Policy last updated: 25th May 2018
The aim of the GDPR, which came into effect on 25th May 2018, is to protect all EU citizens from privacy and data breaches in today’s data-driven world. The six key principles of the regulation are:
The GDPR strengthens existing rights, provides for new rights and gives citizens more control over their personal data. These include:
Sounds Writer Ltd (we) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. All data is processed and used in compliance with GDPR.
This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.
For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 2018 (the Act), the data controller is Sounds Writer Ltd, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, United Kingdom, WC1N 3AX.
If at any time you have questions about our practices or any of your rights described below, you may reach our Data Protection Officer by contacting us at [email protected].
We may collect and process the following data about you:
Information that you provide by filling in forms on our site https://soundswriter.co.uk (our site). This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our site, subscribing to our service, posting material or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site.
As part of the subscriptions process, we collect the first and last name, email address and phone number, your school details, your country and postcode. We use this data to set up one school admin account. In order to create unique student usernames and passwords, we collect from you, via a password protected file, student first names and the first letter of the surname.
We collect this data in order to help us tailor our support to your school and deal with customer service requests. In addition, your personal information is used to manage accounts such as resetting passwords or contacting you regarding any queries or issues with your account.
If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them. Should you not wish to receive surveys, you may ‘Unsubscribe’ from these emails.
Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfilment of your orders.
Details of your visits to our site and the resources that you access.
When you purchase an annual subscription to our site, you are governed by our e-commerce terms and conditions.
We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.
Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive. They help us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allow us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
We use the following cookie:
Project: Soundswriter
Cookie name: Identity
Mode of authentication: Form authentication
This cookie is required for authentication purposes; it allows us to check who is logged in through which computer. It sets the user authentication in an encrypted format. Once the user logs from our site, the cookie is removed from the user’s computer.
You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.
Browser manufacturers provide help for cookie management in their products. Please see below for more information:
- Google Chrome
- Internet Explorer
- Safari
In accordance with the GDPR (Article 4(11), pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not constitute consent. Therefore, users to our site will be required to opt-in in order to accept our terms and conditions, set contact permission, set email marketing preferences or confirm if you are happy for us to share your data with 3rd parties.
When you sign up to our site, you may receive promotional emails from us. Should you not want to receive emails, you can click ‘Unsubscribe’ at the bottom of each email.
We welcome the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as an essential set of regulations to affirm our commitment to data protection across the European Union. We are committed to ensuring:
- Personal data is processed fairly, lawfully and in a transparent manner
- Personal data is processed fairly, lawfully and in a transparent manner
- Personal data is collected and processed only for specified and lawful purposes
- Processed data is adequate, relevant and not excessive
- Processed data is accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date
- Personal data is not kept longer than necessary
- Personal data is processed in accordance with an individual's rights
- Personal data is kept secure
- Personal data is not transferred to countries outside of the EU without adequate protection
The information below outlines specific information relevant to certain aspects of our GDPR compliance.
Lawfulness of processing: We collect personal information in a number of contexts and for a number of purposes. Our processing activities are based on our drive to improve educational outcomes in writing for students.
The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff maybe engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.
User data is uploaded to and stored on servers within Amazon Web services. Amazon has extensive expertise in protecting data, championing privacy, and complying with complex regulations, and currently complies with both the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the EU Model Clauses https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-gdpr-data-processing-addendum/ thereby helping to support our compliance with the requirements of the GDPR. Additional information about Amazon's compliance with the EU GDPR is available at: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/gdpr-center/
Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
Uses made of the information
We use information held about you in the following ways:
To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes.
To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.
To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so.
To notify you about changes to our service.
We may also use your data, or permit selected third parties to use your data, to provide you with information about goods and services which may be of interest to you and we or they may contact you about these by post or telephone.
If you are an existing customer, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous sale to you.
If you are a new customer, and where we permit selected third parties to use your data, we (or they) will contact you by electronic means only if you have consented to this.
If you do not want us to use your data in this way, or to pass your details on to third parties for marketing purposes, please tick the relevant box situated in our subscription terms of service.
Teachers are only able to access information on students in their own school. Students can only view their own portal area within our site which is protected by a unique username and password.
When a subscription expires, we retain the data in our database to comply with our legal obligations and financial and audit obligations. We will store data for a period of 1 year after which time it will be deleted. If you would like this data to be deleted, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by emailing [email protected]
We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties:
- In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
- If Sounds Writer Ltd or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Sounds Writer Ltd, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us at [email protected].
Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.
The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a period of 30 days. You may also request that any data we hold about you is corrected if it is wrong. You may also ask for your data to be deleted. Please email [email protected]
Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail.
Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to [email protected].