after the complaint is closed
• Site chat conversations, enquiries and other forms sent through acadame.co.uk: 12 months after they are dealt with
• Business account applications, including your acceptance of our terms: for as long as you hold an account with us, then six years
• System logs and backups: one year, in line with the provider's own retention
• Unsuccessful job applications: six months, unless you ask us to keep you on file

Retention is extended where litigation, an investigation or an appeal is ongoing.

8Your rights

You have the right to ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to erase it, to restrict what we do with it, to receive it in a portable form, and to object to processing. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

Email martin@acadame.co.uk. We acknowledge requests within 24 hours and answer within the statutory timeframe, which is normally one month. We will verify who you are before we release anything.

Two limits worth knowing about. A request involving assessment data may need coordinating with the awarding body, which can take longer. And erasure will not always be possible, because an awarding body or the law may require us to keep a record of your qualification.

9Cookies: the short version

A cookie is a small file a website stores on your device. The same rules cover anything else kept there, including the small reference our own page counting uses, so everything below is written as though it were all cookies.

There are three kinds here. The ones the site cannot work without are always on. Our own site statistics, which count how the site is used and nothing about who you are, run unless you switch them off. Google Analytics and Google Ads do not run at all unless you say yes.

You can change any of this whenever you like, from the Cookie settings link in the footer of every page.

10Site statistics, and why we do not ask first

Since 5 February 2026 the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations have allowed a website to count how it is being used without asking permission first, as long as the counting is only used to improve the service, you are told plainly what it does, and you can object simply and free of charge. Our own site statistics rely on that, so they are not part of the consent question. Here is exactly what they do and do not do.

• What we store on your device. One random reference for your visit. It is kept in your browser's session storage for the tab you are using, and in a session cookie called acta_s so the same visit is recognised if you open another tab. It is never sent anywhere except to us, and it is gone when you close your browser.
• What we record. Which pages were opened and in what order, how long each one was actually in front of somebody, whether the device was a phone, a tablet or a computer, and which website or campaign link sent you to us. If you then send us an enquiry or another form, the website or campaign link that brought you and the first page you landed on are saved with it, so we can tell which of our posts and adverts lead to enquiries. Nothing else from your visit is attached to it.
• What we do not record. Your name, your email address, your IP address or where you are. We do not build a profile of you, and we cannot tell that the person reading this page visited us last week.
• Who else sees it. Nobody. It stays on our own systems, it is never sold or shared, and it is never used to advertise to you.
• How long we keep it. Ninety days, then it is deleted automatically. We keep daily totals for longer (how many visits, where they came from and which pages they opened) so we can compare one year with the next. The totals contain nothing about any one person.

If you would rather we did not count your visit, open Cookie settings in the footer and turn Site statistics off. It stops straight away and the reference your browser was holding is deleted.

11The cookie categories we use

• Strictly necessary. Always on. Signing in to myPortal and to acadame-online.com, keeping a booking together while you complete it, remembering your accessibility settings, and remembering the choice you make about this notice.
• Site statistics. On unless you turn them off. Our own counting of how the site is used, described in full above. No name, no profile, nothing shared with anyone.
• Measurement. Off until you say yes. Google Analytics, so we can see which pages and courses people use and where they came from. Google is able to use what it collects for its own purposes as well as ours, which is why this one asks rather than tells.
• Advertising. Off until you say yes. Google Ads, so we can tell whether an advert led to a booking and avoid advertising a course you have already booked.

We use no advertising network beyond Google, and we do not let anyone else drop cookies through our pages.

12Third-party cookies

Where a page embeds something from another service, that service may set its own cookies. On our sites that means embedded video and the tag manager, which loads Google tags once you have consented. Our own chat assistant is not one of them: it runs on our own site and sets no third-party cookies.

We have no control over what those providers do with their own cookies beyond the instructions in our contract with them, so their own privacy notices are worth reading if you want the full picture.

13Changing or withdrawing consent

Open Cookie settings from the footer of any page. Every category is there with its own switch, including Site statistics, and you can change one without changing the others.

Turning something off takes effect immediately rather than on your next visit, and anything it had stored on your device is deleted at the same time. Refusing is as easy as accepting, and nothing on this site is withheld from you either way.

Your choice is remembered for a year in a cookie on this site. If you clear your cookies we have no way of knowing what you chose, so the notice will appear again.

14Security

Both sites use HTTPS, sit behind a firewall, are kept updated and are reviewed for vulnerabilities. Form submissions are encrypted in transit and hosting is on GDPR-compliant infrastructure.

Internally we use role-based access control, multi-factor authentication, password policies and encryption, and access to personal data is limited to the people whose job requires it. Personal devices may not store personal data unless authorised and protected.

If a breach happens, we document it, notify the ICO within 72 hours where that is required, notify the people affected where the risk to them is high, notify the relevant awarding bodies, and carry out a review afterwards.

15Children

Our training is for people in work, and our sites are not aimed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13.

We do train candidates and apprentices under 18, and where we do, our Safeguarding & Prevent Policy applies and their data is handled with the same care as everyone else's. If you believe a child has given us personal data, email martin@acadame.co.uk and we will remove it.

16Automated decisions and AI

We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone. Our own site chat assistant answers questions and gathers enquiries, but it cannot make a decision affecting your certification, your assessment, a safeguarding referral or any disciplinary matter. A person does that.

The assistant's answers are written by the Anthropic Claude API. Anthropic acts as our processor under its data processing addendum, which includes standard contractual clauses for transfers outside the UK. It uses what is sent only to return an answer, does not use it to train its models, and deletes it within 30 days unless it needs it to investigate misuse of its service.

The assistant is not permitted to store personal data beyond what is needed to deal with your enquiry.

17Changes to this notice

We review this notice annually and whenever our systems or the law change. The effective date at the top of this page tells you which version you are reading. Material changes will be flagged on the site.