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 We do not use any other learning management system, and any reference elsewhere to another platform is out of date.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 use this to answer you. 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 site, so nothing you type goes to an outside chat provider. 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

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
• 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 site stores on your device. We use a small number that the site cannot work without, and we would like to use a few more to measure how the site is used and to control what advertising you see.

Nothing measuring or advertising loads until you answer the cookie notice. If you have not answered it yet, or you cleared your cookies, it appears again on your next visit.

You can accept both, accept measurement and refuse advertising, or keep to the essentials. You can change your mind at any time, from the Cookie settings link in the footer of every page.

10The cookie categories we use

• Strictly necessary. Signing in to myPortal and to acadame-online.com, keeping a booking together while you complete it, remembering your accessibility settings, and remembering your answer to the cookie notice. These are always on, because without them the site does not work. They do not need consent.
• Measurement. Google Analytics, so we can see which pages and courses people use, where they get stuck, and what to fix. Only with your consent.
• Advertising. Google Ads, so we can measure whether an advert led to a booking and avoid advertising a course you have already booked. Only with your consent.

We do not use any advertising network beyond Google, and we do not allow third parties to use our site for their own profiling.

11Third-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.

12Changing or withdrawing consent

Use the Cookie settings link in the footer of any page and choose again. Clearing your browser cookies for this site also clears the answer, and the notice will ask you next time.

You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking the strictly necessary ones will stop parts of the site working, sign-in and booking in particular.

13Security

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.

14Children

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.

15Automated 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 is not permitted to store personal data beyond what is needed to deal with your enquiry.

16Changes 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.