Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy
Fusion Education Support takes your privacy extremely seriously; we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy explains the information we collect from you, including when you visit our website. It also explains the specific ways we use and disclose any information.

Who are Fusion Education Support (FES)?
Fusion Education Support Ltd, with company number 11456902 and registered company address at  46 Hawkedon Way, Lower Earley, Reading, England, RG6 3AP , is an educational support business committed to providing the highest levels of educational advice, pastoral care and guardianship to international students and their parents whilst at school in the UK. Our aim is to provide holistic care and deepen the UK educational experience of our all families.

How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you use our website, when you contact us and when you apply to use our services.

What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information we collect might include your name, address, contact details, e-mail address, IP address. We will collect sensitive details about our employees, host families, students and parents. This might include proof of ID, dates of birth and addresses.

Your information is used by FES for the following reasons
• To meet our obligations arising from any contracts/ agreements entered into by you and FES.
• To help us improve our services and reach our target audience effectively.
• Send you details of our services and forthcoming events.

Why does FES collect your information?
• To enable us to undertake our job.
• For safer recruitment purposes.

Who will your information be shared with?
• FES will never share your information with any third party, without your prior consent. The exception to this is where there is a safeguarding concern which results in the need to share information with external agencies, the police or the DSL in schools.
• FES will share information on a ‘need to know’ basis with their staff, host families, students, parents/ agents and schools.
• FES never sells lists or email addresses.

How will FES privacy information be provided?
• orally
• in writing
• electronically

General Data Protection Regulations 2018 (GDPR)
We have created this privacy notice, along with information about the increased rights you have in relation to GDPR and the information we hold on you and the legal basis on which we are using it.

How we use your information

This privacy notice tells you what to expect when FES collects personal information. It applies to information we collect about:
• visitors to our website;
• complainants and other individuals in relation to a data protection or freedom of information complaint or enquiry;
• people who use our services;
• people who we notify under the Data Protection Act;
• job applicants and our current employees.

Visitors to our websites
When someone visits www.fusionedu.co.uk, we use a third-party website hosted by GoDaddy. This is where the website data is stored and how users’ browsers can view the content. This website host will collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone.

Use of Cookies by FES Website
www.fusionedu.co.uk uses a technology called “cookies” and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit our website, that site asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Information gathered through cookies and web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the websites visited just before and just after our website. Cookies do not allow us to gather any personal information about you. We use ‘session’ cookies which enable you to carry information across pages of the website and avoid having to re-enter information. We also use ‘persistent’ cookies which remain in the cookies file of your browser for longer and help us to recognise you as a unique visitor to the website, tailoring the content of certain areas of the website to offer you content that match your preferred interests. You can refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of the website.

Links to other websites
This Privacy Policy does not cover any links from the www.fusionedu.co.uk website linking to other websites/organisations. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Search engine
Our website search is powered by Google. The Member Search is a custom search against the internal database. Google’s privacy policies can be found here: https://policies.google.com/terms.

Security and performance 

Fusionedu.co.uk does not use any third-party service to help maintain the security and performance of our website, only the service that godaddy offers with regards to hosting. IP addresses of visitors are taken when people are on our website, as mentioned in the Cookies section above.

People who email us
FES monitors any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send is within the bounds of the law. FES email is password protected, and this needs to be a specific strength.

People who contact us via social media
FES may from time to time have accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. We also communicate with parents and students via WeChat and WhatsApp.

Twitter’s privacy notice can be found here: https://twitter.com/en/privacy

Instagram’s privacy notice can be found her: https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875

Faccebook’s privacy notice can be found here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/work/legal/Workplace_Standard_Privacy/

WhatsApp privacy policy can be found here: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy/?lang=en

WeChat’s privacy policy can be found here: https://www.wechat.com/en/privacy_policy.html

People who call us
When you call FES, we do not collect any Calling Line Identification (CLI) information. Our telephone lines are with British Telecom, O2 and Vodafone. Their privacy notice can be found at:

British Telecom: https://www.bt.com/privacy-policy/

Vodafone: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/privacy

O2: https://www.o2.co.uk/termsandconditions/privacy-policy

People who use FES services
We never use a third party to deal with any information requests. All requests are handled in-house. Any personal details are only used to provide the requested information, or other closely related purposes. For example, we might use such information about people who requested information about FES in order to send them information about our services. However, when people receive this information, they have an option to unsubscribe.

People who make a complaint to FES
When we receive a complaint from a person, we make up a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and any other individuals involved in the complaint. We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint. We usually have to disclose the complainant’s identity to whoever the complaint is about. This is inevitable where, for example, the accuracy of a person’s record is in dispute. If a complainant does not want information identifying him or her to be disclosed, we will try to respect that. However, it may not be possible to handle a complaint on an anonymous basis. We will keep personal information contained in complaint files for 2 years, from closure. It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle. Similarly, where enquiries are submitted to us we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the enquiry and any subsequent issues.

Job applicants, current and former FES employees
FES is the data controller for the information you provide during the process unless otherwise stated. All of the information you provide during the recruitment process will only be used for the purpose of progressing your application, or to fulfil legal or regulatory requirements if necessary. We will not share any of the information you provide during the recruitment process with any third parties. The information you provide will be held securely by us whether the information is in electronic or physical format. We will use the contact details you provide to us to contact you to progress your application. We will use the other information you provide to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for. We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary. You don’t have to provide what we ask for, but it might affect your application if you do not. FES will ask for a covering letter and curriculum vitae/ application form. When recruiting it is important that our practices are non-discriminatory and fair to all by adhering to the principles underpinning equality of opportunity which are covered in the United Kingdom by the Equality Act 2010:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance.

Employment with FES

If FES makes a conditional offer of employment, we may ask you for information so that we can carry out pre-employment checks and you must successfully complete pre-employment checks to progress to a final offer. We are required to confirm the identity of our staff, their right to work in the UK and seek assurance as to their trustworthiness, integrity and reliability. You may therefore be required to provide: Proof of your identity and right to work in the UK and Proof of your qualifications. We will contact your referees, using the details you provide in your application, directly to obtain references.

Your rights Under the Data Protection Act 1998 and subsequent legislation and Access to personal information
You have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you. FES tries to be as open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. Individuals can find out if we hold any personal information by making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection Act 1998 and subsequent legislation. If we do hold information about you we will:
• give you a description of it;
• tell you why we are holding it;
• tell you who it could be disclosed to; and
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone. If we do hold information about you, you can ask us to correct any mistakes.

Disclosure of personal information
We will not disclose personal data without consent. However when we investigate a complaint, for example, we will need to share personal information with the organisation concerned and with other relevant bodies.

Complaints or queries
FES tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to inform us if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures.

How to contact us
To make a request to FES for any personal information we may hold, or for a copy of our privacy notice, please write to: Contact@FusionEdu.co.uk.

Information Commissioner’s Office

For the purposes of this Policy, Fusion Education Support is the data controller, and we are registered with  the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number is ZB200468.  

Review
We are committed to reviewing our policy and good practice annually.
This policy was last reviewed on: 18 September 2024.