Privacy Notice

Your right to privacy is important to us. The following terms are provided to explain how we collect and use information about you so that you can make an informed choice about using the Website and our services.

What is Personal Information?

Personal Information is information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier, or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.We do not consider personal information to include information that has been anonymized or aggregated so that it can no longer be used to identify a specific natural person, whether in combination with other information or otherwise.

We collect personal information from you when you use our Services and make an enquiry.

We collect personal information from you and any devices you use when you: Enrol on our course, register for an account with us, provide us information on a web form, update or add information to your account.

Some of this personal information, such as a way to identify you, is necessary to fulfil the requirements of the licencing authority we operate under. The provision of all other personal information is voluntary, but may be necessary in order for us to deliver a decent service to you.

We may also collect personal information from other sources, as described below.

Personal information you give us when you use our Services or register for an account with us

  • Identifying information such as your name, addresses, telephone numbers or email addresses when you register for an account with us.
  • Financial information (such as credit card or bank account numbers) in connection with a transaction.
  • Postage, billing and other information used to purchase or send an item, as well as, where postal services are provided through one of our programs, information required to clear customs (such as Tax ID or other identification numbers) and relevant postage information (such as tracking numbers and tracking updates).

We also create personal information, in the form of assessments made in the process of any training courses you may purchase from us.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to provide and improve our Services, provide you with a personalised experience on our sites, contact you about your account and our Services, provide you customer service, and to detect, prevent, mitigate and investigate fraudulent or illegal activities.We use the personal information we collect from you for a range of different business purposes and according to different legal bases of processing.

Lawful basis

We use your personal information to fulfil a contract with you and provide you with our Services, to comply with our legal obligation, protect your vital interest, or as may be required for the public good. This includes:

  • To provide payment processing and account management, operate, measure and improve our Services, keep our Services safe, secure and operational, and customise site content that includes items and services that you may like in response to actions that you take.
  • To contact you regarding your account, to troubleshoot problems with your account, to resolve a dispute, to collect fees or monies owed or as otherwise necessary to provide you customer service.
  • To comply with the requirements of regulatory Authorities such as the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and it’s designated responsible Authorities.
    • When contacting you for such purposes as outlined above, we may contact you via email, telephone, SMS/text messages and postal mail.
  • To provide other services requested by you as described when we collect the information.
  • To prevent, detect, mitigate, and investigate fraud, security breaches or other potentially prohibited or illegal activities.
  • To enforce our terms and conditions, this privacy notice, or other policies.
  • To comply with the licensing regulations of the Authority under which we operate.

We use your personal information to pursue our legitimate interests where your rights and freedoms do not outweigh these interests. We have implemented controls to balance our interests with your rights. This includes to:

  • Contact you via email or postal mail in order to offer you coupons, discounts and special promotions, poll your opinions through surveys or questionnaires and inform you about our Services, as authorized by applicable law.
  • Contact you about public policy matters, or other current events, related to your ability to use our Services.
  • Deliver targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers based on your communication preferences.
  • Measure the performance of our email marketing campaigns (e.g. by analyzing open and click rates).

Cookies

When you visit our Website, we may track information to administer the site and analyse its usage for the purpose of serving our visitors and customers better.

This website uses Google Ads’ free conversion tracking features on certain pages. If you contact us online, the destination page will have code on it that will help us understand the path you took to arrive on that page.

DoubleClick: We use Google Ads remarketing codes to log when users view specific pages or take specific actions on a website. This allows us to provide targeted advertising in the future. If you do not wish to receive this type of advertising from us in the future you can opt-out using https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/ 

You can read more about how Google use your data on Google’s Privacy & Terms site

You may manage the use of cookies by clicking here.

Log files

Continuous logs are kept of requests received by the Website’s web servers as it is accessed. These logs are used to analyse usage of the Website.Each log entry includes the internet protocol (IP) address of the client used (typically, though not necessarily, the IP address of the personal computer (PC) used), the type of client used (typically, though not necessarily, the type and version of web browser used), the URL of the page (or object) requested, the URL of the previous page (or object) requested (known as the ‘referrer’ and could relate to this Website or another), and the reference number stored in a cookie created by the Website (if one exists). BGS logs additionally contain the username used to access restricted areas of the Website.BGS is only able to link log entries to individuals where it holds personal data that can be associated with log entries using IP address, username, or reference number from cookies. This is only possible in relation to Users connected directly to the BGS network (ie using an BGS IP address) and Users using an BGS account (ie using an BGS username). We will only use this information to identify you where we are required to by law or where we suspect that there has been a breach of the law or of these Terms of use.

Consent

You have the option to consent to the use of cookies and use of the data they provide, or otherwise, when you visit the website.

With your consent, we may use your personal information to:

  • Provide you with marketing via telephone calls, email, or text.
  • Provide you with marketing from third parties.

You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

You have choices about how we use your personal information to communicate with you, to send you marketing information, how we provide you with customized and relevant advertising, and whether you want to stay signed into your account.

Communication preferences

You can control your communication preferences by contacting us through the website or at the address below and letting us know your preference. If you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can unsubscribe via the link in an email you received, indicate your communication preferences using the method described within the direct communication from us or contact us as described in the Contact Us section. Keep in mind, we do not sell, rent, or otherwise disclose your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without your consent.

Your rights

We respect your right to access, correct, request deletion or request restriction of our usage of your personal information as required by applicable law. We also take steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is accurate and up to date.

  • We will provide you with details of your personal information held by us in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format on request
  • If your personal information is incorrect or incomplete, you have the right to ask us to update it
  • You have the right to object to our processing of your personal information
  • You can also ask us to delete or restrict how we use your personal information, but this right is determined by applicable law and may impact your access to some of our Services

Access, correction, and deletion of your personal information

Upon your request, we will close your account and remove your personal information from view as soon as reasonably possible, based on your account activity and in accordance with applicable national laws.We may disclose your personal information to the following parties for the following purposes:

  • Western Logistics Ltd, to provide shipping
  • UK CAA, to comply with licensing regulations and auditing

Data Controller

The data controller is Bristol Groundschool Group, that includes Bristol Groundschool Ltd and Bristol Groundschool International Ltd of Windmill Road, Kenn, Clevedon BS21 6UJ, United Kingdom and Bristol Groundschool Europe Ltd of 26 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin 2, DUBLIN, D02 X361, Republic of Ireland.

Data Processors

A Data processor in relation to personal data, means any person/organisation (other than an employee of the data controller) who processes the data on behalf of the data controller. In our case these Service Providers and financial institutions partners as follows:

  • Third party service providers who help us to provide our Services, payment processing services, to assist us with the prevention, detection, mitigation, and investigation of potentially illegal acts, fraud and/or security breaches, bill collection such as Helestal Ltd, Worldpay, Xero Ltd, the UK CAA and Austro Control GmbH
  • Third party shipping providers (e.g., Western Logistics, Royal mail, DHL, UPS, etc.) with whom we share delivery address, contact information and shipment tracking information for the purposes of facilitating the delivery of items purchased and other delivery related communications.

Security

Security is a priority for us when it comes to your personal data. We’re committed to protecting your personal data and have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to make sure that happens.These include;

  • Conducting Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA)
  • Appointing a Data Protection Officer (DPO) responsible for;
    • Ensuring GDPR Compliance
    • Data protection Awareness and training
    • Monitoring Processes

To reduce the risks of loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure and alteration. Some of the safeguards we use are firewalls and data encryption, physical access controls to our data centres, and information access authorisation controls.

Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide the Services you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our policies.How long we retain personal information can vary significantly based on context of the Services we provide and on our legal obligations. The following factors typically influence retention periods:

  • How long is the personal information needed to provide our Services? This includes such things as maintaining and improving the performance of our products, keeping our systems secure, and maintaining appropriate business and financial records. This is the general rule that establishes the baseline for most of our data retention periods.
  • Is the personal information sensitive? If so, a shortened retention time is generally appropriate.
  • Have you provided consent for a longer retention period? If so, we will retain data in accordance with your consent.
  • Are we subject to a legal, contractual, or similar obligation to retain your personal information? Examples can include mandatory data retention laws in the applicable jurisdiction, government orders to preserve data relevant to an investigation, or personal information retained for the purposes of litigation.

After it is no longer necessary for us to retain your personal information, we will dispose of it in a secure manner according to our data retention and deletion policies.