Data Protection and Information Sharing Policy

 

This document has been updated to comply with the new GDPR guidelines (August 2021)

 

How we acquire data

 

Student information is given to us by parents/guardians or educational agencies that are instructed by the parents/guardians of each student.

Information we hold includes, but is not limited to:

  • Full names or parents/guardians & students
  • Home Address
  • School Address
  • Contact Details
  • Medical Information
  • Passport Information
  • Image of student ID (Photo page of passport)

Host Family information is supplied to us by host family themselves during the online application.

  • Information we hold, includes but it not limited to:
  • Full names of all household members
  • Full names of all regular household guests
  • Home Address
  • Contact Details
  • Medical Information
    • (if a medical request is submitted by social services)
  • Enhanced DBS Information
  • Proof of ID as required for Enhanced DBS application
  • Photos of family members
  • Photos of the homestay property

 

Sharing your data

 

Era Education treat all data we hold as confidential and treated with discretion at all times.

 

Students and host family information is shared with parent, schools and potential host families only*, by the publication of a profile. This profile is built procedurally each time a profile link is published and sent by email from our servers.

 

  • (except in the event of a safeguarding risk or medical emergency where it may be shared with local services such as medical or social care)

This profile does not contain any sensitive data.

 

Era Education does not share any data with any 3rd party, without permission and no data is ever sold. Lines of communication for sharing data:

  • Academic Reports are sent directly to parents or
  • Welfare Reports from LGs are to parents or
  • Information from schools is sent to parents either directly by the LG or by Head Office depending on the nature of the LG or by Head Office depending on the nature of the information.

 

Storing your data

 

Our office is completely paperless. Any physical documents that arrive are scanned into our network storage and the originals are shredded immediately.

Any original documents that need to be returned to their owner are sent on the day of receipt. If the post-collection has been missed, then they are securely stored until the next working day.

All scanned documents are stored in our dedicated servers.

Any other information not stored in the form of a document image e.g. information is given during an online application is stored in our database.

All hardware is owned, built, maintained and managed by Era Education company.

 

Retention period of information

 

For students, our retention period is the length of time a student is under our guardianship over 7 years from leaving as all records are integrated within our accounts information.

For host families, all supplied information is stored on our network.

If the host family are no longer hosting, their information is removed and only visible to the data protection handler.

The host family information is also integrated in the same way as students and therefore needs to be held for a minimum of 7 years.

After 7 years of inactivity, the data held for students and host families will be deleted.

 

Your rights

 

The GDPR includes the following rights for individuals:

  • the right to be informed: Era Education is committed to fair processing of information, this is through our privacy notice on how your data will be kept and
  • the right of access: At any time, anyone may request the data that we store and how it
  • is processed. Information will be shared without delay and within one month. This can be extended if agreed by both parties and the request(s) are complex or numerous.
  • the right to rectification: If there are any inaccuracies in the information we are given,

we shall let all parties’ privy to the information know of the mistake and update them accordingly.

  • the right to erasure: Once a contract has ended with Era Education , students and host families have the ‘right to be forgotten’, and all data will be deleted in accordance with the above This means that we would erase all their data from our records, after 7 years of inactivity. Once a student becomes 16, they have the ‘right to be forgotten’ and can request this themselves.
  • the right to restrict processing: If data appears to be inaccurate, it will not be processed until If processing the data becomes unlawful, processing will be restricted but not erased.
  • the right to data portability: Era Education does not fall under this category and data is not used
  • the right to object: Era Education may use data internally for marketing purposes, both text and
  • Everyone has the right to object to their information being used in this way. Simply let us know by emailing: info@eraeducation.co.uk
  • the right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling: This does
  • not apply as no decision is made electronically and all data is handled by someone from Era Education.

 

Charges

There are no charges to store or have access to your data.

Infringement

Era Education company has a duty to protect your data. If you believe there has been a breach of data protection, we suggest first contacting our Data Protection Officer  Vitalija Abare by calling  +447557532717. If you are unsatisfied with the outcome of our internal investigation, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) +44 303 123 1113

Policy Review Date

September 2021