Privacy Policy
This policy explains how Colab Ventures Ltd (“Co Lab Education”) collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Contents
1. Who We Are
This Privacy Policy applies to Colab Ventures Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 14562831, trading as Co Lab Education.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under registration number ZC018369.
Our registered address is available on request. For all data protection enquiries, please contact us at info@colabeducation.com.
Co Lab Education operates the website at colabeducation.com and all associated subdomains. When this policy refers to “Co Lab”, “we”, “us”, or “our”, it means Colab Ventures Ltd.
2. What Personal Data We Collect
We collect the following categories of personal data:
- Identity Data: Your full name, as provided when you submit an enquiry or create a profile.
- Contact Data: Your email address and, where provided, your WhatsApp number or phone number.
- Search & Preference Data: Your course search queries, saved courses, preferred study locations, and budget preferences.
- Application Data: Information you share when seeking application support, including nationality, academic qualifications, and English language scores.
- Communication Data: The content of messages you send to Lumi (our AI advisor) and our human advisors.
- Technical Data: Your IP address, browser type, device type, and session data collected through our platform.
- Usage Data: Information about how you use our website, which pages you visit, and which courses you view.
We do not collect special category data (such as health data, religious beliefs, or biometric data) unless you voluntarily provide it in a message, in which case it is processed only to fulfil your support request.
3. Why We Collect Your Data
We process your personal data for the following purposes:
To calculate and present your estimated education grant on course pages and confirm your grant after enrolment.
To review your application materials, provide feedback, and communicate with university admissions teams on your behalf.
To process your queries through Lumi and provide accurate, personalised responses to your questions.
To respond to your enquiries, send application updates, and notify you of grant payment status.
Where you have opted in, to send news about new university partners, grants, and resources relevant to your course search.
To comply with our obligations under UK law, including data protection law, financial regulations, and consumer protection legislation.
4. How Long We Keep Your Data
We retain your personal data for as long as is necessary for the purposes described in this policy:
After the applicable retention period, your data is securely deleted or anonymised. You may request earlier deletion at any time (see Section 5).
5. Your Rights Under UK GDPR
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:
Right of Access
Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you (Subject Access Request).
Right to Erasure
Request that we delete your personal data, subject to legal retention obligations.
Right to Portability
Receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format to transfer to another service.
Right to Correction
Request that we correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold.
Right to Object
Object to processing based on legitimate interest, including direct marketing.
Right to Restrict Processing
Request that we limit how we use your data while a dispute or query is resolved.
To exercise any of these rights, email us at info@colabeducation.com with the subject line “Data Rights Request”. We will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO at ico.org.uk.
6. How to Request Data Deletion
You can request deletion of your personal data at any time by emailing info@colabeducation.com with the subject line “Delete My Data”. Please include the name and email address associated with your account.
We will:
- Acknowledge your request within 3 working days.
- Complete the deletion or provide a reason for any data we are legally required to retain within 30 days.
- Confirm deletion by email once complete.
Please note: data that we are legally required to retain (such as financial records related to grant payments) cannot be deleted until the applicable retention period expires. We will inform you of any such exceptions.
8. Third Parties and Data Sharing
We share your data with the following third parties only to the extent necessary to provide our services:
When you authorise Co Lab to submit an application on your behalf, we share relevant application data (name, qualifications, contact details) with the relevant university.
Lumi, our AI advisor, is powered by third-party AI infrastructure operating under GDPR-compliant data processing agreements. Message content is processed only to generate responses to your queries and is not used to train AI models.
Our platform is hosted on secure cloud infrastructure in the UK and EU. Hosting providers operate under GDPR-compliant data processing agreements.
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to any third party for marketing or commercial purposes. Ever.
Questions or Concerns?
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact our Data Protection contact at:
info@colabeducation.comYou also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). See also our Terms of Service.