Professional Writing Academy

Our Privacy Policy

Before you start learning with us, we'd like you to read and sign our Privacy Policy. This is to help keep you and everyone who uses the classroom safe, and ensure a productive and supportive learning experience. Just scroll down to read, then and accept at the bottom and you'll be taken to your course.

Thank you!

Who We Are

The Professional Writing Academy Ltd uses this website to host and deliver a range of online courses and services on behalf of ourselves and our partners (Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, Graham Bartlett Police Advisor, Jericho Writers).

We, and our partners, are committed to making sure your privacy is protected. If we ask you to provide information by which you can be identified when using the online classroom(s), then we will only use it in accordance with this privacy statement.

Types of Information

We may store your:

• Name.
• Email address.
• Phone number.
• Postal address.
• Personal information you add to your profile, including images, bio, links to your website, social media channels, or other third party sites you may have chosen to share.
• Details of the course(s) you are enrolled on.
• Details of your interaction with the online course materials, including which pages you have read, videos watched, podcasts listened to, quizzes and questionnaires completed, forums you have posted to, whether you have completed sessions, and so on.
• Anything you share within the online classroom, including:
  • Work you upload to any classroom forums, in any format, including text or images pasted within a forum post, Word, .rtf, .PDF, .jpeg, .png, or other downloadable/portable files.
  • Forum discussions you start.
  • Comments and replies you make on any forums.
  • Transcripts of live chats you have taken part in.
  • Responses to quizzes, questionnaires and any online exams.
  • Contributions to recorded live sessions on Zoom.
  
  

  How Do We Get Your Information?

  Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you because you have enquired about, applied for, bought or signed up to a course, workshop, event, mentoring or alumni service.

  What Information Can Other People See?

  Your course tutor, moderator and the team responsible for managing the online classroom (at PWA and in a partner organisation) can see any information you share in the classroom, including everything listed above.

  Online classroom guests, who may join the course to take part in a live session as part of your learning, will only see your name and profile image (if you've added one).

  Other people in your course group can see your name and any information you choose to add to your personal profile. They will also be able to see your forum posts and comments, and contributions to live chat and Zoom sessions. This is so you can get to know each other and to facilitate group learning.

  The others in your group cannot see any of your quiz or questionnaire responses, including any results. They cannot see or track your progress on your course (ie they will not know which pages you've read, which videos you've watched, and so on).

  Your email address is not shared with anyone in your course group unless you change your profile settings to make it visible, or if you choose to share it with your group on a forum post, live chat discussion or in any other way. For privacy, we recommend that you do not share your email with anyone other than a tutor or moderator and that you use the forums and live chats within the online classroom instead.

  
  

  What We Do with the Information

  We use the information you give us to deliver your online learning experience or event, understand your needs and provide you with a better service. The information we store may be used for:

  • Internal record keeping.
  • Improving our products and services.
  • Contacting you about:
    • Further courses or services, from us or our partners, that we feel may be of interest to you based on the course(s) you have already taken.
    • Opportunities that may interest you, including discounts on other courses and services, competitions, events, news and other training options.

  If an employer, bursary provider or academic partner has paid for your course as part of your continuing professional development (CPD), training or education, they may ask us to tell them about your progress. This may include telling them whether or not you completed the course, including a summary of your activity (sessions and exercises completed, frequency of engagement with the online classroom, and so on). We will not share with them details of any messages you've sent to other people on the course, including forum posts and comments, transcripts from live discussions you've taken part in, or any work or images you've uploaded to the online classroom. If you have any questions or concerns about this please contact your tutor or moderator.

  What We Don't Do with the Information

  We do not store credit card or payment details in the online classroom. 

  We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.

  Under 18s

  If you are under 18, please inform a parent or guardian about your use of our onine classroom. We will need their consent for you to join our courses.

  Security

  We're committed to keeping your information secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

  All our learning platforms and associated websites are hosted within UK data centres. We do however use some third party providers, for certain specialist services, which are based outside the UK/EEA. When using such providers we ensure that they have appropriate controls in place for managing private data and we ensure that we only share with them the data that is strictly necessary. We regularly review and update these procedures.

  Links to Other Websites

  The online classroom contains links to other websites. We do not have any control over those websites so this privacy statement does not cover them. This means that we cannot be responsible for the security and privacy of any information you provide while visiting those other websites. You should always check the privacy statement on the website you are visiting.

  Managing Your Information

  Under UK GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the lawful bases we rely on for processing your information are to fulfil our contractual obligation to you where you have signed up for a course or service.

  You are in control of what information you include in your personal profile, and you can update your profile settings at any time, including:

  • Changing your password.
  • Changing the email address we use to send you notifications from the online classroom, or stopping all email notifications.
  • Changing your personal bio, including adding or removing an image.
  • Adding, updating or deleting links to your website, social media channels, blog or other third party sites.

  If you're not sure how to change your profile settings, please contact your course moderator.

  If you decide that you do not want to continue with a course or service, retain access to the online classroom's alumni area, or need to take a short break, then please tell your moderator. If you do this, we will remove you from your course group(s) and suspend your online classroom account. We will not delete your profile immediately after you leave a course, so you'll still be able to log in and manage your personal profile.

  You have the right to know what personal data we hold on you, including asking us to:

  • Correct any errors in the data we hold.
  • Restrict how we use your data.
  • Delete your data.
  • Send you a copy of your data.

  If you want to speak to us about the personal data we hold, or believe that any information we hold on you is incorrect or incomplete, or if you have any questions, please email info@profwritingacademy.com or write to Professional Writing Academy at Henleaze Business Centre, Harbury Road, Bristol BS9 4PN. We’ll review your request and reply within 30 days.

  You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. Their details are here: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/