Spellzone - Privacy Policy

Contents

Introduction

Personal Data

Who looks after your Personal Data?

How we obtain your Personal Data

Children and Young Peoples' Data

Cookies

Legal basis for processing Personal Data

Legitimate interests pursued by Spellzone Limited and/or its clients

Consent

Disclosure

Retention Policy

Data Processing and Storage

Your Rights as a Data Subject

What identification will be required?

Complaints

Introduction

Spellzone is a long established, online English spelling resource suitable for students aged six to adult. It is used worldwide by schools, colleges, adult education centres, private tutors, families and individual students.

Spellzone works hard to make sure that all our users, especially young people, have a positive and safe experience.

Spellzone Limited treats the privacy of its customers very seriously and we take appropriate measures to safeguard your privacy. This Privacy Notice explains how we protect and use any Personal Data you share with us and that we hold about you, including how we collect, process, protect and share that data.

Further information can be found here:

Personal Data

This document refers to Personal Data, which is defined as information concerning any living person (the Data Subject).

Anything that can identify you is your Personal Data. This could be your name, address or a photo of you, but it is also things like your email address or your online gamertag.

There are some types of data known as special category data. This could be something like your date of birth, an illness you have, or what religion you are.

Spellzone does not collect any special category data.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) seeks to protect and enhance the rights of Data Subjects. These rights cover the safeguarding of Personal Data, protection against the unlawful processing of Personal Data. It should be noted that GDPR does not apply to information already in the public domain.

GDPR means General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (GDPR) and any national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation, as amended or updated from time to time, in the UK; and then any successor legislation to the GDPR or the Data Protection Act 1998.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) guidance on Personal Data can be found here.

Spellzone does not fall into the compliance thresholds the of California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) 01/01/2023.

Spellzone Limited uses the information collected from you (Personal Data) to provide you with access to the contents of the Spellzone website under the domain name www.spellzone.com and other Spellzone domains. We may also collect statistics about the behaviour of visitors to the Spellzone website in order to improve user experience.

Spellzone Limited may also contact you by email, telephone or post:

  • to support your use of the Spellzone website
  • to provide a quotation for a subscription to the Spellzone website
  • with marketing information about Spellzone education resources which Spellzone Limited believes may be of interest to you and your business.

In making initial contact, you consent to Spellzone Limited maintaining a dialogue with you until you either opt out (which you can do at any stage) or we decide to desist in promoting our services.

Who looks after your Personal Data?

A Data Controller is in charge of the Personal Data collected about you. The Data Controller decides why and how the data is processed and is directly responsible for complying with data protection laws, ensuring data security and upholding data subjects’ rights.

A Data Processor collects or uses Personal Data in accordance with the instructions of the Data Controller.

If you are using Spellzone from a school or private tutor account:
  • Your school or private tutor is the Data Controller
  • Spellzone is the Data Processor

    • If you are using Spellzone from a single student or family account:
  • Spellzone is the Data Controller

    • We may share your information to our key suppliers (third parties) which assist us in making the Spellzone website available to you. We have a data processing agreement (DPA) with them to ensure they will keep your information secure and not use it for other purposes.

    Here is a list of who we could share your Personal Data with and why:

    Organisation Data Categories Reason for sharing
    Bytemark All categories listed below Spellzone website hosting
    MailJet Name and email address Spellzone email provider
    YouCanBookMe Name and email address Staff training booking platform
    Whereby Name and email address Staff training platform

    How we obtain your Personal Data

    Personal Data may be collected about you from the forms you complete on the Spellzone website, from records of our correspondence with you and details of your visits to our website, including but not limited to personally identifying information:

    Account Management and Communications Spellzone Activity and Results
    • First Name
    • Surname
    • Job Title – non mandatory
      (Administrators and Teachers)
    • Username
    • Password
    • Organisation name
      (schools, colleges and other organisations only)
    • Billing Address
    • Country
    • Email Address
    • Telephone numbers
    • Class names
      (schools, colleges and other organisations only)
    • VAT number
      (schools, colleges and other organisations only)
    • Spellzone Invoices
    • Email communications
    • Telephone communications notes
      (we do not mechanically record telephone conversations)
    • Internet Protocol (IP) address and browser information.
    • Spelling Ability Test results.
    • Spellzone course and word list activity
      and results.
    • Word lists created by you.
    • Teacher/student messages.
      These are the messages sent by teachers and student responses from within Spellzone (not emails).

    Children and Young Peoples' Data

    To help ensure a safe, positive experience for children and young people, we adhere to the following policies:

    • We have a dedicated Children and Young Peoples' Privacy Policy to support children’s awareness of the processing of their Personal Data.
    • We request confirmation that a user is over the age of 18 before they sign up for a Spellzone free trial or subscription or that they have parental or guardian consent to do so.
    • We do not distribute any personally identifiable information about children to third parties other than the key suppliers listed above, who assist us in making the Spellzone website available to you.
    • We do not allow students to publicly post or distribute personally identifiable contact information.
    • We try to avoid providing access links to any websites that request personal information, such as user email or physical addresses
    • We remove hyper-links from posted information, for example word list descriptions.
    • We do not use the prospect of a special game, prize or other activity, to entice children to divulge more information than is needed to participate in the activity.

    Cookies

    The Spellzone website uses cookies, which is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the Spellzone website each time the visitor returns.

    Our cookies help us to:

    • Provide you with convenient website functionality.
    • Remember your settings during and between visits.
    • Improve the speed and security of the site.
    • Allow you to share content with social networks.
    • Improve/tailor your website experience.
    • Make our marketing more efficient (tracking what works best for our visitors and serving you relevant content).

    We do NOT use cookies to:

    • Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission).
    • Collect any sensitive information.
    • Pass personally identifiable data to third parties.

    Spellzone website visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using the Spellzone website.

    Please note that if you disable or decline cookies, you may not be able to access some parts of the Spellzone website, and some features, such as record keeping, may not function properly or be available to you.

    You can find out more information about the cookies that Spellzone use and how to manage cookies here.

    Legal basis for processing Personal Data

    Spellzone Limited will only collect the information needed so that it can meet its contractual obligations to clients, provide you with access to the Spellzone website and to provide support and marketing information about the Spellzone website.

    Any information Spellzone Limited holds about you and your business encompasses all the details we hold about you and any sales transactions including any third-party information we have obtained about you from public sources, our clients and our suppliers.

    Payment details such as credit card information are handled by third party providers such as WorldPay and PayPal and as such, Spellzone does not hold this information on our databases.

    All WorldPay transactions are subject to the WorldPay Privacy Policy and all PayPal transactions are subject to the PayPal Privacy Policy.

    Spellzone Limited does not sell or broker your data, although coincidentally there may be times when your information could be contained in data that Spellzone Limited has purchased from a third-party marketing company.

    Legitimate interests pursued by Spellzone Limited and/or its clients

    To provide access to the contents of the Spellzone website under the domain name www.spellzone.com and other Spellzone domains and to market the Spellzone education resources offered by Spellzone Limited.

    Consent

    Through agreeing to this privacy notice you are consenting to Spellzone Limited processing your Personal Data for the purposes outlined.

    We respect your privacy and your rights under the General Data Protection Regulations (2018) or GDPR, which are part of the law called the Data Protection Act 1998. You have the right to withdraw your consent for us to process your Personal Data at any time. Withdrawing your consent is easy and will not have any negative consequences. However, please note that some of our services may be affected if the processing of your data is essential for providing those services.

    To withdraw your consent if you are using Spellzone from a school account:

    • Your school is the Data Controller.
    • Please contact your Spellzone Administrator.
    • They will delete your account.

    To withdraw your consent if you are using a Spellzone single student or family account:

    • Spellzone is the Data Controller.
    • Contact us with your request.

    Once we receive your request, we will stop processing your Personal Data based on your consent without undue delay. The withdrawal of consent does not affect the legality of our data processing activities before the withdrawal.

    If you have any questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

    Disclosure

    Spellzone Limited do not sell or pass on information gained from your engagement with the Spellzone website without your consent. However, Spellzone Limited may disclose your Personal Information to meet legal obligations, regulations or valid governmental requests.

    Spellzone Limited may also enforce its Terms and Conditions, including investigating potential violations of its Terms and Conditions to detect, prevent or mitigate fraud or security or technical issues; or to protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of Spellzone Limited, its clients and/or the wider community.

    Retention Policy

    Spellzone Limited will process Personal Data during the duration of a free trial or paid subscription and will retain the Personal Data for a maximum of 18 months after the free trial and/or a paid subscription has expired.

    This will enable reinstatement of the account in the event of change of mind or absence due to illness. During this time Spellzone may contact the Data Subject regarding renewal or any special offers.

    At the end of, or before the end of the 18 months retention period, Spellzone shall destroy all documents, processing and utilization results, and data sets related to the contract that have come into its possession, in a data-protection compliant manner. The same applies to any and all connected test, waste, redundant and discarded material.

    Spellzone Limited will continue to store only the Personal Data needed after the contract has expired to meet any legal obligations after which it will be deleted, in a data-protection compliant manner.

    Some data such as word lists or results may remain on the Spellzone databases after account deletion but will not be identifiable to any Personal Data.

    Data Processing and Storage

    The processing and storage of Data shall be carried out within the United Kingdom and the EEA.

    Your Rights as a Data Subject

    At any point whilst Spellzone Limited is in possession of or processing Personal Data, all data subjects have the following rights:

    • Right of access – you have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you.
    • Right of rectification – you have a right to correct data that we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete.
    • Right to be forgotten – in certain circumstances you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records.
    • Right to restriction of processing – where certain conditions apply you have a right to restrict the processing.
    • Right of portability – you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation.
    • Right to object – you have the right to object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing.
    • Right to object to automated processing, including profiling – you also have the right not to be subject to the legal effects of automated processing or profiling.

    In the event that Spellzone Limited refuses your request under rights of access, we will provide you with a reason as to why, which you have the right to legally challenge.

    Spellzone Limited at your request, can confirm what information it holds about you and how it is processed.

    You can request the following information:

    • Identity and the contact details of the person or organisation (Spellzone Limited) that has determined how and why to process your data.
    • Contact details of the Designated Contact responsible for data protection compliance.
    • The purpose of the processing as well as the legal basis for processing.
    • If the processing is based on the legitimate interests of Spellzone Limited or a third party such as one of its clients, information about those interests.
    • The categories of Personal Data collected, processed and stored.
    • Recipient(s) or categories of recipients that the data is/will be disclosed to.
    • How long the data will be stored.
    • Details of your rights to correct, erase, restrict or object to such processing.
    • Information about your right to withdraw consent at any time.
    • How to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority (Data Protection Regulator).
    • Whether the provision of Personal Data is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract, as well as whether you are obliged to provide the Personal Data and the possible consequences of failing to provide such data.
    • The source of Personal Data if it wasn’t collected directly from you.
    • Any details and information of automated decision making, such as profiling, and any meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and expected consequences of such processing.

    What identification will be required?

    Spellzone Limited will accept the following forms of ID when information on your Personal Data is requested:

    • For schools, colleges and other establishments: official letterhead.
    • For families and individuals: a copy of your national ID card, driving license or passport and a utility bill not older than three months.

    If Spellzone Limited is dissatisfied with the quality, further information may be sought before Personal Data can be released.

    All requests should be made by email or writing to us at the address below.

    Complaints

    In the event that you wish to make a complaint about how your Personal Data is being processed by Spellzone Limited, you have the right to complain to:

    Data Protection Officer
    Spellzone Limited
    Holme Hill Cottage
    Church Street
    Whixley
    York  YO26 8AR
    United Kingdom

    Email

    If you do not get a response within 30 days you can complain to:

    The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
    Wycliffe House,
    Water Lane,
    Wilmslow SK9 5AF

    ICO website

    Other useful information

    Spellzone Limited is registered in England and Wales. Company Reg. No. 6884807
    Registered office: Club Chambers, Museum Street, York, YO1 7DN United Kingdom
    Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) Reg. No. ZA004886

     

    "Thank goodness for Spellzone during this remote learning phase. The site is easy for students to navigate independently and they're really enjoying the activities and spelling games. You get an awful lot for your money with Spellzone. Really reassuring is the very prompt response with helpdesk queries. I've very rarely needed the helpdesk, but when I have, the issue has been addressed and sorted within a very short time."

    Sarah Taggart, Oasis Academy Lord's Hill