URC Learning Hub

URC Learning Hub Data Protection Privacy Policy

The United Reformed Church (URC) Learning Hub (“the Hub”) is operated by the Education and Learning Team within the URC, whose registered address is Church House, 86 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9RT.  The URC respects your privacy and is committed to protecting and preserving the privacy of our visitors when visiting this website or communicating electronically with us. 

This policy sets out how we collect and process your personal data, through your use of this website, including any data you may provide, when you sign up for any of our Programmes. 

We confirm that we will keep your information secure and that we will comply fully with all applicable UK Data Protection legislation. It is important that you read this privacy policy carefully, to understand what happens to your personal data that is in our possession, for the duration of your programme. By visiting www.urclearninghub.org.uk you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

1. Data Controller

The URC is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “URC”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

2. Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on 23 November 2021. You will be notified of any future changes via email and on this website.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

3. Third party links

Our website may include, from time to time, links to third-party websites. Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

4. The data we collect about you

We may collect, use, and store different kinds of personal data about individuals who visit and use our Hub. We have outlined the data we may collect from you, below.

• Information you supply to us: You may directly provide us with information about you, by filling in a referral form on the main URC website at www.urc.org.uk  This may include information you provide when you request enrolment in one of the programmes housed in the Hub. The information you give us may include, but is not limited to:
  • your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, marital status, your date of birth and gender).
• Information the Hub automatically collects about you: With regards to each of your visits to the Hub, we may automatically collect the following personal information about you:
  • Technical information, which includes your internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, your browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Usage data, which includes information about how you use the Hub, (i.e., what pages you visit, how long you are on the website, how you got there, page response times, length of visits, what you clicked on, documents downloaded and download errors and details of any groups to which registration in the Hub may allocate you.

5. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter or have entered with you.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests,
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

We have set out below descriptions of all the ways we plan to use your personal data:

1. To provide you with information and/or services that you request from us
2. To keep you up to date on matters essential to the programme you are following. These might include, but are not limited to face-to-face session times, technical issues (e.g., maintenance and offline times and enrolment options).
3. To administer our website including troubleshooting and for statistical purposes.
4. To improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer/device.
5. For security and debugging, as part of our efforts to keep our website safe and secure.
6. If specified as a requirement for completion of a particular programme (e.g., safeguarding for office holders), details of completion of specific sections/activities available on the Hub.

Except as in six above, this information is collected anonymously and is not linked to information that identifies you as an individual.

6. Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website, while at the same time, it enables us to make improvements to the website. If you disable or refuse our website cookies, please note that some parts of the website may become inaccessible or not function properly.  For more information about the cookies, we use and the purposes for which we use them, please see our Cookies Policy below. 

7. Disclosure of your personal data

We will not share your personal information with others, including non-affiliated companies without your knowledge. All reasonable efforts will be taken, to ensure your personal data is not disclosed to regional/national institutions and authorities, unless required by law.

Because of our legitimate interest, we may share your personal data with the parties set out below:

• Internal third party: Information you provide us will be stored on our secure URC server, via our IT department. The information will be restricted on a need-to-know basis only. 

• External third party: E-Learn Design (Glasgow): our trusted third-party hosting provider, who facilitate the running and management of the Hub website. E-Learn Design meet high data protection and security standards and are bound by contract, to keep any information they process on our behalf, confidential.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

8. Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those individuals and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

9. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy which you can request by contacting us.

10. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data.
• Request correction of your personal data.
• Request erasure of your personal data.
• Object to processing of your personal data.
• Request restriction of processing your personal data.
• Request transfer of your personal data.
• Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made several requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

11. Contact us

If you have any questions, complaints, or concerns about how we process your data or the contents of this privacy policy, please do not hesitate to contact us in writing.

Our postal address:

Church House, 
86 Tavistock Place,
London WC1H 9RT

Our email address:  urc@urc.org.uk

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), who is the UK's independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals. You can call their helpline on 0303 123 1113 or visit their website https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

Cookies Policy

Our Cookies policy explains what cookies are, how we use cookies, how any third parties we partner with may use cookies on this site, and your choices regarding cookies.

Please read this policy in conjunction with our privacy policy, which sets out additional details on how we use personally identifiable information and your various rights.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of text sent by your web browser by a website you visit. A cookie file is stored in your web browser and allows the site or a third-party to recognise you and make your next visit easier and the site more useful to you. Essentially, cookies are a user’s identification card for the Moodle servers. Web beacons are small graphic files linked to our servers that allow us to track your use of our site and related functionalities. Cookies and web beacons allow us to serve you better and more efficiently, and to personalise your experience on our site. Cookies can be "persistent" or "session" cookies.

How Moodle (in this case in the URC Learning Hub) uses cookies:

When you use and access the site, we may place a few cookie files in your web browser. Moodle uses or may use cookies and/or web beacons to help us determine and identify repeat visitors, the type of content and sites to which a user of our site links, the length of time each user spends on any particular area of our site, and the specific functionalities that users choose to use. To the extent that cookie data constitutes personally identifiable information, we process such data based on your consent.

We use both session and persistent cookies on the site, and we use the following different types of cookies to run the site:

• Essential cookies: Necessary for the operation of the site. We may use essential cookies to authenticate users, prevent fraudulent use of user accounts, or offer site features.
• Analytical/performance cookies: Allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and see how visitors move around the site when using it. This helps us improve the way the site works.
• Functionality cookies: Used to recognise you when you return to the site. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name, and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
• Targeting cookies: Record your visit to the site, the pages you have visited, and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make the site more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
• Partner cookies: Provide marketing conversion metrics to our partners so they can optimize their paid marketing efforts.

What are your choices regarding cookies?

If you'd like to delete cookies or instruct your web browser to delete or refuse cookies, please visit the help pages of your web browser. Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or refuse to accept them, you might not be able to use some or all the features we offer. You may not be able to log in, store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.

Moodle Cookies table

The table below lists some of the internal cookies we use. As the names, numbers, and purposes of these cookies may change over time, this page may be updated to reflect those changes.

Cookie Name	Purpose	Expiration	More Information
MoodleSession	You must allow this cookie into your browser to provide continuity and maintain your login from page to page.	When you log out or close the browser this cookie is destroyed (in your browser and on the server).
MOODLEID	It remembers your username within the browser. This means when you return to this site the username field on the login page will be already filled out for you.		It is safe to refuse this cookie - you will just have to retype your username every time you log in.

To find out more about cookies and how to manage or delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org.uk.