Privacy Policy

Welcome!

Hi there, my name is Inés Ramos Pérez (DBA The Spanish Language & Culture Academy), and I’m the owner of www.yourlifeinspain.com. My principal place of business is located in Austin, TX, USA.

In this Privacy Policy, I explain how I handle your personal information if you are a user or a visitor of The Spanish Language & Culture Academy’s site (www.yourlifeinspain.com), which is referred to later as “the site.”

Please note:

  1. When I say ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘The Spanish Language & Culture Academy’ I’m speaking on behalf of my company, which operates through this site.
  2. If I say ‘policy’ I’m talking about this Privacy Policy. If I say ‘user terms’ I’m talking about the rules for using this site. The rules vary by product or service, and each product makes them separately available and seeks consent to them separately to this policy.
  3. Both “personal information” and “personal data” have the same meaning in the context of this Privacy Policy.

The type of personal information we collect, and how we collect it:

  1. We collect certain personal information about visitors and users of this site.
  2. The most common types of information we collect include things like: names and personal data for an application, feedback and contact forms; email addresses (stored inside the email marketing service MailChimp); IP addresses, survey responses, blog comments, product feedback, and web analytics data.
  3. We collect personal information when you, the user, provide it to us directly by filling out our application forms or surveys, asking us for information through our contact forms, subscribing to our newsletter, opting in to receive free products, signing up for a webinar/workshop, submitting feedback, posting a comment on this site, etc. In all these cases the information is given by you voluntarily, and you are giving express consent for us to access/collect that information.
  4. Other pieces of information are collected automatically as you navigate through the site. Please see “Cookies and Web Analytics” below for more information.
  5. All communications between you and our site are protected by an SSL certificate. You can verify that the page you’re visiting belongs to our site and is secure by checking the URL, looking for the padlock symbol next to it, and verifying that the URL starts with https.
  6. Your payment transactions are made through secure third-party applications (Wave Apps, Gumroad and Paypal) that do NOT share your payment details with us. Wave Apps stores the last 4 digits of your credit/debit card so you can be informed of the card you used during your transaction. All these apps use encoded information when processing your payment, so your payment information is always secure.
  7. Finally, please note that we may also store other information from you when you directly provide it to us in writing (i.e. by email) or via videoconference before or during our work together. This information will not be stored on our website but on our personal computer (used only by us and protected with a password).

How we use personal information:

  1. We will use your personal information:
    1. To deliver content, to fulfill the terms of our contract for tutoring services, to send you prizes and bonuses (e.g. by mailing you a gift), to announce new programs and services, and to contact you.
    2. Where this is necessary for purposes which are in our legitimate interests. These interests include:
      1. operating this site;
      2. providing you with services described on this site;
      3. responding to your inquiries;
      4. notifying you about changes to our site, website disruptions or security updates;
      5. carrying out technical analysis to determine how to improve the site and the services we provide;
      6. monitoring activity on the site, e.g. to identify potentially fraudulent activity and to ensure compliance with the user terms that apply to this site;
      7. managing our relationship with you, e.g. by responding to your comments or queries submitted to us on the site or asking for your feedback or whether you want to participate in a survey;
      8. managing our legal and operational affairs (including, managing risks relating to content and fraud matters);
      9. improving our products and services; and
      10. processing your applications.
    3. When you give us consent:
      1. providing you with marketing information about products and services which we feel may interest you; and
      2. customizing our services and websites – where this involves the use of cookies or similar technologies (like Facebook pixel) – in order to provide a more personalized experience.
    4. For purposes which are required by law.
    5. For the purpose of responding to requests by government, a court of law, or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation.

When we disclose your personal information:

  1. We may disclose personal information to the following recipients:
    1. service providers who assist us in the operation of this website, in particular: website hosting providers which are located in the US; marketing and analytics services which are located in the US; security and fraud prevention services which are located in the US; subscription management services which are located in the US; third-party payment processing services which are located in the US and Canada; identification verification services located in the US; and operational tooling services which are located in the US. Noting that our subcontractors and services providers may also transfer and access such information from other countries in which they have operations.
    2. our professional advisers (lawyers, accountants, financial advisers etc.) which are located in the US;
    3. regulators and government authorities in connection with our compliance procedures and obligations;
    4. a third party, in order to enforce or defend our rights, or to address financial or reputational risks;
    5. a rights holder in relation to an allegation of intellectual property infringement or any other infringement; and
    6. other recipients where we are authorized or required by law to do so.
  2. Please note we will NEVER share your personal information with a third-party unless required by law, or to operate this website as described above. Your personal information is safe with us.

Where we transfer and/or store your personal information:

  1. We are based in the US, and your data will be processed in the US and Canada. We do this on the basis of your consent to this policy. 

How we keep your personal information secure:

  1. We store personal information on secure servers that are managed by SiteGround hosting services, and occasionally hard copy files that are kept in a secure location in the US. Personal information that we store or transmit is protected by security and access controls, including username and password authentication, two-factor authentication, and data encryption where appropriate.
  2. In order to protect your information, we take care to work with service providers who we believe maintain a high standard of data security compliance.
  3. We cannot accept any responsibility if this site or its data storing system were attacked by hackers, which could lead to inappropriate use of your information. However, we guarantee you we’ll always do our very best to protect our system, and your information, from violations.

Marketing choices regarding your personal information:

  1. Where we have your consent to do so (e.g. if you have subscribed to our newsletter or have indicated that you are interested in receiving offers or information from us), we send you marketing communications by email about products and services that we feel may be of interest to you. You can ‘opt-out’ of such communications if you would prefer not to receive them in the future by using the “unsubscribe” option provided in the communication itself (email).
  2. You also have choices about cookies, as described below. By modifying your browser preferences, you have the choice to accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is set, or to reject all cookies. Please note that if you choose to reject cookies some parts of our site may not work properly in your case.

Cookies (not the edible ones 😉) and web analytics:

  1. For more information about how we use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies, please see our cookie policy at www.yourlifeinspain.com/cookies For more general information on cookies, see http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
  2. When you visit our site, there’s certain information that’s recorded which is generally anonymous information and does not reveal your identity. We’re talking about the following kinds of details:
    1. your IP address or proxy server IP address’;
    2. the domain name you requested;
    3. the name of your internet service provider is sometimes captured depending on the configuration of your ISP connection;
    4. the date and time of your visit to the website;
    5. the pages which you have accessed;
    6. the number of times you access our site within any month;
    7. the file URL you look at and information relating to it;
    8. the website which referred you to our site; and
    9. the operating system which your computer uses.
  3. Occasionally, we may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads based on prior visits to our site.  For example, if you visit our site, you may later see an add for our products and services when you visit a different site. Read more about your options in our cookie policy.

Information about children:

  1. Our site is generally suitable for children over the age of 13 years but is intended to be used by people 18 or older. So if you are under 18, we ask that you do NOT use our site or give us your personal information; ask your parent or guardian to do so for you instead. If you are between 13 to 18 years old, you may browse the site with your parent/guardian permission, but you’ll need the supervision of a parent or guardian to apply to or book any of our services.
  2. It is the responsibility of parents to monitor their children’s use of our site. The site is intended for people 18 or older and we are not responsible for the use minors may do of our site with or without their parents’ permission. We ask that all applications for people under 18 are done by a parent or guardian.

Information you make public or give to others:

  1. If you make your personal information available to other people through our site, we can’t control or accept responsibility for the way they will use or manage that data. There are lots of ways that you can find yourself providing information to other people, like when you post a public comment on our blog, share information via social media, or make contact with another user via our site. Before making your information publicly available or giving your information to anyone else, think carefully. If giving information to another user via our site, ask them how they will handle your information.

How long we keep your personal information:

  1. We retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to provide our services to you, and to comply with our legal obligations. If you no longer want us to use your personal information or to provide you with our services, you can request that we erase your personal information. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information we will retain information from deleted accounts as necessary for our legitimate business interests, to comply with the law, prevent fraud, collect fees, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with investigations, enforce the terms of service and take other actions permitted by law. The information we retain will be handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

How you can access your personal information:

  1. You can access—and update—some of the personal information that we collect about you through MailChimp’s email services by logging into your account. You also have the right to make a request to access other personal information we hold about you and to request corrections of any errors in that data. To make an access or correction request, contact us using the contact details at the end of this policy. You can also close the account you have with us for our newsletter any time by clicking “unsubscribe” on any email campaign you receive from us. 
  2. You are entitled to ask us to erase your personal information. You also have rights to object to some processing that is based on our legitimate interests, such as profiling that we perform for the purposes of direct marketing; and, once you have given us your consent to process your data, you have the right to withdraw this consent.
  3. These rights are limited in some situations – for example, we can demonstrate that we have a legal requirement to process your personal information. In some instances, this means that we may retain some data even if you withdraw your consent.
  4. When we require your personal information to comply with legal or contractual obligations, then provision of such data is mandatory: if such data is not provided, then we will not be able to manage our contractual relationship with you or to meet obligations placed on us. In all other cases, provision of requested personal information is optional.
  5. If you have unresolved concerns you also have the right to complain to data protection authorities. The relevant data protection authority will be the data protection authority of the country: (i) of your habitual residence; (ii) of your place of work; or (iii) in which you consider the alleged infringement has occurred.

If you’re a user or visitor in the European Economic Area or European Union the following rights also apply to you:

  1. For the purposes of applicable EU data protection law (including the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR”), we are a ‘data controller’ of your personal information.

When we need to update this policy:

  1. We will need to change this policy from time to time in order to make sure it stays up to date with the latest legal requirements and any changes to our privacy management practices.
  2. When we do change the policy, we’ll make sure to notify you about such changes, where required. A copy of the latest version of this policy will always be available on this page.

How you can contact us:

  1. If you have any questions about our privacy practices or the way in which we have been managing your personal information, please contact us in writing at info@yourlifeinspain.com
  2. We’re really glad you made it to the end of the Privacy Policy, because knowing this stuff is the best way to understand how your personal information is used and how to best manage it!

I respect your right to be forgotten. If you want to delete your account and erase all your personal data from this website, you can send an email to info@yourlifeinspain.com

Thank you!

Inés Ramos Pérez (The Spanish Language & Culture Academy), effective date February 18, 2019.