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Privacy and cookies

At HSDC, we care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we take your privacy seriously.

This privacy policy provides information on how HSDC collects, uses and processes your personal information. Using or accessing our website, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this privacy policy and relevant legislation.

We may occasionally update this policy to reflect legal or data processing developments. If we update our policy, we will provide information on this page to review any changes. Any significantly different use of your data will be communicated to you, and you will be able to choose whether you agree to the new service.

Our student privacy notice can be found below:

Student Privacy Notice

Types of data we collect from you

Website cookies
The HSDC website places cookies, which are small data files, on your computer or handheld device. This is standard practice for all websites. A cookie is a small piece of information that a website can store on your web browser and later retrieve. A cookie cannot be read by any website other than the one that set up the cookie.

How we use cookies
Cookies are essential for helping us deliver a high-quality website experience. The cookies we use are as follows:

Necessary cookies
These do not require consent and are vital to make our website work properly. This category of cookie may include those which allow our ‘apply now’ course buttons to function.

Performance cookies
These cookies help us identify and fix any problems with the website. They may also provide analytics on which pages are popular and collect information about browsing behaviour that we use to improve our website and the services we provide to you.

HSDC uses Google inc such as Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns.  We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to various parts of the site. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using the HSDC website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Third-party cookies
HSDC sometimes embeds content from providers such as YouTube,Twitter, Facebook Pixel or HotJar. As a result, when you visit a page with content embedded from you may be presented with cookies from these websites. HSDC does not control the dissemination of these cookies. Please check the relevant third party website for more information about these.

How to control cookies
By using and browsing the HSDC website, you consent to cookies being used in accordance with our policy.

When you first visit this website, we ask for your consent to use cookies. You can choose not to accept cookies, but please know that the services you request may not be available. If you delete your cookies or clear your cache, you may be asked to give your consent again.

If you do not consent, you must refrain from using this site, disable or block the cookies set by the HSDC website. If you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by the HSDC website, you can do this through your browser settings. Please be aware that this may impact the functionality of the HSDC website. Users of the most popular web browsers can install a browser add-on that prevents the information from being transferred to Google, see: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. For more information about cookies, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org. or for Akero: https://akerolabs.com/privacy-policy

Information you provide us with
We receive and store the information you knowingly provide us through forms on our website. We may collect personal information such as your name, email address and phone number. This data is stored in a CRM system provided by Akerolabs; you can view their policy here.

Mailing lists

We may send you marketing emails or contact you via phone if you have permitted us to do so. For example, if you have registered an interest in attending one of our Open Evening events, we may send you details of the upcoming event dates. Also, we may receive information that you have opened or clicked a link within an email we have sent you. This gives us an indication of what you find interesting and helps us make our communications better.

We use a third-party provider, Campaign Monitor & Akero to deliver our newsletters. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry-standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter. For more information, please see Campaign Monitor Privacy Policy. 

If you do not want to receive marketing communications from us, you can unsubscribe at any time using a link at the bottom of the email you receive or email marketing@hsdc.ac.uk to be removed from our mailing lists.

Enquiry forms

There are several enquiry forms across our website. These messages and contact details you provide will be shared with relevant college staff members, enabling them to provide the requested information. This information may also be used to understand the information we need to deliver to people on our website. Unless you have opted to receive marketing communications, the information submitted through enquiry forms will not be used for this purpose.

Your Rights
You have several rights over your personal information, which are:

  • The right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy about the way your personal data is being used – please refer to the ICO’s website for further information about this (https://ico.org.uk/);
  • The right to ask us what personal information about you we are holding and to have access to a copy of your personal information;
  • The right to ask us to correct any errors in your personal information;
  • The right, in certain circumstances such as where our use of your personal information is based on your consent, and we have no other legal basis for using your personal information, for asking us to delete your personal information;
  • The right, in certain circumstances such as where we no longer need your personal information, to request that we restrict the use that we are making of your personal information;
  • The right, in certain circumstances, to ask us to review and explain our legitimate interests to you; and
  • The right, where our use of your personal information is carried out for the purposes of an agreement with us and is carried out by automated means, to ask us to provide you with a copy of your personal information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.

Changes to our privacy policy
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and update it from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurate. This is due for a full review in May 2022; please keep checking back for updates.

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