Privacy & Cookies Policy

Updated: 1st January 2026

Click here to read a simplified guide to how we use your data.

If you are a school/college staff user of the teacher dashboard, click here to read about your responsibilities in uploading student data.

Some areas where updates have been made: 2.4, 4.1 (c), 5.4 (a), 8

Privacy and Cookies Policy

1. GENERAL

1.1 Success at School Limited ("we", "us", "our") are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy (together with the Terms of Use http://successatschool.org/page/terms) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. It also includes information on our use of cookies. Please read this policy carefully.

1.2 This policy complies with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. For the purposes of this legislation, the data controller is Success at School Limited, 124 Chatsworth Road, London, NW2 5QU. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO); you can view our registration here.

1.3 Our site is intended for users aged 13 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under the age of 13. If you are under 13, please do not register or submit any personal data to us. If we become aware that we have collected data from someone under 13, we will delete it promptly.

1.4 By registering for an account on our site you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

2. Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following data about you:

2.1 Information you give us. You may give us information about you by filling in forms on our site, uploading information to our site or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you (as applicable, but without limitation) register to use our site, subscribe to our services, search for a product, place an order on our site, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site, enter a competition, promotion or survey, upload, write or contribute information to our site, entering profile information, marking favourites and when you report a problem with our site. The information you give us may include your name, username, address, e-mail address and phone number, personal description and photograph and any other information which you have specifically provided.

2.2 Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our site we may automatically collect the following information:

(a) technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;

(b) information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.

2.3 Information we receive from other sources. We may receive information about you if you use any of the other websites we operate or the other services we provide. In this case we will have informed you when we collected that data that it may be shared internally and combined with data collected on this site. We are also working closely with third parties (including, for example, schools, employers, local authorities, business partners, sub-contractors, analytics providers and search information providers) and may receive information about you from them.

2.4 Legal basis for processing Personal Information.

We process your personal data under the following lawful bases as defined by UK GDPR:

(a) Consent - Where you have freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous consent for us to process your data, for example when you register for an account or subscribe to email updates. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at privacy@successatschool.org;

(b) Contract - Where processing is necessary to provide you with the services you have requested, or to fulfil obligations under a licence agreement with your school or college;

(c) Legitimate Interest - Where processing is necessary for our legitimate interests in operating our platform securely and effectively, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and interests. A Legitimate Interests Assessment has been conducted for each purpose we rely on under this basis and is available on request:

(d) Special Category Data - Where we collect data about your ethnicity, gender or other protected characteristics, we do so solely to monitor and ensure equal access and opportunity across our platform. This data is processed under UK GDPR Article 9(2)(g) - substantial public interest - specifically for the purpose of equality of opportunity monitoring. This data is only ever used in aggregate form. No individually identifiable special category data is shared with any third party, including schools, colleges or employers.

3. Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie policy http://www.successatschool.org/page/privacy.

4. Uses made of the information

We use information held about you in the following ways:

4.1 Information you give to us. We will use this information:

(a) to provide you with the services you have requested, including your personalised Careers Profile, tailored content and email updates;

(b) to send you information about relevant opportunities such as jobs, apprenticeships and university courses, where you have chosen to receive such updates;

(d) to ensure content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device;

(e) where your school or college holds a licence to use our platform, to share your profile information (such as career preferences, skills log and work experience) with authorised staff at your school or college to support your career development. We will notify you if your school or college purchases a licence, and you will have the option to continue or delete your account at that point. We do not share any individually identifiable special category data (such as ethnicity) with schools, colleges or any other third party. Any equality-related data is used internally in aggregated and anonymised form only.

(f) We do not use your personal data for targeted advertising. We do not share your personal data with advertisers or advertising networks.

4.2 Information we collect about you. We will use this information:

(a) to administer and improve our site, including troubleshooting, analytics and testing;

(b) to keep our site safe and secure;

4.3 Information we receive from other sources. We may combine this information with information you give to us and information we collect about you. We may use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive).

5. Disclosure of your information

5.1 We do not sell your personal data. We do not share individually identifiable personal data with advertisers, employers, universities or any commercial third parties for marketing purposes.

We may share your personal information with 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.

5.2 We may share your information only in the following limited circumstances:

(a) Schools and colleges - Where your school or college holds a licence to our platform, authorised staff may access your career profile information as described in Section 4.1(e). No special category data is shared in identifiable form.

(b) Service providers - We use a small number of trusted third-party processors to help us operate our platform (see Section 6 regarding MailChimp). These processors act on our instructions only and are bound by data processing agreements. They are not permitted to use your data for their own purposes.

(c) Legal obligations - We may disclose your personal data where required by law, or to protect the rights, safety or property of Success at School Limited, our users or others.

(d) Business transfer - In the event of a sale or transfer of all or part of our business, personal data held by us may be transferred to the prospective buyer, subject to equivalent privacy protections.

5.3 Any equality monitoring data (such as ethnicity and gender) is held and reported exclusively in aggregate, anonymised form and is never disclosed to any third party in a form that could identify an individual.

6. Where we store your personal data

6.1 Your personal data is stored on servers located within the European Economic Area (EEA), operated by Amazon Web Services. The UK Government has determined that EEA countries provide an adequate level of data protection, meaning this transfer is lawful under UK GDPR without the need for additional safeguards..

6.2 Where you have opted in to receive email updates, we use MailChimp (operated by Intuit Inc., a US-based company) to manage and send those communications. To facilitate this, certain data - including your name and email address - is stored within MailChimp's platform. This involves a transfer of personal data to the United States. This transfer is made under appropriate safeguards, including Standard Contractual Clauses as approved by the ICO. You can view MailChimp's privacy policy at https://mailchimp.com/legal/data-processing-addendum/. You may opt out of email communications at any time, which will result in your data being removed from MailChimp's systems.

6.3 All personal data, other than that processed by MailChimp as described in Section 6.2, is stored on Success at School's servers within the EEA and is not transferred to any other jurisdiction..

6.4 We implement appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect your data against unauthorised access, loss or destruction. Where you have been issued a password to access your account, you are responsible for keeping it confidential.

7. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

Right of access - to request a copy of the data we hold about you
Right to rectification - to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data
Right to erasure - to request deletion of your data (see Section 8.3)
Right to restrict processing - to ask us to pause processing of your data in certain circumstances
Right to data portability - to receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
Right to object - to object to processing based on legitimate interests
Rights related to automated decision-making - we do not make solely automated decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at privacy@successatschool.org. We will respond within one month of receiving your request. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO at ico.org.uk if you believe your data has not been handled lawfully.

8. Access to information

8.1 We will retain your personal data for as long as your account is active. We will consider an account inactive if there has been no login activity for 24 months. Prior to closing an inactive account, we will send you a notification giving you 30 days to log in and reactivate. If we do not hear from you, your account and associated data will be permanently deleted.

8.2 You may request deletion of any or all of your personal data at any time, either via your account profile settings or by emailing data@successatschool.org. All deletion requests will be fulfilled within 30 days.

8.3 Please note that deleting certain data may limit our ability to provide you with a Careers Profile or send you email updates.

9. INFORMATION ABOUT OUR USE OF COOKIES

9.1 Our site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse our site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

9.2 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.

9.3 We use the following cookies:

(a) Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our site. They include, for example, cookies that enable you, for example, to log into secure areas of our sit.

(b) Analytical/performance cookies. These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

(c) Functionality cookies. The cookies are used to recognise you when you return to our site. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences.

9.4 Please note that third parties (including, for example, providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

9.5 You 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 (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

9.6 Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after your session on the site finishes.

10. Changes to our Privacy and Cookies policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy and cookies policy in the future will be posted on this page and any changes will be clearly identified. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Privacy and Cookies Policy.

11. Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this Privacy and Cookies Policy are welcomed and should be addressed to privacy@successatschool.org.