This Policy aims to help you understand and feel more confident about how long we may retain personal information that is collected when you visit our website, www.gwc.org.uk.

It should be viewed in conjunction with, our Privacy Policy – Visiting our Website, and our Cookie Policy. Together they describe the manner in which we handle your personal information when you visit our website.

This Policy is broadly divided into two sections:

• What information do we collect about you when you visit our website?
• Why do we use cookies?

Please note that this policy purely covers the technical interactions that happen to make your experience of the website as good as it can be. If you use the website as a parent, former pupil, member of staff or pupil, or you contact us, apply for a place at the School, ask to be kept in touch with the School, or interaction with us via the website in any other way, you should refer to our Privacy Policy and Data Storage and Retention Policy.

Who we are?

George Watson’s College (“The School”) is managed by the Merchant Company Education Board, a registered Scottish Charity (SC009747). 

The School’s address is George Watson’s College, Colinton Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5EG.

What information do we collect about you when you visit our website?

The types of information we may collect include:

• Your IP address
• Last login date and time
• Username

Why do we use cookies?

These technologies on our website collect information that helps us improve your online experience. You can find more information about the types of cookies that we use and their purpose by visiting our Cookie Policy. Some cookies are essential to the use of parts of our website, such as keeping you logged in, or enabling you to top up lunch accounts.

How long is cookie information stored?

Different cookies may be stored for different periods of time. In many cases these cookies are updated automatically each time you visit our website or may expire and be deleted by your computer automatically. It is important to understand that when a cookie is placed on your computer it will reside on your hard drive until it expires and is deleted or it may reside on your hard drive until you manually delete it – this entirely depends on your individual browser settings and we do not have control over this.

The duration of each cookie that we may place on your computer is as follows:

* Set by our Content Management System but not used by us

Changes to our Website Retention Policy

We may need to change this Retention Policy if it’s necessary for legal reasons or to reflect changes to our website and services or the purposes for which we may wish to collect and process your personal information. In any case, the provisions of this Retention Policy may be changed without prejudice to your rights. When we change our Retention Policy we will make the updated Retention Policy available on our website and we will also update the “Last Updated” date.

Once we change our Retention Policy, we will use our reasonable efforts to inform you. This may include asking you to agree to the updated Retention Policy before we process further information about you or it may require us to suspend access to parts of our website until you agree to the updated Retention Policy – we will only restrict access to parts of our website where we deem it is necessary for us to collect or process personal information about you. If you have an account on our website then we may reset your login and seek new consent if there is a change in the purpose or duration that we retain your personal information.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this Privacy Policy please contact:

The Bursar / Data Protection Officer
George Watson’s College
Colinton Road
Edinburgh
EH10 5EG
or
dataprotection@gwc.org.uk
or
0131 446 6000

Complaints

If you are not satisfied with the way that we have handled any of your requests or questions relating to our use of your personal data then you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk/concerns or phone 0303 123 1113.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is the statutory body responsible for overseeing data protection legislation and law in the United Kingdom.