Privacy and cookies

Published 31/08/2022.  Last updated 06/08/2026

Privacy

General information

This privacy notice tells you what you can expect us to do with your personal information when you contact us, including by phone, email, and post and when you visit our website or subscribe to our newsletter. 

When we process your personal information, we promise to: 

  • make sure you know why we need it 
  • only ask for what we need, and not collect too much or irrelevant information 
  • make sure it is accurate and up to date 
  • let you know if we share it with other organisations, unless we have a legal obligation to pass it on without telling you 
  • protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn't
  • make sure we don't keep it longer than is necessary 

The first part of the notice is information we need to tell everybody. 

Controller's contact details

Education Scotland falls under the legal entity of the Scottish Ministers in relation to processing of your personal information. We are the controller for the personal information we process, unless otherwise stated. 

Our enquiries team will pass on your enquiry to the appropriate area.

Telephone

Our inbox is monitored Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm.

Phone: 0131 244 4330

Email

enquiries@educationscotland.gov.scot 

Post

Denholm House
Almondvale Business Park
Almondvale Way
Livingston
EH54 6GA

Data Protection Officer's contact details

You can contact our Data Protection Officer at SAR@educationscotland.gov.scot or via our postal address above. Please mark the envelope ‘Data Protection Officer’.

Your data protection rights

Data protection law gives you certain rights that you may exercise in respect of your own personal information.

  • you have a right to request a copy of personal information we hold about you, by making a subject access request. This right always applies. There are some exemptions, which means you may not always receive all the information we process.
  • you have the right to ask us to update our records if you believe that the data we hold is inaccurate or incomplete. This right always applies
  • you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information. There may however be some circumstances in which we cannot comply. Such as, if we have a legal duty to keep data, or we process it in a particular way
  • you have the right to ask that we stop or restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances
  • you have the right to object to processing if we are able to process your information because the process forms part of our public tasks
  • you have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us from one organisation to another, or give it to you. This right only applies to information you have given us and we are processing information based on your consent or under, or in talks about entering into a contract and the processing is automated

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. We have one calendar month to respond to you.

Please contact us at SAR@educationscotland.gov.scot if you wish to make a request, or contact our enquiries team on 0131 244 4330.

Your right to complain

If you have concerns about our compliance with data protection laws, please contact our Data Protection Officer in the first instance at SAR@educationscotland.gov.scot. They will look into the concerns you have raised and provides the response.

If you are not satisfied with the DPO’s response you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO are the supervisory authority responsible for data protection in the UK. You can contact the Information Commissioner at:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 08456 30 60 60

How we get information

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

  • you have a question or a concern about our services
  • you have made an information request to us
  • you have accessed one of our services for example, you have applied to our professional learning programmes, you have requested improvement or support services or you have signed up for an event run by us
  • you have responded to a survey
  • you subscribe to our newsletter
  • you visit and access resources on our website

Lawful basis for processing

We process your personal information because:

  • processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law
  • you have given us clear consent for us to process your personal data for a specific purpose
  • processing is necessary for a contract we have with you, or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract
  • processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that applies to us
  • processing is necessary to protect your (or some else’s) life

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review to make sure it is up to date and accurate. 

Regularly reviewing this page ensures that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we share it with other parties.

How we use and share your personal information

You have a question or a concern about our services or you have made an information request to us

Whether by phone, email, or letter—your enquiry or request for information will usually be handled first by our enquiries team. They will pass it to the appropriate team within the Education Scotland to ensure your question or concern is addressed. We will use the personal information you provide solely for the purpose of handling, investigating, and resolving your enquiry. This includes using your contact details to respond to you directly. If your correspondence includes information about a third party, we may use the contact details you’ve provided for them to help investigate the issue. Please note that any personal information you provide will become part of the official record and may be shared with other relevant bodies where required by law—for example, in response to a formal Inquiry. All data sharing is carried out in accordance with data protection legislation. 

We need enough information from you to answer your enquiry. If you call the enquiries team, we may make an audio recording of the call. If you contact us via email or post, we’ll need a return address for response. 

Your enquiry may need specialist advice, and will be passed to the relevant team for consideration and input. 

In some circumstances we will share your information with other organisations, such as local authorities or education providers or the Scottish Government and other public bodies, for example, where you raise a safeguarding or child protection concern with us. When we do that, we’ll satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information and document our decision making. 

Accessing our services – professional learning programmes and events

Requests for access to our professional learning programmes and events will be processed by our professional learning and leadership and events staff. We will use the personal information you provide for the purpose of handling your request, managing your engagement on the professional learning programme, contacting you with regards to the programme delivery and analysing trends with regards to engagement on the programme. This includes use of your contact details to respond to you directly.  

Where professional learning programmes employ an application process, data gathered will include contact details, current employment details and skills and professional learning history. This data will be handled by professional learning and leadership staff for the purposes of evaluating your suitability for a programme. Details of your application may be shared with third parties such as University partners and the local authority. When we do that we’ll satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information and document our decision making. 

Accessibility requirements may be gathered to allow us to ensure that full participation in events of professional learning programmes can be delivered. This data will only be used for this purpose and will not be stored longer than necessary to allow your participation.  

We gather equality monitoring data as part of engagement with professional learning and leadership programmes. This data allows us to analyse whether our services are having the desired reach nationally and to support programme development. This data is anonymised and is processed with your full consent. The data is in no way linked to your application or to personal details which we process for the purposes of your participation in a programme. 

Accessing our services - Glow

Information on how we handle data when you access Glow services is outlined in the Glow privacy notice. 

Accessing our services – improvement and support services

Typically, requests for access to our improvement and support services will be processed by our enquiries staff. Your enquiry will be passed to the relevant specialist team for consideration and input. 

We will use the personal information you provide for the purpose of handling your request, making arrangements for support and managing the delivery of the support. This includes use of your contact details to respond to you directly.  

Details of your request may be shared with the local authority or education provider where it is necessary to consider support of a more universal model. When we do that we’ll satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information and document our decision making. 

Surveys and questionnaires

Whether through MS Forms or an alternative survey provider, your response to a survey or questionnaire will usually be handled by specialist data handling staff. Surveys and questionnaires will primarily be processed anonymously however sometimes we will ask for personal information for the purposes of seeking more in depth feedback from you, keeping you apprised of further opportunities or directing you to support services. This will be clearly outlined in the privacy notice included with the survey or questionnaire. This includes using your contact details to respond to you directly. Contact details will only be used for the purposes above and only where you consent to us using your information in this way.  

Responses to surveys are analysed and anonymous data may be published. We would only include personal data where permission has been given to do so.  

A privacy notice will be provided at the start of every survey or questionnaire outlining the purposes of the survey and how your data will be handled. You will be asked to acknowledge that you understand how your data will be processed and where appropriate, whether you consent. 

Subscribing to our newsletter

We collect your email address and subscription preferences when you sign up to our e-newsletter. Your details will be used to send you updated on Education Scotland resources, information about upcoming events or sharing information on national guidance. We track how our emails are used - for example whether you open them and which links you click on. You have the right to withdraw your consent, or to object to the processing of your personal data for this purpose at any time. You can unsubscribe from receiving the newsletter at any time by selecting the 'unsubscribe' link that appears in every email. Once you have unsubscribed, your details will be deleted immediately from the system.  

We use Mailchimp to process our email newsletter subscriptions. Mailchimp’s privacy notice outlines how they collect, use, share and process personal information.

Visiting our website

We collect information about you when you visit our website, and when you interact with our pages. 

We use this information to: 

  • improve the site by monitoring how you use it 
  • respond to any feedback you send us, if you've asked us to 
  • send out email alerts to those who have subscribed to our e-newsletter 
  • publish your comment on a blog or discussion site 

We use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect information on how you use the site, using cookies and page tagging techniques. 

The information we - and Google - collect doesn't identify anyone, and is kept for a maximum of 38 months. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through the site, we will be upfront about it. 

Cookies

Read more about how we use cookies, and how to change your cookies preferences.

Links to other websites

When we link to other websites, we encourage you to read the privacy policy statements contained on those sites.

Data protection policy document

See Information assurance and data protection: data protection policy.

^ Back to top

Privacy and cookies

Published 31/08/2022.  Last updated 06/08/2026

Privacy

General information

This privacy notice tells you what you can expect us to do with your personal information when you contact us, including by phone, email, and post and when you visit our website or subscribe to our newsletter. 

When we process your personal information, we promise to: 

  • make sure you know why we need it 
  • only ask for what we need, and not collect too much or irrelevant information 
  • make sure it is accurate and up to date 
  • let you know if we share it with other organisations, unless we have a legal obligation to pass it on without telling you 
  • protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn't
  • make sure we don't keep it longer than is necessary 

The first part of the notice is information we need to tell everybody. 

Controller's contact details

Education Scotland falls under the legal entity of the Scottish Ministers in relation to processing of your personal information. We are the controller for the personal information we process, unless otherwise stated. 

Our enquiries team will pass on your enquiry to the appropriate area.

Telephone

Our inbox is monitored Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm.

Phone: 0131 244 4330

Email

enquiries@educationscotland.gov.scot 

Post

Denholm House
Almondvale Business Park
Almondvale Way
Livingston
EH54 6GA

Data Protection Officer's contact details

You can contact our Data Protection Officer at SAR@educationscotland.gov.scot or via our postal address above. Please mark the envelope ‘Data Protection Officer’.

Your data protection rights

Data protection law gives you certain rights that you may exercise in respect of your own personal information.

  • you have a right to request a copy of personal information we hold about you, by making a subject access request. This right always applies. There are some exemptions, which means you may not always receive all the information we process.
  • you have the right to ask us to update our records if you believe that the data we hold is inaccurate or incomplete. This right always applies
  • you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information. There may however be some circumstances in which we cannot comply. Such as, if we have a legal duty to keep data, or we process it in a particular way
  • you have the right to ask that we stop or restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances
  • you have the right to object to processing if we are able to process your information because the process forms part of our public tasks
  • you have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us from one organisation to another, or give it to you. This right only applies to information you have given us and we are processing information based on your consent or under, or in talks about entering into a contract and the processing is automated

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. We have one calendar month to respond to you.

Please contact us at SAR@educationscotland.gov.scot if you wish to make a request, or contact our enquiries team on 0131 244 4330.

Your right to complain

If you have concerns about our compliance with data protection laws, please contact our Data Protection Officer in the first instance at SAR@educationscotland.gov.scot. They will look into the concerns you have raised and provides the response.

If you are not satisfied with the DPO’s response you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO are the supervisory authority responsible for data protection in the UK. You can contact the Information Commissioner at:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 08456 30 60 60

How we get information

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

  • you have a question or a concern about our services
  • you have made an information request to us
  • you have accessed one of our services for example, you have applied to our professional learning programmes, you have requested improvement or support services or you have signed up for an event run by us
  • you have responded to a survey
  • you subscribe to our newsletter
  • you visit and access resources on our website

Lawful basis for processing

We process your personal information because:

  • processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law
  • you have given us clear consent for us to process your personal data for a specific purpose
  • processing is necessary for a contract we have with you, or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract
  • processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that applies to us
  • processing is necessary to protect your (or some else’s) life

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review to make sure it is up to date and accurate. 

Regularly reviewing this page ensures that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we share it with other parties.

How we use and share your personal information

You have a question or a concern about our services or you have made an information request to us

Whether by phone, email, or letter—your enquiry or request for information will usually be handled first by our enquiries team. They will pass it to the appropriate team within the Education Scotland to ensure your question or concern is addressed. We will use the personal information you provide solely for the purpose of handling, investigating, and resolving your enquiry. This includes using your contact details to respond to you directly. If your correspondence includes information about a third party, we may use the contact details you’ve provided for them to help investigate the issue. Please note that any personal information you provide will become part of the official record and may be shared with other relevant bodies where required by law—for example, in response to a formal Inquiry. All data sharing is carried out in accordance with data protection legislation. 

We need enough information from you to answer your enquiry. If you call the enquiries team, we may make an audio recording of the call. If you contact us via email or post, we’ll need a return address for response. 

Your enquiry may need specialist advice, and will be passed to the relevant team for consideration and input. 

In some circumstances we will share your information with other organisations, such as local authorities or education providers or the Scottish Government and other public bodies, for example, where you raise a safeguarding or child protection concern with us. When we do that, we’ll satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information and document our decision making. 

Accessing our services – professional learning programmes and events

Requests for access to our professional learning programmes and events will be processed by our professional learning and leadership and events staff. We will use the personal information you provide for the purpose of handling your request, managing your engagement on the professional learning programme, contacting you with regards to the programme delivery and analysing trends with regards to engagement on the programme. This includes use of your contact details to respond to you directly.  

Where professional learning programmes employ an application process, data gathered will include contact details, current employment details and skills and professional learning history. This data will be handled by professional learning and leadership staff for the purposes of evaluating your suitability for a programme. Details of your application may be shared with third parties such as University partners and the local authority. When we do that we’ll satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information and document our decision making. 

Accessibility requirements may be gathered to allow us to ensure that full participation in events of professional learning programmes can be delivered. This data will only be used for this purpose and will not be stored longer than necessary to allow your participation.  

We gather equality monitoring data as part of engagement with professional learning and leadership programmes. This data allows us to analyse whether our services are having the desired reach nationally and to support programme development. This data is anonymised and is processed with your full consent. The data is in no way linked to your application or to personal details which we process for the purposes of your participation in a programme. 

Accessing our services - Glow

Information on how we handle data when you access Glow services is outlined in the Glow privacy notice. 

Accessing our services – improvement and support services

Typically, requests for access to our improvement and support services will be processed by our enquiries staff. Your enquiry will be passed to the relevant specialist team for consideration and input. 

We will use the personal information you provide for the purpose of handling your request, making arrangements for support and managing the delivery of the support. This includes use of your contact details to respond to you directly.  

Details of your request may be shared with the local authority or education provider where it is necessary to consider support of a more universal model. When we do that we’ll satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information and document our decision making. 

Surveys and questionnaires

Whether through MS Forms or an alternative survey provider, your response to a survey or questionnaire will usually be handled by specialist data handling staff. Surveys and questionnaires will primarily be processed anonymously however sometimes we will ask for personal information for the purposes of seeking more in depth feedback from you, keeping you apprised of further opportunities or directing you to support services. This will be clearly outlined in the privacy notice included with the survey or questionnaire. This includes using your contact details to respond to you directly. Contact details will only be used for the purposes above and only where you consent to us using your information in this way.  

Responses to surveys are analysed and anonymous data may be published. We would only include personal data where permission has been given to do so.  

A privacy notice will be provided at the start of every survey or questionnaire outlining the purposes of the survey and how your data will be handled. You will be asked to acknowledge that you understand how your data will be processed and where appropriate, whether you consent. 

Subscribing to our newsletter

We collect your email address and subscription preferences when you sign up to our e-newsletter. Your details will be used to send you updated on Education Scotland resources, information about upcoming events or sharing information on national guidance. We track how our emails are used - for example whether you open them and which links you click on. You have the right to withdraw your consent, or to object to the processing of your personal data for this purpose at any time. You can unsubscribe from receiving the newsletter at any time by selecting the 'unsubscribe' link that appears in every email. Once you have unsubscribed, your details will be deleted immediately from the system.  

We use Mailchimp to process our email newsletter subscriptions. Mailchimp’s privacy notice outlines how they collect, use, share and process personal information.

Visiting our website

We collect information about you when you visit our website, and when you interact with our pages. 

We use this information to: 

  • improve the site by monitoring how you use it 
  • respond to any feedback you send us, if you've asked us to 
  • send out email alerts to those who have subscribed to our e-newsletter 
  • publish your comment on a blog or discussion site 

We use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect information on how you use the site, using cookies and page tagging techniques. 

The information we - and Google - collect doesn't identify anyone, and is kept for a maximum of 38 months. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through the site, we will be upfront about it. 

Cookies

Read more about how we use cookies, and how to change your cookies preferences.

Links to other websites

When we link to other websites, we encourage you to read the privacy policy statements contained on those sites.

Data protection policy document

See Information assurance and data protection: data protection policy.

^ Back to top