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Privacy policy

Skills Development Scotland treats your privacy very seriously. The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you:

1. Statement of intent
2. Information on visitors
3. What is a cookie?
4. Use and storage of your personal information
5. Access to your personal information

1. Statement of intent

   From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include newsletters or further information about our service.

   By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Skills Development Scotland and its service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. Skills Development Scotland will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Information on visitors

   During the course of any visit to Skills Development Scotland's website, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, may be downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

   Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example, if on a previous visit you went to, say, the 'about us' pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight educational information on a second visit.

   Both the cookies and the embedded code provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, the duration of individual page view, paths taken by visitors through the site, data on visitors' screen settings and other general information. Skills Development Scotland uses this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the services to its users.

3. What is a cookie?

   When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

   Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time.

   NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously.

4. Use and storage of your personal information

   When you supply any personal information to Skills Development Scotland (e.g. to receive further information) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notices on particular web pages that let you know why we are requesting the information) and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else. In general, any information you provide to Skills Development Scotland will only be used within Skills Development Scotland and by its service providers. It will never be supplied to anyone outside Skills Development Scotland without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged by law to disclose it.

   We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

5. Access to your personal information

   You have the right to request a copy of the personal information Skills Development Scotland holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected.

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