Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

("Vital Educators", "we", "us", "our") operates the website at vitaleducators.com, an online marketplace that introduces students and parents to private tutors in the United Kingdom.

We are the data controller for the personal information described in this policy.

If you have any question about this policy or how we handle your information, contact us at support@vitaleducators.com. We aim to respond within 5 working days.

2. The short version

• We are an introduction service. We connect students and parents with tutors. We do not employ tutors and we do not deliver the tuition ourselves.
• We collect what we need to make an introduction work, take payment, and keep people safe.
• We monitor messages sent through our platform for safeguarding reasons. Please read Section 5.
• We do not sell your personal information.
• We use advertising and analytics cookies only if you accept them.
• If you are under 13, you need a parent or guardian to register for you.
• You can ask us for a copy of your data, or ask us to delete it, at any time.

This summary is not a substitute for the full policy below.

3. Who this policy covers

This policy applies to four groups. The information we hold differs for each.

• Students — people looking for a tutor, including under-18s
• Parents and guardians — adults registering or paying on behalf of a student
• Tutors — people offering tuition through the platform
• Visitors — anyone browsing vitaleducators.com without an account

4. What we collect and where it comes from

4.1 Students and parents

You give us:

• Name, email address, and (optionally) telephone number
• Postcode or town, so we can find tutors near you
• The subject, level and requirements you are looking for
• Messages you send to tutors through the platform
• Payment details, which go directly to our payment provider — we never see or store your full card number
• Anything you write in a review or send to our support team

We collect automatically:

• Search terms you enter (subject, level, postcode)
• Tutor profiles you view and how you move through the site
• IP address, browser, device type, approximate location from IP
• Cookie data — only where you have accepted cookies (Section 6)

4.2 Tutors

Everything above, plus:

• Qualifications, subjects, levels taught, experience, availability and rates
• Profile photograph and biography
• Identity and right-to-work information
• DBS certificate information, where we ask for it
• References
• Bank or payment details for any sums we pay you
• Records of your interactions with students on the platform

We may verify what you tell us against public records and third-party checking services.

4.3 Special category and criminal offence data

DBS certificate information is criminal offence data. We process it only where we have a lawful basis to do so, for the purpose of safeguarding children and vulnerable people, and we retain it for no longer than Section 9 states.

We do not ask for health, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or political opinion data. Please do not send it to us.

5. Children and young people

Our platform is used by people under 18. This section explains what that means. Please read it even if you skip the rest.

5.1 Age 13 is the line

Under UK data protection law, a child aged 13 or over can consent to an online service using their own personal information. If you are under 13, a parent or guardian must register and consent on your behalf, and we take reasonable steps to check that this has happened.

If we discover that a child under 13 has registered without a parent or guardian, we will delete the account and the information held about it.

5.2 We write for the reader we have

Where our service is used by young people, we aim to explain what we do in language they can follow. If anything here is unclear, ask us and we will explain it plainly.

5.3 We monitor messages, and you should know that

We monitor and sample messages sent between students and tutors through our platform. We do this to protect young people — specifically to detect attempts to move a conversation off the platform, to identify inappropriate contact, and to act on safeguarding concerns.

This means a member of our team may read messages you send. We consider this necessary and proportionate to keep children safe, and we rely on our legitimate interests, and on our obligations around safeguarding, to do it.

Where we identify a safeguarding concern, we may share information with the police, local authority safeguarding teams, or other appropriate bodies. We will do this without your consent where a child may be at risk, and we may not be able to tell you that we have done so.

5.4 We do not profile or target children with advertising

We do not use automated profiling to make decisions about young people, and we do not run behavioural advertising aimed at users we know to be children.

5.5 Parents

If you are a parent or guardian and want to know what we hold about your child, or want it deleted, contact at support@vitaleducators.com. We may ask you to verify your identity and your relationship to the child first.

6. Cookies and tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies. Some are strictly necessary to make the site work — these are always on and do not require your consent.

Everything else — analytics and advertising — loads only after you accept it through our cookie banner. You can change your choice at any time using the "Manage cookie preferences" control.

Microsoft Clarity records how people interact with pages, including mouse movement and scrolling, to help us find problems. The Meta Pixel tells us whether someone who clicked one of our adverts went on to use the service.

If you decline analytics and advertising cookies, the site works normally.

7. Who we share your information with

We do not sell personal information. We share it only with organisations that help us run the service, and only for that purpose.

Verify this table before publishing. An inaccurate processor list is worse than a short one.

We also share information where we are legally required to — with law enforcement, safeguarding authorities, regulators, HMRC, our accountants and our legal advisers.

If our business is sold or transferred, information may pass to the buyer, who would be bound by this policy.

8. International transfers

Some of our providers are outside the UK, including in the United States. Where information leaves the UK we rely on the UK government's adequacy regulations, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, and we satisfy ourselves that the information is adequately protected.

9. How long we keep it

Where we no longer need information, we delete it or anonymise it so it can no longer identify you.

10. Our legal bases

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether our interests are overridden by your rights. You can ask us for that assessment.

11. Your rights

You have the right to:

• Be told what we do with your information — this policy
• Get a copy of the information we hold about you
• Correct anything inaccurate
• Have it deleted, where we have no continuing reason to hold it
• Restrict what we do with it while a dispute is resolved
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including direct marketing — if you object to direct marketing we will always stop
• Take it elsewhere in a portable format
• Withdraw consent at any time, where consent is our basis

To exercise any of these, email at support@vitaleducators.com. We will respond within one month. There is no charge unless a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

We may ask you to verify your identity before we act — this protects you.

12. Security

We protect your information with encryption in transit, access controls limiting who on our team can see what, and secure hosting. Payment card details are handled entirely by our payment provider and never reach our systems.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights, we will notify the ICO within 72 hours and tell you directly where the risk is high.

13. Changes to this policy

We update this policy from time to time. The "last updated" date at the top shows when. Where a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell you directly.

14. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first at support@vitaleducators.com — we would rather fix it.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office:

Complaining to us first does not affect your right to go to the ICO.