Privacy Statement

Careers Scotland is part of Skills Development Scotland (SDS).

SDS is committed to protecting the privacy of our customers and website visitors. Our relationship with you is valuable and we understand the importance you place on the privacy and security of information, which personally identifies you. In that respect, and whether you are a first time visitor to our website or a regular user, we take your privacy seriously. Please read the following in order to learn more about our privacy policy and our information gathering and dissemination practices.

1. Why we require your information

SDS provides a variety of on-line offerings, including information about all Careers Scotland services and publicity. SDS collects personally identifiable information when you register with us and use our services. We ask you for personal data only when it is needed to provide goods or services you have enquired about or asked us to provide or to respond to your request for information. You do not need to provide us with personal data simply to browse our site.

SDS uses this information in order to customise the content you see on our pages, to fulfil your request for certain products and services, to communicate with you generally and to contact you about special offers, promotions or new events and services.

2. What information do we collect?

We will collect information from you in the following circumstances:

Registration

Some areas of our website require you to be registered with us prior to access being made available to a particular area of the website or to obtain certain services. Our registration process involves providing us with your name, address, telephone and fax number and e-mail address and we may also request some optional information. We use this information to provide you with the service you have requested or to answer your queries. If you do not log on to the site for a period of 180 days, your registration details and any other details stored at that time e.g. CV details, will be deleted. You will be reminded of this at 90 and 150 days of inactivity. If you have logged on to the site always ensure you log off correctly once you have used it.

Promotions and Events

We can keep you informed of developments including new (or existing) activities, guidance services and facilities, promotions, conferences, seminars and training offerings. This service is only available to registered users and only if you request it .

Online Advice

Where we offer on-line advice and guidance, in particular cases, we will require to obtain additional information about you such as contact details in order to process your enquiry and to follow up your queries. Other information can be provided by you in order to help you get the best possible advice for your circumstances but this is entirely voluntarily provided.

Subscriptions and Newsletters

Users of our website will be able to register for a number of e-mail newsletters and news updates. This service is entirely optional and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Contest and Surveys

From time to time we may offer users the option of participating in contests or surveys. Participation is entirely optional. Any information you provide during the course of a contest or survey is used by us in order to conduct research, improve our facilities and services or award prizes. Additional terms and conditions may apply to contests, which will be notified to prospective applicants.

Optional Information

We may request optional information from you on our registration forms. We request this optional information so that we may serve you better (e.g. to provide more tailored products and services to you) and so that we may understand our users better (e.g. through internal research, data analysis, market research and product research). If we request this additional information from you we will identify it as optional.

Discussion Forums

Users of our website are offered the opportunity of participating in discussion forums and posting news, comments and other content to message boards. These services enable users to interact easily with our staff and other visitors to the site about Careers Scotland and its services. The discussion forums and message boards are not private forms of communication and therefore any information which is posted on them can be accessed by the general public.

Cookies

There are various technologies, including one called "cookies" which can be used to provide you with tailored information from a website. A cookie is a small data file that certain websites write to your hard drive when you visit them. The only personal information a cookie can obtain is information a user supplies him or herself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Cookies, however, enhance our website performance in a number of ways including providing a secure way for us to verify your identity during your visit to our website and personalising your experience on our site making it more convenient for you. The Careers Scotland website uses cookies so that we can serve you better. For example, we set cookies to maintain the open menus as you move between pages. These are used only when you are on the website. You can refuse cookies by turning them off on your web browser and you do not need to have cookies turned on to successfully use our service. Most browsers are defaulted to accept and maintain cookies and you can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether to accept it or not.

Website Usage Data

With or without cookies, our website keeps track of usage data, such as the source address that the page request is coming from (i.e. your IP address, domain name), date and time of the page request, the referring website (if any) and other parameters in the URL (e.g. search criteria). We use this data to better understand website usage so we know what areas of our website users prefer. This information is stored in log files and is used for aggregated and statistical reporting but is not attributed to you as an individual.

Security

We recognise industry standards and employ security safeguards to protect information from unauthorised access and misuse. We use the most accurate and current information you provide in order to process your request.

User Submissions

Please do not post confidential or proprietary information to our website. Any material, information or any other communication you transmit or post to our website (other than your personal information) will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary unless we are advised to the contrary and we will have no liability for it. SDS will be free to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate and otherwise use the communications in all data, images, sound, text and other things embodied therein for any and all commercial or non-commercial purposes. Users of our website are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from this site any unlawful, threatening, libellous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate any law.

3. What information do we share?

There are times when we are required to share the information we learn from you with other parties. We do not sell or rent this information to others but will send personally identifiable information about you to other companies or people in the following situations:-

Agents

SDS will share your information with professional advisors, strategic partners, survey and research organisations, The Scottish Government, local enterprise companies and other individuals and organisations whom we employ to perform functions in certain situations on our behalf. Examples of these functions include delivering packages, sending postal mail, faxes and e-mail, providing marketing assistance in data analysis, handling credit card transactions, fulfilling orders, providing services, (including but not limited to careers and employment services) and following up on enquiries (including by phone, e-mail, post or fax). These agents have access to the personal information required in order to perform their functions but may not use it for any other purpose. This may also in certain circumstances involve the transfer of your information abroad.

Compliance with law

We will release personal information where we are required to by law or by the regulations and other rules (including auditing requirements) to which we are subject. We may also exchange information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Consent

Other than in the above situations you will receive notice from us when your personal information might go to third parties and you will have the opportunity to decide not to share that information.

4. Changes to Privacy Policy

We may edit this policy from time to time. If we make any substantial changes we will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our web pages.

5. Questions or suggestions

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this policy, have any concerns about the practices of our websites or believe we are not properly adhering to our privacy policy please contact Web Services Manager, Careers Scotland, 150 Broomielaw, Atlantic Quay, Glasgow, G2 8LU. Should you at any time wish us to remove your personal details from our database please contact our Website Administrator - webadmingen@careers-scotland.org.uk.

6. Your Rights

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information held by us in our records in return for which we may charge a small fee. You also have the right to require us to correct any inaccuracies in your information.

7. Client Confidentiality

A policy on how Careers Scotland staff should deal with confidential information about clients is now in place. The policy covers all service users – individuals, employers, and training providers and other agencies and organisations.