Privacy Notice

Introduction

Welcome to the Governess of London's privacy notice.

The Governess of London respects your privacy and is committed to protecting personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after the personal data of visitors to our website, our prospective clients, our clients and, given the nature of our service, the children of our prospective clients and clients and any person with responsibility for your children, and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how the Governess of London collects and processes the personal data of visitors to our website, our prospective clients, our clients and, given the nature of our service, the children (including step and adopted children) of our prospective clients and clients and any other person with responsibility for your children (“responsible adult”), e.g. a nanny or grandparent.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

Controller

The Governess Ltd is the controller and responsible for personal data (referred to as "the Governess of London", "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy notice).

We have appointed a data protection officer (“DPO”) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO using the details set out below.

Contact details

Our full details are:

Full name of legal entity: The Governess Ltd

Name or title of DPO: Laura Etherington-Chilcott

Email address: laura@thegovernessoflondon.co.uk

Postal address: The Governess of London 20 Barnfield House, Sandpit Lane, Accrington, Lancashire, BB1 3NY

Telephone number: +44 (0) 7983 973 884

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority 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.

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

This version was last updated on 3rd January 2022.

It is important that the personal data we hold is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data (or, where a client, the personal data of your children or any other responsible adult) changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, your children and any responsible adult, which we have grouped together follows:

• Identity Data includes first name, middle name, preferred name, maiden name, last name, marital status, title, age, date of birth, gender, relationship to other relevant people and, for your children, photograph.
• Contact Data includes billing address, home address, e-mail address, telephone numbers, Skype username.
• Educational Data, in respect of your children only, includes their current school and desired future school(s), languages spoken, educational and developmental needs and goals (whether provided by a parent or as evaluated by us), and our evaluation of progress against those needs and goals.
• Health Data, in respect of your children only, which includes their GP surgery, confirmation of vaccinations, dietary requirements, medical conditions and needs, and details of medication taken.
• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
• Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.
• Other Data includes any other data we may collect to allow us to perform our services, such as your religion or the religion of your children, your and your children’s schedule, holiday plans and availability for us to perform our services, artwork or photography which identifies your children during the services, and any other information you give us about your children, such as their favourite colour.

We collect Special Categories of Personal Data about your children including information about their health, and potentially information about your and your children’s religion. We do not collect information about race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, or genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with services). In this case, we may have to cancel a service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How do we collect personal data?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you, your children and other responsible adults, including through:

Direct interactions. You may give us Identity, Contact, Health, Educational, Financial and Other Data by filling in forms on our website, by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise, or by telling us in person. This includes personal data you provide, whether about yourself, your children or any responsible adult when you:

• ask us for information about our services including pricing;
• correspond or meet with us to discuss your children;
• give us feedback.

You confirm that you have the consent of any person, or responsibility for any children, whose data you give us.

Performance of services. We may record Identity Data and/or create Educational Data during and/or after the performance of our services, including through contractors performing services on our behalf.

Third parties. We may receive Identity, Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from various third parties such as our bankers or providers of payment services.

We may also receive:

• Educational Data from the teachers of your children if we meet or correspond with them (with your consent);
• Health Data from doctors or other healthcare professionals for your children if we meet or correspond with them (with your consent).

4. How do we use personal data?

We will only use the personal data we have collected when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use it in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

More information about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process personal data may be found in the Glossary below.

Other than for our use of Health Data or information about religion, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing personal data.

Purposes for which we will use the personal data we have collected

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use 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.

Note that we may process personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using it. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on where more than one ground has been specified in the table below.

Purpose/Activity	Type of data	Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
To provide you with information you have requested about our services, to register you as a client, to create or update your child’s profile on our website, and to perform our services	Identity Contact Health Educational Other	Performance of a contract with you
To process your contract including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges (b) Collect and recover money owed to us	Identity Contact Financial Transaction	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
To manage our relationship with you which will include notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy notice	Identity Contact	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To administer and protect our business, our website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) and the personal data we hold	Identity Contact	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud or data theft, and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
Asking if you would like us to perform further services for you following completion of particular services or recommending other services to you	Identity Contact Educational Other	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business)
To protect the health of your children, our contractors performing services on our behalf, and the other children we perform services for.	Health	Special Category Data: (a) With your explicit consent or the explicit consent of a responsible adult (b) Necessary to protect the vital interests of your children or other children we perform services for
To comply with other legal obligations, for example to comply with requests for a child’s data by someone with parental responsibility	Identity Contact Health Educational Other	Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

Marketing

We do not use personal data for marketing purposes.

Cookies

We only use cookies that are strictly necessary for the operation of our site, given the service we provide. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our Cookie Policy [LINK TO YOUR COOKIE POLICY.]]

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

Change of purpose

We will only use personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. Who do we disclosure personal data to?

We may share personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.

• We may share a child’s personal data with any person with parental responsibility for that child. We may set up separate access to the child’s profile on our website for that person. If you are a parent, this includes the other parent even if you are separated or divorced.
• Contractors who provide services to you on our behalf.
• Service providers based in the United Kingdom who provide IT and system administration services to us, including e-mail and storage providers.
• Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, accountants and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide banking, legal, insurance and accounting services to us.
• HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
• The police, social services or the NSPCC, in the event we have concerns about the welfare of a child.
• Medical professionals if your child needs medical attention whilst we are performing the services.
• Your children’s teacher(s) or doctor(s), if you have asked us to assist with a CAHMS referral or with your consent.
• The Health Data of your child may be shared with the parents or responsible adults of other children if necessary to protect your child, for example if they have an anaphylaxis allergy and are joining the others on a group outing.
• Any third party to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge our business. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of the personal data they and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

We do not transfer personal data we have collected outside the European Economic Area (EEA). We store all personal data on servers in London and Dublin.

7. Data security

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

If you believe that the security of your account on our website, containing your children’s profile, has been compromised, for example if you become aware that someone else has the log-in information, you should bring this to our attention as soon as possible to enable us to lock it.

8. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

• 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 personal data, the purposes for which we process personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
• By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including some Contact and Identity Data, and Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being clients, for tax purposes.
• We shall separately retain Contact, Identity, Educational, Health and Other Data until your child leaves secondary education or until the age of 18, whichever happens later. We do so this many of our clients ask us to perform services in respect of their children again in the future. If you want us to delete this data sooner, please contact us.

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

In some circumstances we may 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, including for our marketing purposes, indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. If a child is not competent to do so, a person with parental responsibility may exercise the child’s rights on his/her behalf. Those rights are to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data 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. 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) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) 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 (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• 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. 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.

How to exercise your rights

If you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us.

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 may 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 that of a child you have parental responsibility for) or to exercise any 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 may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

10. Glossary

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on the people whose personal data we are processing (both positive and negative) and their rights before we process their personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on those people (unless we have their consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of contract means processing personal data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.