Privacy Policy
Table of contents
1. What does Shan Science do?
2. Personal data we collect and process
3. How we use your personal data (our purposes) and our legal basis for processing it
4. Who we share your personal data with
5. Cookies and similar tracking technology
6. How we keep your personal data secure
7. International data transfers
8. Data retention
9. Automated decision-making
10. Your data protection rights
11. Third Parties
12. Updates to this Privacy Notice
13. How to contact us
We recommend that you read this Privacy Notice in full to ensure you are completely informed about your personal data. However, if you only want to access a particular section of this Privacy Notice, then you can click on the relevant link above to jump to that section.
Shan Science respects your right to privacy. This Privacy Notice explains who we are, how we collect, share and use personal data about you and how you can exercise your privacy rights. This Privacy Notice only applies to personal data that we collect through our website at www.shanscience.com and all subdomains (“Website”). We are the controller of the data.
If you are aged under 18 years of age, or are a parent or guardian of someone aged under 18 years of age please also refer to our children's online privacy notice which can be found at https://www.shanscience.com/childrens-privacy-notice
If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal data, then please contact us using the contact details under the “How to contact us” (section 12) heading below.
1. What does Shan Science do?
Shan Science is An online education provider headquartered in the UK. For more information, please see the “About Us” section of our Website at https://www.shanscience.com/about-us
2. Personal data we collect and process
a) The personal data we collect from you, either directly or indirectly, will depend on how you interact with us and with our website. We collect personal data about you from the following different sources:
Information that we collect directly
• We collect personal data directly from you when you choose to provide us with this information online and through your other interactions with us (such as data collected via social media and any surveys, customer service communications, competitions or other promotional programmes in which you may participate). Certain parts of our website ask you to provide personal data when you engage with the following services: Account creation, customer service information, purchase of goods / services, returns processing and product reviews.
Information that we collect indirectly
• We collect your personal data indirectly, including through automated means from your device when you use our website. Some of the information we collect indirectly is captured using cookies and other tracking technologies, as explained further in the "Cookies and similar tracking technology" section (section 5) below.
Information from third parties
• We also collect your personal data from third party sources, i.e. our service providers that provide operational assistance, email, marketing and analytics services, as well as financial and credit related services, payment services and social media platforms. Information received from third parties will be checked to ensure that the third party either has your consent or are otherwise legally permitted or required to disclose your personal data to us.
If you choose to register for a website account with us via a social media account you hold, we will collect your email from your social media account to set up your account with us and to confirm whether you logged into our website using your social media account. We do not access your personal account settings on your social media account.
In general, we will use the personal data we collect from you only for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice or for purposes that we explain to you at the time we collect your personal data. However, we will also use your personal data for other purposes that are compatible with the purposes we have disclosed to you (such as archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes) if and where this is permitted by applicable data protection laws.
b) The table below describes the categories of personal data we collect from and about you through our online services and activities on our website
Some of the personal data that you provide includes sensitive personal data, such as health-related information or information about your race or ethnicity, which we need for providing our educational services and surveys to improve our services.
The provision of account data and education history is necessary for the performance of our contract with you and/or to enter into a contract with you. If you do not provide this data, then we will not be able to perform a contract with you.
3. How we use your personal data (our purposes) and our legal basis for processing it
We use the personal data that we collect from and about you only for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice or for purposes that we explain to you at the time we collect your information. Depending on our purpose for collecting your information, we rely on one of the following legal bases:
• Contract - we require certain personal data in order to provide the goods and support the services you purchase or request from us;
• Consent - in certain circumstances, we may ask for your consent (separately from any contract between us) before we collect, use, or disclose your personal data, in which case you can voluntarily choose to give or deny your consent without any negative consequences to you;
• Legitimate interests - we will use or disclose your personal data for the legitimate interests of either Shan Science or a third party, but only when we are confident that your privacy rights will remain appropriately protected. If we rely on our (or a third party's) legitimate interests, these interests will normally be to: operate, provide and improve our business, including our website ; communicate with you and respond to your questions; improve our website or use the insights to improve or develop marketing activities and promote our products and services; detect or prevent illegal activities (for example, fraud); and/or to manage the security of our IT infrastructure, and the safety and security of our employees, customers, vendors and visitors. Where we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, it will be in a way which is reasonable for you to expect as part of the running of our business and which does not materially affect your rights and freedoms. We have identified below what our legitimate interests are.
• Legal obligation - there are instances where we must process and retain your personal data to comply with laws or to fulfil certain legal obligations.
• Research
The following table provides more details on our purposes for processing your personal data and the related legal bases. The legal basis under which your personal data is processed will depend on the data concerned and the specific context in which we use it.
4. Who we share your personal data with
We share your personal data with the following categories of recipients:
• our current or future affiliates and group companies
• Messages you send to mentors will be shared with those mentors.
• Homework and coursework responses are shared with teachers providing the relevant course.
• third party service providers and partners who provide data processing services to us as necessary to provide you with our goods and/or services (to support the delivery of, provide functionality on, or help to enhance the security of our website), or who otherwise process personal data for purposes described in this Privacy Notice. The following table lists the main third party service providers we engage to process your personal data, the categories of services they provide, and the types of personal data they receive in order to provide us these services;
• third party services when you use third party services linked through our website, for example, third party payment services, your personal data will be collected by the provider of such services. Please note that when you use third party services, their own terms and privacy notices will govern your use of their services;
• any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party (such as our professional advisers) where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights or so a third party can defend theirs, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
• a buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any actual or proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal data only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice; or
• any other person with your consent to the disclosure (obtained separately from any contract between us)
5. Cookies and similar tracking technology
We use cookies and similar tracking technology (collectively, “Cookies”) to collect and use personal data about you, including to serve interest based advertising.
6. How we keep your personal data secure
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the personal data that we collect and process about you. The measures are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing.
7. International data transfers
In some cases, where your personal data is transferred to or third parties, it is processed in countries other than the country in which you are resident. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country (and, in some cases, may not be as protective).
Where we transfer your personal data to countries or organisations outside of the European Economic Area and the UK, which have been formally recognised as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, we rely on the relevant “adequacy decisions” from the European Commission and “adequacy regulations" (data bridges) from the Secretary of State in the UK.
Where the transfer is not subject to an adequacy decision or regulations, we have taken appropriate safeguards to ensure that your personal data will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice and applicable laws. The safeguards we use to transfer personal data are in case of our third party service providers and partners the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses as issued on 4 June 2021 under Article 46(2)] including the UK Addendum and the UK International Data Transfer Agreement permitted under Article 46(2) of the UK GDPR for the transfer of data originating in the UK.
8. Data retention
We retain the personal data we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements). In certain circumstances, we will need to keep your information for legal reasons after our contractual relationship has ended. The specific retention periods depend on the nature of the information and why it is collected and processed and the nature of the legal requirement.
When we have no ongoing legitimate need or legal reason to process your personal data, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal data has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal data and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
9. Automated decision-making
In some instances, our use of your personal data will result in automated decisions being taken (including profiling). These are unlikely to be decisions that legally affect you or similarly significantly affect you.
Automated decisions mean that a decision concerning you is made automatically based on a computer determination (using software algorithms), without any human review. For example, we use automated decisions to decide which educational services apply to our students from their Account Data. We have implemented measures to safeguard the rights and interests of individuals whose personal data is subject to automated decision-making.
When we make an automated decision about you, you have the right to contest the decision, to express your point of view, and to require a human review of the decision. You can exercise this right by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” (section 12) heading below.
10. Your data protection rights
Individuals located in the UK and EEA have the following data protection rights. To exercise any of them see specific instructions below or contact us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below (section 12).
• You may access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal data.
• You can object to processing of your personal data, ask us to restrict processing of your personal data or request portability of your personal data, (i.e. your data to be transferred in a readable and standardised format.
• You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the marketing e-mails we send you. To opt-out of other forms of marketing (such as postal marketing or telemarketing), please get in touch with us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below (section 12). If you choose to opt out of marketing communications, we will still send you non-promotional emails, such as emails about your account or our ongoing business relations.
• If we have collected and processed your personal data with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time by using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below (section 12). Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal data conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
• You may have the right to complain to a supervisory authority about our collection and use of your personal data. For more information, please contact your local supervisory authority. Contact details for supervisory authorities in Europe are available here and for the UK here. Certain supervisory authorities will require that you exhaust our own internal complaints process before looking into your complaint.
We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
11. Third Parties
Our services may contain links to other websites, products, or services that we do not own or operate. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties. Please be aware that this Privacy Notice does not apply to your activities on those third party services or any information you disclose to these third parties. We encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any information to them.
12. Updates to this Privacy Notice
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to changing legal, regulatory, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make.
13. How to contact us
If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal data, please contact our data protection officer using the following details: info@shanscience.com