Privacy policy

Introduction

Your privacy is important to us, and so is being transparent about how we collect, use, and share information about you. This privacy policy provides you with details of how your personal data is collected and processed through the use of our services.

Teacher Horizons Ltd is the “data controller” and we are responsible for your personal data (referred to as “Teacher Horizons”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

If you wish to contact us about any aspect of your privacy, please email us at info@teacherhorizons.com.

You can find information below about the following:

What information do we collect about you?

When you visit our website or use our services, we collect personal data. The ways we collect it can be broadly categorised as follows:

  • Information you provide to us directly: When you visit or use some parts of our website and/or services we might ask you to provide personal data to us. For example, we ask for your information when you register for an account, go through the activation process, modify your profile, or communicate directly with your International Adviser by email or over Zoom. If you don’t want to provide us with personal data, you don’t have to, but it might mean you can’t use some parts of our website or services.
  • Information we collect from third parties: If you add a referee to your profile, we use that information to contact them on your behalf and invite them to submit a reference relating to you.
  • Information we collect automatically: We collect some information about you automatically when you visit our website, such as your device type and which pages you have visited. This information is useful for us as it helps us get a better understanding of how you’re using our website and services so that we can continue to provide the best experience possible (for example, by personalising the content you see).

How do we use the information we collect?

First and foremost, we use your personal data to operate our platform and provide you with any services you’ve requested, and to manage our relationship with you. We also use your personal data for other purposes, which may include the following:

  • Personalising our services: We tailor our services to match the preferences you have communicated to us. For example, to direct you to the next step in completing your teacher profile.
  • Display information about you: We may present the information you add to your profile to partner schools and recruiters such as your teaching experience, your photo and your teaching preferences.
  • Sharing your documents: Partner schools and recruiters are able to access, view and download documents on your profile page including the documents you have uploaded (such as your CV or teaching certification) and your confidential references.
  • Communicating with you: We may use information to communicate with you (depending on your settings). For example, we might send you vacancy updates, notify you of developments or share relevant information of interest such as newsletters, surveys and competitions.
  • To promote our services: In some cases, some information on your profile may be used to promote our services to schools (such as a summary of the information on your profile) or use testimonials to share with teachers.
  • To support you: We may use your information to resolve technical issues you encounter such as supporting you with login issues.
  • Legal obligation: In some extremely rare circumstances, we may also have a legal obligation to use information about teachers on our database.

How do we share the information we collect?

  • Summary: We do not share information about you in any way other than as described in this Privacy Policy.
  • Through our platform: We share some of the information that we collect by displaying it on the Teacher Horizons Platform according to your member profile and account settings. We may use non-identifying parts of your information in public demonstrations.
  • Service providers: We contract service providers – individuals who perform certain tasks on behalf of Teacher Horizons. For example, we share personal information with our International Advisers to enable them to contact you and connect you with teaching opportunities in suitable schools.
  • Social media and other tools: We offer social sharing features and other integrated tools which let you share actions that you take on Teacher Horizons with third-party services (such as Facebook).
  • Third party service providers: We use tools and online services for operational purposes such as Google applications, our CRM provider or running marketing campaigns.
  • Legal requirements: In rare circumstances, we may need to share your information to satisfy our legal, regulatory, compliance or upon valid judicial instruction (for example, pursuant to a court order)
  • Acquisition: If Teacher Horizons were acquired, or in the unlikely event that we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, your information could be transferred or acquired.
  • Other situations: We may occasionally de-identify or aggregate information about you and share it freely, so that you can no longer be identified. For example for marketing purposes of media statistics.
  • Concerns and complaints: If you have any concerns or complaints about how you think we’ve handled your personal information, please contact info@teacherhorizons.com. We will work hard to investigate and resolve any complaints you might have.

How do we secure the information we collect?

  • Security: We use technical and organizational measures designed to appropriately protect your information that is under our control from unauthorized access collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification or disposal, both during transmission and once we receive it.
  • Storage: We store all information that you provide to us on secure servers.
  • Training: We train our personnel regarding our data privacy policies and procedures, and permit authorized personnel to access information on a need-to-know basis, as required for their role.
  • Password: Where you have a password, which enables you to use our services, you are responsible for keeping this password complex, secure, and confidential.
  • Caution: Whilst we implement these safeguards, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that data stored on our systems is absolutely safe from intrusion by others.

How can you access and control your information?

  • Profile: You can use our website to access and update your profile information, including your CV, professional experience, certificates, and job search preferences.
  • Availability: You can control your availability from your profile. Your options are:
    • Green: Actively looking for a school. Recruiters can access your full profile and contact details.
    • Yellow: Open to suggestion. Recruiters can not see your name or contact details.
    • Red: Not currently looking. We will not contact you relating to jobs, and recruiters can not see your profile. We may occasionally email you to ask you if whether your situation has changed and to remind you of our services.
  • Jobs emails: You can control whether your receive emails with jobs which match your preferences by using the ‘Email me suitable jobs’ option in your profile. If selected and your availability is green or yellow, we will email you with job suggestions.

What cookies do we use?

Cookies are standard features of websites that allow us to store small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to our platform. They help us a) provide you with certain functionality, and b) learn which areas of the platform are useful and which areas need improvement.

Name Purpose
_ga, _gat, _gid Google Analytics – to collect information about site usage and and identify areas that can be improved.
fbm_*, fbsr_* Facebook – to make it easier for you to sign in with Facebook, if you have chosen to do so.
JSESSIONID Stores user session information, such as who you are logged in as.
Consent, CookieLaw Helps us remember if you’ve dismissed cookie and privacy banners, so we don’t keep showing them to you.
THUA Helps keep you signed in for up to 1 month.

For how long do we keep your data?

  • Duration: We will keep all your personal data for as long as your account remains open.
  • Inactivity: If your account is inactive for a number of years, we may email you to remind you to use your account. If your account remains inactive, your account may be deactivated and your personal information deleted or anonymised.
  • Deactivation: If you wish to deactivate your account, please email us at info@teacherhorizons.com

What rights do you have?

  • Rights: Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. These include:
    • The right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data
    • The right to access your personal data
    • The right to rectification of your personal data
    • The right to erasure of your personal data
    • The right to restrict processing of your personal data
    • The right to portability of your personal data
    • The right to object to the processing of your personal data
  • Further information: You can see more about these rights at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/
  • Request: If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please email us at info@teacherhorizons.com
  • Response: We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. We may contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
  • Security: We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity. This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

How do you make a complaint?

  • Authority: If you are not happy with any aspect of how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (https://ico.org.uk).
  • Request: We would be grateful if you contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.

Changes to our privacy policy

  • Changes: We may change this privacy policy from time to time.
  • Notification: We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide more prominent notices by adding a notice to login screens, or by sending you an email notification.
  • Review: We encourage you to review our privacy policy whenever you use our services to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.
  • Disagreement: If you disagree with any changes to this privacy policy, you will need to stop using our services and deactivate your account(s), as outlined above.

See also

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