List of active policies

Name Type User consent
Privacy policy Privacy policy All users
Terms and conditions Site policy All users
Use of cookies Other policy All users

Summary

The privacy policy describes how information about you will be collected and stored, whether it will be shared and your rights related to your information.

Full policy

SQA Academy privacy statement

This privacy statement explains how SQA collects and uses information about you in the context of SQA Academy.

What information do we collect about you?

The information that we collect about you relates to your use of SQA Academy. It includes the categories listed below:

  • personal details such as name and address email
  • details about your use of SQA Academy such as the training you've undertaken and your results as well as logon dates and times

How do we collect your information and what do we use it for?

We collect your information:

  • from HR and Appointee Management if you are an SQA employee or appointee
  • from thirds parties to whom SQA provides commercial services
  • directly from you when you sign up for an SQA Academy account
  • when you login
  • when you undertake courses
  • if you contact us.

We use the information we collect about you:

  • to set up and manage your SQA Academy account
  • to provide a platform for required and optional learning services
  • communicating with you about learning opportunities
  • monitoring participation and completion rates
  • providing management information/reports to other SQA business areas
  • to develop and improve our service, for example through your feedback

Who will we share your information with?

We share your personal information where necessary with:

  • E-learn design who provide us with learning products and services
  • other service providers and third parties who we use to provide our services including training providers
  • other third parties to whom SQA provides commercial services – information will only be shared about those involved in the provision of these services and where this is relevant to their role

Legal basis for processing your information

We use and share your information:

  • to perform our functions and duties under in the Education (Scotland) Act 1996
  • to carry out tasks in the public interest
  • to perform or in connection with a contract

How long will we keep your information?

We only keep your information for as long as you have an active SQA Academy account. Details about how long we keep your information are available in SQA’s record of processing.

What are my rights?

Access to your information: You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. More information about this is available on SQA’s website.

Correcting or updating your information: We always want to make sure that your information is accurate, complete and up to date. You can update your information at any time using your Account function on SQA Academy. Or you can contact academy@sqa.org.uk to do so.

Deletion of your information: You have the right to ask us to delete information about you if you think that we have kept it longer than needed.

Transfer of your information: You have the right to ask us to transfer your information from one IT environment to another. This is very similar to the right of access but provides your information in a re-usable electronic format.

Objecting to how we use your information: You have the right to ask us to stop using your information to:

  • send you marketing materials
  • carry out some of our public roles and functions
  • carry out research

If you object to us sending you marketing material, we will stop this as soon as you contact us. Where we use your information to carry out some of our public roles and functions, or for research, we may not stop using it if we have a justified reason to continue doing so, even if you object.

Restricting how we may use your information: You have the right to ask us to restrict how we use your personal information in certain circumstances. For example, where you have asked us to check the accuracy of your information or where we no longer need your information, but you want us to keep it to help you make a legal claim.

Please contact the Data Protection Team at data.protection@sqa.org.uk to request any of the above.

International

SQA Academy does not provide services outside of the UK. However, it can be accessed by individuals who are based outside of the UK.

Where this is the case, the information provided will only be used to provide SQA Academy services which may involve the transfer of information outside of the UK back to the originating country. Appropriate measures, such as secure/encrypted transfer mechanisms will be put in place to safeguard your information.

Changes to our privacy statement

We keep this privacy statement under regular review and may update it from time to time. The most up to date version will always be available on the HR Hub and updates communicated on the Intranet and in Business Inform.

This privacy statement was last updated on 08 January 2021.

Contact information and further advice

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the information we hold about you, or the way we use it, please contact us:

  • by e-mail – data.protection@sqa.org.uk
  • Data Protection Officer: Kirsty Hurt, Data Protection and Records Manager, kirsty.hurt@sqa.org.uk, 0345 213 5229

Complaints

If you wish to make a complaint about the way in which we use your information, please contact the Data Protection Officer using the details provided above.

We will try to resolve any complaint but if you are not satisfied with our response you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office:

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

Telephone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745

Website: https://ico.org.uk/concerns


Summary

These are the terms and conditions which you must agree to in order to use the site.

Full policy

General

This website and all its content (‘the website’) belong exclusively to the Scottish Qualifications Authority, (‘SQA’). The following are the terms and conditions of use for the website. Together with our privacy and cookies statements, they cover our relationship with you in relation to the website.

By accessing the website, you undertake to comply with these terms and conditions. If you disagree with any part of these terms and conditions, you should stop using the website. 

Accuracy and disclaimer

SQA does its best to ensure that all information provided through the website is accurate, however we provide no guarantees that the information will be:

  • Current
  • Secure
  • Accurate
  • Complete
  • Free from bugs and viruses

Although the website contains links to other websites, SQA does not endorse these sites and is not responsible for their content, or how they protect your personal information.

SQA may update, modify, restrict access to or close the website, or any part of it, at any time.

Liability

SQA provides all information on the website free of charge and is not liable for any loss or damage that may come from using this website or the information published on it. This includes any direct, indirect or consequential losses or damages.

Copyright notice

The content of these pages are copyright © Scottish Qualifications Authority.

There are two types of copyright licenses being used on this website.  The contents of this website is the property of SQA and copyright protected unless it specifically states that they are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

A example of an attribution for materials from courses mentioned above would be:

Creative Commons License

Marking for SQA learning materials by SQA Academy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at SQA Academy Terms and Conditions page.

Where content is not made available under this type of license you may read, print and download the content of the website for private use.

You may not reproduce or use the content for commercial purposes without our permission. 

If you would like to reproduce or use any of the content for commercial purpose, you will need to seek advance written permission and clearance from SQA. To do so please email permissions@sqa.org.uk with the details of your request. SQA reserves the right to withhold permission.


Summary

Cookies are small files placed on your computer by websites that you visit. We use them for purposes like:

  • remember settings you've saved
  • measure website usage
  • necessary: required for the operation of the website
  • functional: personalises the content and remembers your preferences
  • analytical performance: counts the number of visitors and how visitors move around the website (does not collect personal information)
  • social sharing: makes it easy for you to share content to social media channels

Full policy

Our use of cookies

Cookies are small files placed on your computer by websites that you visit. We do not collect personal information with cookies. We use them to:

  • remember settings you've saved
  • measure website usage
  • necessary: required for the operation of the website
  • functional: personalises the content and remembers your preferences
  • analytical performance: counts the number of visitors and how visitors move around the website (does not collect personal information)
  • social sharing: makes it easy for you to share content to social media channels
Types of cookies:

Third party websites: please be aware that if you access third party websites including social media platforms from this website you will be subject to their terms and conditions.

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 of the features we offer. You may not be able to log in, store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.

SQA Academy Cookies
Microsoft Active Directory Federated Services

MSISSamlRequest

MSISAuth

SamSession

MSISAuthenticated

MSISLoopDetectionCookie
Active Directory Federation Services provides a means for managing online identities and providing single sign-on capabilities for users who access more than one service at a time. 

Relevant for SQA secure users only.

It authenticates users with their usernames and passwords. Users can access some applications (i.e. Office 365, etc.) without being prompted to provide login credentials again

Piwik (Matomo) Analytics

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_pk_ses.1.e7c8

_pk_ref.1.e7c8

These web analytics cookies, provided by Matamo, are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site.  The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.
Moodle

MoodleSession

MoodleSessionTest

The session cookie, set by Moodle, is used to maintain a user’s login while they navigate through series of pages on the site.

The session cookie, set by Moodle, is used to check if the ‘MoodleSession’ cookie is being created.

Others

easyid-identity and easyid-identity-secure

CSP2 (Content Security Policy)

These persistent cookies are used to remember the username, so that when a visitor revisits the site, their username will be populated in the username field of the login page.

Microsoft Edge security cookie. Loaded when any Windows machine accesses Academy site regardless of browser used. Allows web developers to lock down the resources that can be used by their web application, helping prevent cross-site scripting attacks that remain a common vulnerability on the web.