Introduction

The EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (hereinafter referred to as “GDPR”) is designed to protect, inter alia, individuals’ online personal data: who holds it, what is held, and allow people more control over how their data is used. The GDPR applies across all EU Member States and to any organisation worldwide, which holds or process data of EU citizens.

Under GDPR, The C & G School of Careers Ltd (HE 5682), G C Elementary School Limited (HE 144195), C & G Private Institute – Institute of Careers Ltd (HE 133291), G C Sports Ltd (HE 013428 and S.A.H. Properties and Services Ltd (HE 249498), (hereinafter referred to as the “School”) are classified as a “data controller”, an organisation that collects and uses information of EU citizens. Therefore, the School is required to comply with this legislation. More information can be found in the page Group Information. 

But going beyond the requirements of GDPR, the School wants its parents and users to feel they are being treated respectfully, and with the utmost goal of protecting their privacy, when they share their personal data with the School. All information submitted by you is treated in a confidential and secure way, using technical and organisational measures and with the most efficient protection of your personal data in mind at all times.

This Privacy Policy intends to help the parents and users understand how their personal data are collected, used and processed, as well as to inform them clearly of their rights with regards to the protection of their personal data.

We strongly advise you to spend some time to read and understand how we treat and protect your personal data. For more information about the School’s privacy policy and practices and to exercise your rights under the GDPR concerning your data, please contact the Data Protection Officer: [email protected]

Please note that this Privacy Policy applies to all websites and applications provided by G C School and its aforementioned affiliated companies that allow a direct link to this Privacy Policy.

 

16 years old or younger

We are deeply concerned regarding the protection of personal data of children. Therefore, if you are under the age of 16 years or equivalent minimum age depending on jurisdiction you are advised to read this Privacy Policy with your parents or guardian. Please note that if you are under 16 years old, you are NOT permitted to provide us with any of your personal data, except with your parent’s and /or guardian’s explicit permission. To that end, we may use any technical means available in order for us to ensure that personal data of children under the age of 16 years are shared with us in a legitimate and transparent way.

Please refer to our Privacy Note to Parents & Guardians section for more details about your child and registering to and using our services.

G C School

Nicosia, Cyprus

+357 22464400

 

I. Who we are

Founded in 1973, the School is one of the island’s leading private academic institutions, providing high quality pre-school, primary and secondary education in a supportive and disciplined learning environment. The School’s targets are high and demanding and we put every effort into creating individuals, who are equipped with all the requisite qualities and qualifications in order to prosper in their studies, future careers and adult life.

 

II. What kind of information we may collect about you

Depending on the use of our services and the level of your interaction with us, we may collect any or even all of the following information:

  • contact information such as full name, address and telephone number
  • account settings, such as e mail address and password, when you open an account with our website
  • personal information, such as date of birth or gender
  • educational and professional status information, for example, if you are a parent and/or guardian, a teacher or a student
  • navigation and browsing history when using our website and services, in order to improve our services or the way our website is displayed.

More detailed information is collected for the admissions application only during the enrolment period.

 

III. Special Categories of Personal Data

Special categories of personal data include personal information pertaining to medical or health conditions, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union memberships and any information defining sexual orientation of an individual.

The School will never request, seek or receive information pertaining to special categories of personal data from you.

 

IV. How the School collects member information

The School gathers necessary information primarily from interested parents during the School’s enrolment period and to provide them access to services, resources and events that the School provides.

The School collects information directly in the following ways:

  • When users contact the School for information
  • Queries about the School’s activities
  • Event registration
  • Student admissions applications and renewals
  • Employment requests.

Information is also gathered when users interested in the School visit our website at https://www.gcsc.ac.cy. Using analytical tools we collect general information about visitors, which might include which pages you visit most often and which services, events or information are most interesting to you. We may also track which pages you visit when you click on links in e mails sent by us. We also use “cookies” to help our website run effectively. There are more details below in the section “Cookies”.

We use this information to personalize the way our website is presented when you visit, to make improvements in its operation, and to ensure we provide the best service and experience for our members and visitors to our website. Wherever possible we use anonymous information which does not identify individual visitors to our website.

 

V. How the School uses this information

We will use your information for the purposes listed below either on the basis of:

  • performance of your contract with us for the provisions of our services and products to you;
  • your consent (where we have requested it in advance and you agreed explicitly); or
  • our legitimate interests (see details below).

We may use your personal information for the certain purposes, including but not limited:

  • to process new admission applications and renewals, donations or payments for the School events;
  • to administer and provide you with the services you requested and to share your information with our external service providers when this is mandatory so as to provide you with our services (on the basis of performing our contract with you);
  • to keep in contact with you about our news, events, new website features or services or new books and products that we believe may interest you (on the basis of your consent where it has explicitly granted);
  • to share your information with our partners and associated companies, to enable them to contact you with information about things that may interest you;
  • to provide you with a high level of service and support (on the basis of our contract with you) and deal with enquiries or complaints about the website and the provided services (on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing the correct services to our website users);
  • to carry out aggregated and anonymised research about general engagement with our website, to develop and improve our services, to adopt a more user-friendly approach and to upgrade our IT systems (on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing the right kinds of services to our website users);
  • to protect, investigate, and deter against fraudulent, or illegal activity, to comply with our policies and procedures and enforce our legal rights (on the basis of our legitimate interests to operate a safe and lawful business or where we have a legal obligation to do so);
  • to analyse your personal information and create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may make use of additional information about you when it is available from external sources to help us do this effectively (on the basis of your legitimate interest in providing the right kinds of services to our website users).

 

VI. What does the term “legitimate interests” mean?

The School will only use your personal information to fulfil its mission to provide users with the information and services the School offers under the GDPR’s “legitimate interest” lawful basis for using personal data.

When you first sign on the School’s website, we will also ask for your consent to collect and use specific personal data in order to fulfil our mission.

Where we refer to using your information on the basis of our “legitimate interests”, we mean our legitimate business interests in conducting and managing our business and our relationship with you, including the legitimate interest we have in:

  • personalising, enhancing, modifying or otherwise improving the services and/or communications that we provide to you;
  • detecting and preventing fraud and operating a safe and lawful business;
  • improving security and optimisation of our network, sites and services.

When we use your information for our legitimate interests, we make sure that we take into account any potential impact that such use may have on you. Our legitimate interests don’t automatically override yours and we won’t use your information if we believe your interests should override ours, unless we have other grounds to do so (such as your consent or a legal obligation). If you have any concerns about our processing of data, please refer to details of “XI. Your Rights” below.

 

VII. The School communication

The School will only communicate with users who have consented.

Parents and users can request that the School cease communications by sending an e mail to [email protected].

 

IIX. Sharing Member Information

User data will primarily be used by the School staff and only in the context of fulfilling the School’s mission, enrolment or an activity, event, or fundraising effort.

The School will never sell or share your personal information with marketing organisations. Nor will the School share data with any other organisation unless the School has a legal obligation to do so.

 

IX. Keeping Member information safe

The School has undertaken physical, technical and organisational procedures and policies to protect the personal information that the School collects, such as:

  • physical security of our facilities;
  • physical and digital security of our equipment and devices by using appropriate password protection, encryption etc.;
  • data protection policy and data protection training to our employees;
  • limited access to your personal information to the School’s staff that need to use it in the course of their work.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information using the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information sent to us this way, we cannot guarantee the security of data while it is being transmitted to us.

We do not collect or hold any credit or debit card information when you make payment to us. All financial transactions passed to eCOMM, our payment gateway, where they are processed securely according to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards. The only information we receive is a confirmation that the transaction has been successfully processed.

 

X. Data retention

The School will only keep user data as long as is reasonable and necessary for the School’s activities and mission or until you withdraw your consent (when the School holds your personal data on the legal basis of your consent) or for as long as we reasonably require to retain the information for the the School’s lawful purposes, such for the purpose of exercising legal rights or due to a legal obligation or where the School is permitted to do so for purposes of academic or research purposes. The School operates a data retention policy and looks to find ways to reduce the amount of information it holds about you and the length of time it needs to keep it.

 

XI. Rights

Informing you about your rights under GDPR and the relevant legislation in force, and facilitating you in understanding and exercising your rights is of great importance to the School. In this section, you can find information about the rights you have and the way you can exercise any of them with the School:

  • receive a copy of the personal information the School has retained (right to access);
  • object to the School’s “legitimate interest” use of that data (right to objection), in certain circumstances;
  • ask for a rectification, correction and/or update of your personal information (right to rectification);
  • request the School to transfer your personal information to another service provider in an accessible format, when the School holds information about you by automated means (for example, not on paper) on the legal basis of the fulfilling its mission or on the basis of your consent (right of portability);
  • ask for limitation and restriction of the processing of your personal information (right to restriction);
  • request at any time the deletion of your personal data, unless the School has a legal obligation to maintain it or a legal dispute is pending (the right to deletion or to be forgotten);
  • ask the School not to process your personal data for marketing purposes wither by following the instruction in each marketing e mail or by contacting the School directly (right to objection to direct marketing);
  • withdraw your consent for the use of your data by the School (right to withdraw your consent)
  • lodge a complaint about the School with the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection (right to complain to an Authority).

To exercise these rights, send a written request to [email protected].

Kindly note that the School may need to retain certain information for its own record-keeping and academic purposes or when it is obliged to do so by law. The School may also need to send you service-related communications relating to your website user account, event when you have requested not to receive marketing communications.

 

XII. Data breach management

In the event of a suspected breach relating to personal data and depending on the extent and seriousness of the breach, the School will undertake immediately certain actions, including:

  • restricting the extent of the breach;
  • undertaking the right measures for the recovery of all data;
  • notifying the competent Authorities about the breach;
  • evaluating the risk caused by the breach;
  • evaluating the way the School responded to the breach so as to improve.

The School will accordingly request guidance and advice for the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection on how to manage data breaches, as well as if and when it is important to inform the personal data subject.

 

XIII. Accessibility & accuracy of your information

The School understands and respects your need to your personal information accurate and accessible. To that end, the School has implemented technological and managements processes and policies to maintain and secure the accuracy of all personal data it keeps.

Within the scope of exercising your rights above, the School will provide you with access to the information it holds about you, as well as the right to rectify or supplement such information. To ensure your personal data’s safety and security, the School will take all reasonable measures to verify your identity, such as require the obligatory use of a combination of a username and a password, any Two Factor Authentication tools, if applicable, as well as any other technical means that may be available and appropriate.

 

XIV. Cookies

A “cookie” is a small text file which is downloaded when you visit a website onto your device (such as computer, mobile phone or tablet). It is stored in the web browser application which you have used to access this website. The website and browser, using this cookie for identification, can then work together to provide you a better, personalized experience and gather information about how you use the website.

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you visit our website and also allows us to improve the user experience.

We use cookies for the following purposes:

  • “Strictly necessary” cookies are essential for you to move around our website and to use its essential features, such as accessing your member account.
  • “Performance cookies” collect anonymous information about how you use our site, such as which pages are visited most.
  • “Functionality cookies” collect anonymous information that remember choices you make to improve your own experience, such as your text size or location. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog.
  • “Analytics cookies” are used to track the use and performance of our website and services.

Our website may contain links to other sites. While we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites. Please be aware that advertisers or websites that have links on our website may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those websites or advertisers.

 

XV. No Cookies, Please

You can opt out of all our cookies, except the “strictly necessary” ones. This is controlled by you using the settings in your web browser application. To control and delete cookies, please use the preference settings for your own particular device, operating system and browser application. We use Google Analytics to measure traffic on our website. Google has their own Privacy Policy which you can review here. If you’d like to opt out of tracking by Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page.

However, be warned that if you choose to refuse all cookies, our website may not function for you as well as we would like it to.

If you have any questions about how we use cookies, please contact the Data Protection Officer as noted above.

 

XVI. Changes to this Privacy Notice

The School may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. The School will post any changes to the website, so we encourage you to visit and review this section often.

In certain cases, the School may notify you of any material changes to this Privacy Policy by e mail.

 

This Privacy Policy was updated in November 2023.