We respect your right to privacy.
This Privacy Policy applies to your use of www.futureLearn.com (the “Website”). It tells you (the customer) what to expect when we collect personally identifiable information about you, and what your rights are concerning the collection of your information. It is provided in accordance with our obligations under the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
We will not collect any personally identifiable information about you unless it is in response to you using our Website or actively registering for one of our online products. The security of your personally identifiable information is extremely important to us.
This Privacy Policy is regularly reviewed to make sure that we continue to serve your privacy interests and we reserve the right to update it as we deem necessary.
Please review this Privacy Policy carefully. It should be read alongside the FutureLearn Terms and the Cookies Policy. Unless otherwise defined, terms used have the same meaning as in the Terms.
If you have any questions, comments, or complaints about this Privacy Policy please contact us at the details set out below.
2.1. Registering with FutureLearn.
When you register on the FutureLearn Website, when you create and update your Learner profile, and when you purchase Online Courses on the Website, we and third parties working with us will collect the following information:
2.2. Learning journey
When you are participating on an Online Course, we and third parties may collect and store the following additional information:
3.1. In providing our online services and products to you, we and third parties we work with will collect, store, and use your personal information for the following purposes:
4.1. For the above purposes, we may share your information with the following third parties. Please note that any third parties’ use of your personal data will be governed by their own privacy policies and give rise to separate obligations under applicable data protection laws. We suggest that you carefully review any third party privacy policies that may apply to you.
4.2.Third parties that may receive your information include:
5.1. Some universities and other institutions that provide Online Courses on our Website are required to conduct research on their online educational programmes in order to qualify for research funds. Accordingly, your activities on an Online Course – including comments you contribute while on a Course – are shared with our Course providers to enable them to fulfil their research requirements. Any data we share for this purpose will be in line with our Research Ethics guidelines – please read the guidelines carefully to understand how our Course providers may use your data in their research and the restrictions FutureLearn imposes on their use of your data.
5.2. In addition, after you have registered with FutureLearn and together with our academic partners we may use your data to determine the level of interest in enrolling in further courses offered by the academic partner.
5.3. Our Course providers may also embed links within the Online Course material or within emails related to the Course, and such links if selected will take you off the FutureLearn Website and bring you to a third party website, for which the Course provider is solely responsible. If you are asked to submit personal information on any third party websites, the collection of that information will not be covered by this Privacy Policy and you must familiarise yourself with the terms and conditions and privacy policy of the third party website before submitting your information. At no time will you be required to submit any information on third party websites as a condition for continuing the Online Course on the FutureLearn Website, and your decision not to provide information on third party websites will never affect your progress or any marks on the Course.
We have several legal bases for collecting and using the personal information described above. They are:
7.1. All information is stored on our secure servers. When you register, we will ask you to choose a password which enables you to access the Online Courses and Content. You are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share this password with anyone.
7.2. In addition, we (or third parties acting on our behalf) may also store or process information that we collect about you in countries outside the United Kingdom or outside the European Economic Area, which may have different standards of data protection than in the UK. Specifically, servers used by our Website are located in the Republic of Ireland and we work with Course providers and third party service providers around the world. We have put in place technical and organisational security measures to prevent the loss or unauthorised access of your personal information. However, whilst we have used our best efforts to ensure the security of your data, it is your responsibility to make an informed decision to avail yourself of our services and products or if your concerns about the handling of data require you to refrain from using our Website.
8.1. We retain personal information we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements).
8.2. When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
9.1. You have the following data protection rights: