Privacy policy
Who we are
This work is being carried out by the Department for Education (DfE) Data Digital & Technology directorate. For data protection legislation, the DfE is the data controller for the personal data processed as part of the Early years child development training course.
How we will use your information
This service is an online training course for early years practitioners. The personal data will be provided directly by you and will be used to:
- produce personalised certificates
- track your learning to allow you to continue where you left off
- ensure your login is secure
- monitor participation rates across our users
We also process your data to develop and improve our service, for example, through your feedback.
We may also use your personal data to send you an invite to take part in user research. We will only do this if you opt in to be contacted to take part in research.
We may also use your personal data to send you email updates about the service, for example when new modules are added. We will only do this if you opt in to receive these notifications.
The nature of your personal data we will be using
The categories of your personal data that we will be using are:
- your full name
- your email address
- your setting or organisation type
- your role, if you provided it during registration
- your local authority, if you provided it during registration
Why our use of your personal data is lawful
For our use of your personal data to be lawful, we need to meet one (or more) conditions in the data protection legislation. For this project, the relevant condition is:
“Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR, to perform a public task as part of our function as a department (sections 39, 40 and 43 of the Childcare Act 2006, together with Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, which is made in reliance on section 44 of the Childcare Act 2006)”
For the purpose of further research, another relevant condition is:
“Condition 6.1(a): the individual(s) consented to me processing their personal data”
Who we will make your personal data available to
We sometimes need to make your personal data available to other organisations. These might include contracted partners (who we have employed to process your personal data on our behalf) and/or other organisations or departments (with whom we need to share your personal data for specific purposes).
Where we need to share your personal data with others, we ensure that we share this data in a way that complies with data protection legislation.
How long we will keep your personal data
The DfE will keep your personal data as part of the Early Years child development training course for as long as you are an active registered user.
If your account is inactive for more than 7 years, we will delete your personal data and any learning history associated with your account.
Where we have obtained your personal data directly from you on the feedback and/or register your interest form, the DfE will keep your personal data for no more than 2 years. This is so that we can refer to the findings from our research as we develop the training platform.
Your data protection rights
Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you are entitled to ask if we hold information relating to you and ask for a copy, by making a ‘subject access request’.
Contact us for further information including how to request your data. Please refer to the “Early Years child development training course”.
Further information about your data protection rights appears on the Information Commissioner’s website.
Withdrawal of consent and the right to lodge a complaint
You can contact us at any time to withdraw your consent for us to process your personal data.
If you withdraw your consent, we will delete your Early years child development training account and your training history. If you return to Early years child development training in the future, you will have to create a new account and restart the training.
After deleting your personal data, we will still keep anonymised data about your account to help inform improvements to the service.
If you opted in to user research when you registered your interest or on the Early years child development training course, you can also contact us to withdraw your consent at any time. This will not affect your Early years child development training account, which you will still be able to access as normal.
To contact us, email child-development.training@education.gov.uk.
If you have any concerns about the way we have handled your personal data, you have the right to raise them with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Last updated
We may need to update this privacy notice periodically, so we recommend that you revisit this information from time to time. This version was last updated on 27 May 2022.
Contact us
Please contact us if you have any questions about how your personal information will be used. Please refer to the “Early years child development training course”.