Privacy and cookies
Education Scotland is committed to protecting our visitors' personal information. We want our online service to be safe for everyone. We aim to help you to understand what information we might collect about you through the use of cookies and how we use it.
Privacy information
Our Commitment to Data Privacy
Education Scotland is committed to compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The UK GDPR enforces the standards of GDPR into UK domestic law keeping data protection standards at the same level as before the end of the Brexit transition period.
GDPR Requirements
Education Scotland is committed to helping individuals fulfil their requirements under the GDPR.
The following are a few examples of the key GDPR requirements that apply to both individuals and ourselves:
- committing to security and privacy measures required under the GDPR
- assisting our customers with satisfying their GDPR data security and privacy requirements
- notifying regulators of personal data breaches on our systems and promptly communicating any such breaches to our stakeholders and end-users
- ensuring that staff who access and process our users’ personal data maintain the confidentiality and security of that data
- ensuring that all personal data is held to the applicable data management, security and privacy standards required under the GDPR
- committing to carrying out data impact assessments and consulting with the Information Commissioner's Office where appropriate
Personal information
We will apply appropriate protection and management of any personally identifiable information you share with Education Scotland. Any personal information you do provide will be held and processed by Education Scotland in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the UK GDPR.
How we process your personal information
Any personal information provided to Education Scotland will only be used to discharge our statutory functions and other relevant legislation, maintain our accounts and records and to support and manage our staff. We will only use information for those purposes, but we will share it with others for other purposes where it is legal and justifiable.
At Education Scotland, we manage, maintain and protect all information according to the requirements of the DPA and other legislation. We also adhere to our own information policies and government best practice.
In certain circumstances, we may process your personal information without your consent, and/or we may restrict your access to the information we hold about you. Such circumstances would only arise in relation to our statutory obligations. In these circumstances, there are exemptions from the DPA.
Education Scotland takes your privacy seriously and is committed to responsible handling of personal information in accordance with our Information Charter, which is as follows.
We will:
- make sure you know why we need it.
- ask only for what we need and not to collect too much or irrelevant information.
- protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who should not.
- let you know if we share it with other organisations to give you better public services - and if you can say no.
- make sure we do not keep it longer than necessary.
- not make your personal information available for commercial use without your permission.
Contact Education Scotland
If you want to request information about our privacy policy, you can email Education Scotland on enquiries@educationscotland.gov.scot
Cookies
What is a cookie?
Most websites you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, either for the duration of your visit or for repeat visits.
Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences, and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster and easier. If a website doesn’t use cookies, it will think you are a new visitor every time you move to a new page on the site – for example, when you enter your login details and move to another page it won’t recognise you and it won’t be able to keep you logged in.
What's in a cookie?
A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server and only that server will be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits and numbers. It allows a website to remember things like your preferences.
How can I control my cookies?
You can use your web browser to:
- delete all cookies
- block all cookies
- allow all cookies
- block third-party cookies
- clear all cookies when you close the browser
- open a 'private browsing' session
- install add-ons and plug-ins to extend browser functionality.
Find information about controlling cookies
How to delete cookie files in Internet Explorer (Microsoft)
Manage cookies in chrome (Google)