We are The National Extension College. Our address is Woolpack House, 70 High Street, Sawston, Cambridge, CB22 3HJ. You can contact us by post at the above address, by email at info@nec.ac.uk or by telephone on +44 (0)1223 400200. Any enquiries about our use of your personal data should be addressed to the contact details above.

When you enrol with us, we ask you for your name, address, contact telephone number, email address, gender, date of birth and credit card information. For some courses we may also ask for information about your place of work and number of hours that you work. If you have special educational needs, we will collect that information if you choose to tell us about it and give us your consent to do so. We will share this information with your tutor in order to provide the best learning support for your needs.

Our courses use the plagiarism software Ouriginal, which provides an analysis report by text-matching student submissions with sources online, alongside multiple academic databases, licensed content, and previously submitted documents. Their automated individual reports analyse inconsistencies which may indicate plagiarism. Ouriginal has an API (application programming interface) which is integrated into Moodle (learn@nec). Ouriginal collects the following data for each assignment: Student email, name, IP address, assignment submission, single sign on identity and linguistic style as standard. For more information see our Plagiarism Policy on learn@nec.

If you are under the age of 18, we will need the consent of your parent or guardian to hold any information about you. We will ask them to confirm that they are happy for NEC to hold details about you for the purposes of delivering our courses and services to you.

Our plagiarism software collects the same details for under 18s as it does for our adult learners. As part of your enrolment, you and your parent must consent to collation of this data.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16 years of age without such consent, and if we learn that we have inadvertently done so, we will promptly act to resolve the situation.

We will use your information to process your enrolment and payment and to deliver our services to you. We will use your telephone number and email to contact you regarding your enrolment. We require this information in order to process your payment, enrolment and fulfil our contract with you. We will ask you when you enrol whether you would like to receive marketing communications, we will use your email address if you consent to receiving these communications. It is possible to enrol without giving your consent to receive marketing communications.

Our plagiarism software is used to detect instances of plagiarism to help alert tutors of possible student plagiarism and enhance the academic coherence of our students’ work. NEC reserves the right to use industry standard software to ensure student submissions are academically appropriate and protect the academic integrity of NEC in the online learning arena. This software is protected by Ouriginal’s Privacy and Personal Data Protection policy (outside of NEC) and is fully GDPR compliant. 

Your information is stored in our systems which are mostly based with the European Union. We do not retain your credit card information. We use some third-party systems which are based in the USA and are certified to the EU-US Privacy Shield (which ensures that your information is protected to the same standards as if it were in the EU).

We do not use the information you provide to make any automated decisions that might affect you.

We will never share your details with third-party organisations for marketing purposes.

Your information will be shared with your tutor and, if you have requested a paper copy of your course materials, with our print and dispatch company. For some courses we will share your information with the awarding body when we register you with them. If you choose to pay by monthly instalments, your details will be shared with a third party credit organisation for the purpose of arranging a credit search and making an application for credit.

When you submit an assignment on learn@nec, an automated plagiarism check is submitted to our plagiarism software provider Ouriginal. As part of this submission, you automatically share:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your assignment 
• Your IP address
• Single Sign on to learn@nec details

This is for the sole purpose to display that personal data to your tutor and for your tutor to be able to identify You.

Ouriginal do not sell personal data or share it for any other means other than to provide their service to NEC.  

The information you supply is used by the Learning Records Service (LRS). The LRS issues Unique Learner Numbers (ULN) and creates Personal Learning records across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and is operated by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE).For more information about how your information is processed, and to access your Personal Learning Record, please refer to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lrs-privacy-notices

We may disclose personal information to third parties if:

• we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud or potential threats against persons, property or the systems on which we operate the Service
• required or permitted by law to protect the rights, property or personal safety of The National Extension College and our users or is required to comply with applicable laws, including compliance with warrants, court orders or other legal process
• we need to do so in connection with the sale or reorganisation of all or part of our business, as permitted by applicable law.

We do not retain your credit card details. Other details will be kept for six years after you finish your course in accordance with regulations set out by awarding organisations and HMRC. This will also help us to provide course completion certificates and references if you ask for them in the period after you finish your course.

The National Extension College is committed to protecting the security of your information and takes reasonable precautions to protect it.

If the National Extension College learns of a security breach, we may attempt to notify you and provide information on protective steps, if available, through the email address that you have provided to us or by posting a notice on our website. NEC will comply with any statutory breach reporting regulations.

Our plagiarism software supplier is bound by its own Data Protection Policy, along with the GÉANT Data Protection Code of Conduct and GDPR. 

Ouriginal only processes the data we ask them to (see What do we do with your information?)

By law, you can ask us what information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate. If we have asked for your consent to process your personal data, you may withdraw that consent at any time.

If we are processing your personal data for reasons of consent or to fulfil a contract, you can ask us to give you a copy of the information in a machine-readable format so that you can transfer it to another provider.

If we are processing your personal data for reasons of consent or legitimate interest, you can request that your data be erased.

You have the right to ask us to stop using your information for a period of time if you believe we are not doing so lawfully.

Finally, in some circumstances you can ask us not to reach decisions affecting you using automated processing or profiling.

You have the right to obtain from NEC confirmation as to whether personal data concerning you is being processed and, where that is the case, access to the personal data and the following information:

• the purposes of the processing;
• the categories of personal data concerned;
• detail of whom your personal data has been, or will be, disclosed;
• the envisaged period of time for which your personal data will be stored;
• the right to request from NEC rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing of personal data concerning the you or to object to such processing;
• the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Users who wish to (i) access any Personal Information that we hold about you; (ii) request that we correct or delete the information that we hold about you; or (iii) change your preferences for marketing purposes may do so by contacting NEC at dataprotection@nec.ac.uk or write to us at the address above.

Please be advised that objecting to the processing of your personal data may result in NEC being unable to provide a service.

If you have a complaint about our use of your information, you can contact the
Information Commissioner’s Office via their website at www.ico.org.uk/concerns or
write to them at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF