Using your data when you use the Customer Help Portal

The Customer Help Portal is where you can contact us with any enquiries or complaints you may have that you are unable to solve using other provided guidance such as help articles and other user's community posts.

See our privacy notices for:

Purpose and lawful basis for processing

The lawful basis we rely on for this processing of your personal data is public task, under article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR. This allows us to process personal data when this is necessary to do our work as a government department. The legislation to support this is Section 8 of the Data Protection Act 2018 - exercising official authority as part of public body tasks and Department for Education functions.

Data we collect

Department for Education (DfE) and the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) collect and use the following personal information directly from you:

  • Your first name and last name
  • The email address you provide
  • The organisation details the account is linked to
  • Your Internet Protocol (IP address), and details of which version of web browser you use
  • Information on how you use our site, based on cookies

What we do with your data

We use your personal information:

  • to make sure your account works properly
  • in a customer relationship management tool to help us manage our obligations to you

Who we share your personal information with

We may share your information where the law allows it to enable the running of The Customer Help Portal, or where we have a legal obligation to do so.

How long we keep your data

We only keep your personal information for as long as we need it. We decide how long to keep your information based on what we need and what the law says. All data is securely and permanently deleted at the end of the retention period. We call this our retention and disposal schedule.

We keep your personal information for 7 years.

Your rights

We are relying on public task for this processing, this means you have:

  • the right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data - this is called 'right to
  • the right to ask us for copies of your personal information we have about you - this is called 'right of access'. This is also known as a subject access request (SAR), data subject access request (DSAR) or right of access request (RAR)
  • the right to ask us to change any information you think is not accurate or complete - this is called 'right to rectification'
  • the right to ask us to stop using your information - this is called 'right to restriction of processing'
  • the 'right to object to processing' of your information, in certain circumstances
  • the right to complain to the Information Commissioner if you feel we have not used your information in the right way

There are legitimate reasons why we may refuse your information rights request, which depend on why we are processing it.

For more information, see the ICO's guide to individual rights.

See Requesting your personal information for more on what you're entitled to ask us, or any of our executive agencies, and your rights about how your information is collected and used.

Data processors

A data processor is an organisation that processes your information on DfE's behalf. We do not use any data processors for this processing activity.

Third party integration

We use third party software to help us improve your experience on the Customer Help Portal, Google Analytics.

We may collect your:

  • device's IP address
  • device screen resolution
  • device type (unique device identifiers), operating system, and browser type
  • geographic location (city and country only)
  • preferred page display language
  • referring domain
  • pages visited
  • preferred language used to display the webpage
  • date and time when website pages were accessed
  • mouse events (movements, location and clicks)
  • key presses

We will store this information in a way that it cannot be used to identify you.

Changes to this notice

We may occasionally change this privacy notice. When we make changes to this notice, the 'last updated' date at the bottom of this page will also change. Any changes to this privacy notice will apply to you and your data immediately. If these changes affect how your personal data is processed, if you need to contact us regarding any of the above, please do so via programme.improvement@education.gov.uk

Last updated: 1 July 2024