Privacy Policy

This privacy policy (“policy”) will help you understand how Cotton Tree Academy (“us”, “we”, “our”) uses and protects the data you provide to us when you visit and use the Cottontree.Academy platform (the “Services”).

We reserve the right to change this policy at any given time, of which you will be promptly updated. If you want to make sure that you are up to date with the latest changes, we advise you to frequently visit this page.

By using the Services, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. You shouldn’t use the Services if you don’t agree with this Privacy Policy or any other agreement that governs your use of the Services.

What User Data We Collect

When you visit the website, depending on how you use the Services, we may collect the following data:

  • Account Data – When you create or update your account, we collect and store the data you provide, like your email address, password, phone number, gender, age, date of birth, and account settings.
  • Profile Data – You can also choose to provide profile information like a photo, headline, biography, website link, social media profiles, country or other data. Your Profile Data will be publicly viewable by others.
  • Shared Content – Part of the Services let you interact with other users or share content publicly, including by posting reviews about content, asking or answering questions, sending messages to students or instructors, or posting photos or other work you upload. Such shared content may be publicly viewable by others depending on where it is posted.
  • Educational Content Data – When you access content, we collect certain data including which courses, assignments, and quizzes, you haves started and completed; content purchases and credits; subscription certificates; your exchanges with instructors, teaching assistants, and other students; essays, answers to questions, and other items submitted to satisfy course and related content requirements; scores and results. If you are an instructor, we store your educational content which may contain data about you.
  • Student Payment Data – If you make purchases, we collect certain data about your purchase (such as your name and ZIP/Postal code) as necessary to process your order. You must provide certain payment and billing data directly to our payment service providers, including your name, credit card information, billing address, and ZIP/Postal code. We may also receive limited information, like the fact that you have a new card and the last four digits of that card, from payment service providers to facilitate payments. For security, we do not store sensitive cardholder data, such as full credit card numbers or card authentication data.
  • Instructor Payment Data – If you are an instructor, you can link your PayPal, or other payment account to the Services to receive payments. When you link a payment account, we collect and use certain information, including your payment account email address, account ID, physical address, or other data necessary for us to send payments to your account. In order to comply with applicable laws, we also work with trusted third parties who collect tax information as legally required. The collection, use, and disclosure of your payment, billing, and taxation data is subject to the privacy policy and other terms of your payment account provider.
  • Data About Your Accounts on Other Services – We may obtain certain information through your social media or other online accounts if they are connected to your account with the Service. If you login to the Service via Facebook or another third-party platform or service, we ask for your permission to access certain information about that other account. For example, depending on the platform or service we may collect your name, profile picture, account ID number, login email address, location, etc. Those platforms and services make information available to us through their APIs. The information we receive depends on what information you (via your privacy settings) or the platform or service decide to give us.
  • Communications and Support – If you contact us for support or to report a problem or concern, we collect and store your contact information, messages, and other data about you like your name, email address, messages, location, user account with the Service, refund transaction IDs, and any other data you provide or that we collect through automated means (which we cover below). We use this data to respond to you and research your question or concern, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Why We Collect Your Data

We are collecting your data for several reasons:

  • Provide and administer the Services, including to facilitate participation in educational content, issue completion certificates, display customised content, and facilitate communication with other users;
  • Process your requests and orders for educational content, products, specific services, information, or features;
  • Process payments to instructors and other third parties;
  • Communicate with you about your account by:
    • Responding to your questions and concerns;
    • Sending you administrative messages and information, including messages from instructors, students, and teaching assistants; notifications about changes to our Service; and updates to our agreements;
    • Sending you information, such as by email or text messages, about your progress in courses and related content, rewards programs, new services, new features, promotions, newsletters, and other available instructor-created content (which you can opt out of at any time);
  • Manage your account and account preferences;
  • Customise our website according to your online behaviour and personal preferences;
  • Facilitate the Services’ technical functioning, including troubleshooting and resolving issues, securing the Services, and preventing fraud and abuse;
  • Solicit feedback from users;
  • Market products, services, surveys, and promotions;
  • Improve our Services and develop new products, services, and features;
  • As required or permitted by law; or
  • As we, in our sole discretion, otherwise determine to be necessary to ensure the safety or integrity of our users, employees, third parties, the public, or our Services.

 

Safeguarding and Securing the Data

Cotton Tree Academy is committed to securing your data and keeping it confidential. Cotton Tree Academy has done all in its power to prevent data theft, unauthorised access, and disclosure by implementing the latest technologies and software, which help us safeguard all the information we collect online.

Our Cookie Policy

Once you agree to allow our website to use cookies, you also agree to use the data it collects regarding your online behaviour (analyse web traffic, web pages you spend the most time on, and websites you visit).

The data we collect by using cookies is used to customise our website to your needs. After we use the data for statistical analysis, the data is completely removed from our systems.
Please note that cookies don’t allow us to gain control of your computer in any way. They are strictly used to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not so that we can provide a better experience for you.

If you want to disable cookies, the browser or device you use may allow you to control cookies and other types of local data storage. To learn more about managing cookies, visit https://cookiepedia.co.uk/how-to-manage-cookies. Your wireless device may also allow you to control whether location or other data is collected and shared.

Links to Other Websites

Our website contains links that lead to other websites. If you click on these links Cotton Tree Academy is not held responsible for your data and privacy protection. Visiting those websites is not governed by this privacy policy agreement. Make sure to read the privacy policy documentation of the website you go to from our website.

Restricting the Use of Your Personal Data

You can achieve this by doing the following:

  • To stop receiving promotional communications from us, you can opt out by sending an opt-out request email to opt-out@cottontree.academy.
  • When you fill out the forms on the website, make sure to uncheck the option to receive promotional communications from us.
  • Note that regardless of your email preference settings, we will send you transactional and relationship messages regarding the Services, including administrative confirmations, order confirmations, important updates about the Services, and notices about our policies.

Accessing, Updating, and Deleting Your Personal Data

You can access and update your personal data that the Service collects and maintains as follows:

  • To update data you provide directly, log into your account and update your account at any time.
  • To terminate your account:
    • Send a terminate account request email to terminate-account@cottontree.academy.
    • Please note that after your account is closed, you can no longer access your purchased educational content, products, specific services, information, or features.
    • Please also note that even after your account is terminated, some or all of your data may still be visible to others, including without limitation any data that has been (a) copied, stored, or disseminated by other users (including comments on content); (b) shared or disseminated by you or others (including in your shared content); or (c) posted to a third-party platform. Even after your account is terminated, we retain your data for as long as we have a legitimate purpose to do so (and in accordance with applicable law), including to assist with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. We may retain and disclose such data pursuant to this Privacy Policy after your account has been terminated.
  • To request to access, correct, or delete your personal data, you can submit these requests by emailing privacy@cottontree.academy. Please allow up to 30 days for a response. For your protection, we may require that the request be sent through the email address associated with your account, and we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. Please note that we retain certain data where we have a lawful basis to do so, including for mandatory record-keeping and to complete transactions.