ESL Pals Privacy Policy

The organisation responsible for your personal information is:

EP Language Services

Trading as ESL Pals

Email: [email protected]

For data protection purposes, EP Language Services is the data controller of the personal information described in this Privacy Policy.

We may collect personal information that you provide to us directly, as well as certain technical information collected automatically when you use our Website.

Information you provide to us

Depending on how you use ESL Pals, this may include:

• First name and surname
• Email address
• Account and login information
• Subscription and billing information
• Information you provide when contacting us
• Your marketing preferences
• Other information you choose to provide

Payment information

Payments are processed by our payment service provider. We do not store your full payment card details on our own systems.

Information collected automatically

When you visit or use our Website, we may collect information such as:

• IP address
• Browser type and version
• Device and operating system information
• Pages visited
• Date and time of visits
• Referring website
• Information about how you interact with the Website
• Other technical and usage information

We use this information to operate, secure and improve our Website and services.

We use your personal information for purposes including:

Providing our services

We use your information to:

• Create and manage your account
• Provide access to your subscription and ESL lesson materials
• Process payments
• Manage subscriptions and renewals
• Provide customer and tutor support
• Send important service-related communications
• Maintain and improve our Website and services

Security and misuse prevention

We may use account, technical and usage information to:

• Protect our Website and systems
• Detect and prevent fraud
• Investigate suspected misuse
• Prevent unauthorised access
• Enforce our terms and conditions
• Protect our business, users and intellectual property

This may include monitoring account activity, downloads and other usage information where reasonably necessary to protect the service.

Marketing

Where permitted by law, we may send you marketing communications about ESL Pals, including new ESL lessons, teaching resources, promotions, updates and other information that may be relevant to you.

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time by using the unsubscribe link in the email or by contacting [email protected].

For individual recipients, UK electronic marketing rules generally require consent unless a limited existing-customer exception applies.

Under UK data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for processing your personal information.

Depending on the circumstances, we may rely on the following lawful bases:

Contract

We may process your information where this is necessary to provide the services you have requested, including creating your account, processing your subscription and giving you access to ESL Pals materials.

Legal obligation

We may process your information where necessary to comply with legal or regulatory obligations, including accounting, tax and financial record-keeping requirements.

Legitimate interests

We may process your information where necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided that those interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.

This may include operating and improving the Website, maintaining security, preventing fraud and misuse, managing our business and responding to enquiries.

Consent

Where required, we may rely on your consent for activities such as certain marketing communications and the use of non-essential cookies and similar technologies.

Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

Payments for ESL Pals subscriptions are processed by Stripe.

We may receive information from Stripe such as:

• Your name
• Email address
• Payment status
• Subscription information
• Transaction information

Stripe processes payment card information on our behalf. We do not store your complete payment card details ourselves.

Stripe may process personal information outside the UK. Where personal information is transferred internationally, appropriate safeguards will be used where required by applicable data protection law.

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate the Website, remember preferences, understand how visitors use our Website and improve our services.

We may use third-party analytics services, including Google Analytics, to understand website traffic and usage.

Where consent is required for non-essential cookies or similar technologies, we will ask for your consent before using them.

For further information, please see our Cookie Policy.

We do not sell your personal information.

We may share personal information with third parties where reasonably necessary to operate ESL Pals and provide our services. These may include:

• Payment providers, including Stripe
• Website hosting and infrastructure providers
• Email and communication providers
• Analytics providers
• Customer support and technical service providers
• Professional advisers, including accountants, lawyers and insurers
• Government authorities, regulators or law enforcement agencies where required by law

We expect service providers processing personal information on our behalf to handle that information appropriately and in accordance with applicable data protection requirements.

Some of our service providers may process personal information outside the United Kingdom.

Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we will take steps to ensure that the transfer complies with applicable data protection law. This may include relying on an adequacy regulation or decision or using appropriate contractual safeguards.

For further information about international transfers relevant to your personal information, please contact us at [email protected].

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

The length of time will depend on the type of information and why we need it.

For example:

• Account information is generally retained while your account is active and for a reasonable period afterwards.
• Subscription and transaction information may be retained for longer where necessary to meet accounting, tax or other legal requirements.
• Customer support correspondence may be retained for as long as reasonably necessary to deal with your enquiry and maintain appropriate business records.
• Marketing information is retained until you unsubscribe or otherwise withdraw your consent, unless we have another lawful reason to retain it.

When information is no longer required, we will securely delete it or anonymise it where appropriate.

Depending on the circumstances and subject to certain legal conditions and exemptions, you may have the right to:

• Request access to the personal information we hold about you
• Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information
• Ask us to delete your personal information
• Ask us to restrict how we process your information
• Object to certain processing
• Object to direct marketing
• Request the transfer of certain personal information to you or another organisation
• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent as our lawful basis

You can exercise your rights by contacting [email protected].

We will normally respond to a valid request within one month. In certain circumstances, this period may be extended where permitted by law.

You will not normally have to pay a fee to exercise your data protection rights. However, we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to act on a request where the law allows us to do so, for example where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

You can unsubscribe from ESL Pals marketing emails at any time by:

• Clicking the unsubscribe link included in the email; or
• Contacting [email protected]

Unsubscribing from marketing communications will not stop essential service communications, such as payment confirmations, subscription notices, account security messages or other communications necessary to provide your service.

For electronic marketing to individuals, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 generally require specific consent unless the requirements of a limited existing-customer exception are met.

ESL Pals provides teaching materials for teachers and educational professionals. Our Website and subscription services are intended for adults.

Although our teaching resources are designed to be used with children, our services are not intended for children to create accounts or purchase subscriptions themselves.

We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children for the purpose of providing our services.

If you believe that a child has provided personal information to us, please contact [email protected] so that we can investigate and take appropriate action.

To protect ESL Pals materials and prevent unauthorised use, we may collect and review information relating to account activity, including information about how the Website and lesson materials are accessed and used.

We may use this information to identify unusual activity, investigate suspected misuse and enforce our terms of service.

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against accidental loss, unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction.

However, no method of transmitting information over the internet or storing information electronically can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Our Website may contain links to third-party websites, platforms or services.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security or content of those third parties. We recommend reviewing their privacy policies before providing them with personal information.

We do not use personal information to make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you.

We may use automated systems for purposes such as fraud prevention, website security and identifying potentially unusual or abusive activity.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to our services, technology, legal requirements or the way we process personal information.

When we update this policy, we will change the Last updated date at the top of the page.

Where required by law, we will provide additional notice about significant changes.

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, would like to exercise one of your data protection rights, or have a concern about how we use your personal information, please email: [email protected]