School Scout Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 1st September 2025
Last Updated: 5th August 2025

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how School Scout Ltd (“School Scout”, “the company”, "we", "our", or "us") collects, uses, discloses, and protects personal data provided by users of our platform (“the Platform”), which is accessible via our website platform. The company is committed to protecting your privacy and complying with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

This policy applies to both: 

  • Platform Users (e.g. parents, guardians, prospective families);
  • Participating Schools and Educational Partners.

By using the Platform, you agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

2. This Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is used by School Scout and is addressed to individuals outside of our organisation who we interact with, including visitors to our Platform.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, School Scout is the Controller of personal data that is collected on this website. School Scout contact details are provided in Section 17 below.

This Privacy Policy may be amended or updated from time to time to reflect changes in our practices concerning the processing of personal data, or changes in applicable law. We encourage you to read this Policy carefully, and to regularly check this page to review any changes we might make in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. 

3. Who We Are

School Scout is operated by School Scout Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16239948 at 71-75 Shelton Street, London, WC2H 9JQ. We act as a data controller for personal data collected via this platform. For data protection queries, you can contact us at: datacontroller@schoolscout.uk.

4. Processing Your Personal Data

School Scout collects Personal Data and Anonymous Data from you when you visit our website or when you submit information or communications.

“Personal Data” means data that allows someone to identify you, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, as well as any information about you that is associated with or linked to any of the foregoing data.

“Anonymous Data” means data that is not associated with or linked to your Personal Data. Anonymous Data does not permit the identification of individual persons.

We collect Personal Data and Anonymous Data as described below.

We may collect Personal Data from you, such as your name, address and contact details when you register an account with us or when you choose to use the services we provide, including making enquiries to schools.

We also collect other types of Personal Data that you provide to us voluntarily, when, for example, responding to surveys, questionnaires or engaging with the School Scout AI assistant.

If you provide feedback regarding our Platform via email, we will collect your name and email address to respond to you. We may also collect your data through your interactions with our Platform via the placement of cookies and similar technologies.

4.1 Categories for Personal Data from Platform Users

The categories of Personal Data about users of the Platform that we may process include:

Personal Details: information that you provide to us for the purpose of registering with us, including: First Name, Last Name, Country, Preferences;

Children’s Details: information that you provide to us to refine your school search and make enquiries to schools, including: Children’s First Name, Children’s Last Name, Children’s Date of Birth, Children’s Current School, Preferences'

Contact Details: information that you provide to us for the purpose of interacting with our Platform, including: Email Address, Telephone, Country, Postcode / Zip;

Device Details: Device Type, Operating System, Browser Type, Browser Settings, IP Address, Language Settings, Dates and Times of connecting to our Platform;

Behavioural Details: Information about your visits and use of the Platform, including Geographical Location, Referral Source, Length of Visit, Page Views, Search Filter Preferences, School Scout AI Inputs and Website Navigation;

User Account Details: Information relating to actions carried out in relation to your user account, including Favourite Schools, Comparison Schools, School Enquiry Messages, Open Text Chatbot Messages and Communication History.

4.2 Categories for Personal Data and Information from Schools

The categories for Personal Data and Information from Schools that we may process include:

Personal Details: information that school contacts provide to us for the purpose of managing a School Partner account with us, including: First Name, Last Name, Job Title, School Name, Preferences;

Contact Details: information that school contacts provide to us for the purpose of managing and interacting with our Platform, including: Email Address, Telephone, School Address;

Uploaded Documents: school information that is uploaded to School Partner profile listings, including media assets and further school-related data.

4.4 Categories for Information from Public Sources

The categories for Information from Public Sources that we may process include: School Name, School Address, School Contact Details, Ofsted Inspection Ratings and Reports, ISI Inspection Ratings and Reports, Pupil Enrolment Numbers and Age Ranges, School Type, Published School Fees, Admissions Processes, Publicly Available Open Day Dates, Headteacher Name, Website and Social Media Information, School Group or Trust Affiliation. This information is sourced from UK Department for Education and related public datasets, Education Scotland, Independent Schools Council, Scottish Council of Independent Schools, Independent Schools Inspectorate, Ofsted, Estyn, School Websites. We take reasonable steps to verify the accuracy of this data and welcome corrections or updates directly from schools.

4.5 Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data

In processing your Personal Data in connection with the purposes set out in this policy, we may rely on one or more of the following legal bases, depending on the circumstances:

  • We have obtained your prior express consent to processing;
  • The processing is necessary in connection with any contract that you may enter into with us for providing account services;
  • The processing is required by applicable law;
  • The processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of any individual; or
  • We may process your personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests (for example, to operate and improve our services, communicate with you, or promote our platform), provided that those interests are not outweighed by your rights and freedoms. You have the right to object to this processing at any time.

4.6 Our legitimate interest and your right to object

Legitimate Interest means the interests of our company in conducting and managing our business to provide you with the best service, content, and offers.

We also have an interest in making sure our content and offers are relevant to you, so we may process your information to ensure that the content that you see on our Platform is tailored to your specific needs, along with newsletters and promotions that we send by email and which are tailored to your interests.

When we process your personal information for our legitimate interests, we make sure to consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative), and your rights under data protection laws. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests in our specialist content and offers. We will not use your Personal Data for activities where the impact on you overrides our interests unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted by law.

Whenever we process data for these purposes, we will ensure that we keep your Personal Data rights in high regard and respect these rights. You have the right to object to this processing. If you wish to do so, you may opt out of receiving future communications from us by writing to us or emailing us using the contact details provided in Section 17 below. You may also personally manage your preferences or opt out of all future communications by following the ‘Update your preferences’ link or ‘Unsubscribe’ link included in the footer of every marketing email that we send. Please note that if you do object or opt out, then this may affect our ability to carry out tasks for your benefit.

4.7 Purposes for which we may process your personal data

The purposes for which we may process personal data, subject to applicable law, include: 

  • ​​Our Platform: Operating and managing the Platform; providing content to you; displaying advertising and other information to you; and communicating and interacting with you via our Platform;
  • Provision of services to you: Providing our Platform and other services to you including customisation of your search experience, recommending schools that may be of interest to you, giving you access to create and manage user accounts, allowing direct enquiries to schools, and engaging with the School Scout AI assistant. Such services include emailing you marketing messages if you have given us permission to do so, processing your onsite actions, including School Scout AI responses, and sending electronic newsletters and promotional emails to you;
  • Marketing communications: Communicating with you to let you know about School Scout’s products and those of our trusted partners, services or promotions (which may, in some cases be provided by third parties). This may be via various means (including email, telephone, text message (SMS), WhatsApp, social media, app push notifications, in-app messaging or in person). It will always be subject to data protection legislation and your preferences;
  • Disclosing Personal Data to our partners: In accordance with the provisions of this Policy and applicable law, we may disclose certain Personal Data to our partners. These partners may include schools, advertisers and sponsors. With your prior express consent, we may provide your Personal Data to our trusted partners for the purposes of enabling them to contact you with information that may be of interest to you;
  • Identifying your interests: We may save your information in an aggregated form, grouped by interests, which allows us to serve you offers, promotions, and advertisements that are likely to be of interest to you within the website. These advertisements and offers can be for our partners and third parties;
  • Contacting you for market research: for example, to ask you to participate in a survey. You can notify us if you no longer want us to contact you in this way. If you choose to participate in a survey, then we will only use data you provide under the survey in an anonymised and aggregated format, unless you agree otherwise;
  • Anonymous Data: We may create Anonymous Data from Personal Data by excluding information (such as your name) that makes the data personally identifiable to you. We use Anonymous Data to perform statistical analysis of users’ aggregate behaviour so that we may enhance the content of our services, provide insights to our partner schools and improve and analyse our Platform usage. School Scout reserves the right to use and disclose Anonymous Data to partner schools and third parties at its discretion, in aggregate form.


5. Children’s Data

We recognise that some personal data submitted via our Platform relates to children under the age of 18. This information is always provided by a parent, guardian, or other authorised adult and is used solely to support the school search, enquiry, and matching process.

Consent for the collection and processing of children’s personal data is obtained at the point of submission, for example, when a parent or guardian agrees to our User Account Terms of Use during account registration, or when submitting a school enquiry or open day form on behalf of their child.

We do not knowingly collect personal data directly from children under the age of 13. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal data from a child without the required consent, we will take reasonable steps to delete such information as soon as possible.

Parents and legal guardians have the right to access, correct, or delete their child’s personal data at any time. Requests can be made by contacting us using the details provided in Section 17 of this Privacy Policy.

For more information about how we collect, use, store, and protect children’s personal data, please refer to our separate Children’s Data Policy.

6. School Scout AI Assistant Interactions

When you use the School Scout AI assistant, we may collect and process the following data:

This data is stored securely and interactions are logged to ensure service quality. Conversations with School Scout AI may be monitored, reviewed, and used to improve AI functionality and overall user experience.

Open-text inputs may be used to train and improve the School Scout AI model. Wherever possible, such inputs are anonymised and processed in accordance with our School Scout AI Use Policy.

We may also share anonymised and aggregated interaction data with School Partners to improve platform insights, enhance school relevance in search results, and support general service optimisation.

Your use of School Scout AI is also governed by the School Scout AI Terms of Use, which set out essential rules around acceptable use, user responsibilities, and the limitations of AI-generated content. We encourage you to read these Terms to understand how School Scout AI works and how your data is processed during interactions.

For more detailed information, please refer to our School Scout AI Use Policy.

7. Disclosure of your Personal Data to Third Parties

Except as otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy and in our Privacy Notices, where you give us your explicit consent, we do not sell, trade, or rent the Personal Data collected from our services to third parties.

We may disclose your Personal Data in other circumstances:

  • To schools that you enquire to, express an interest in, or connect with through the Platform;
  • To legal and regulatory authorities where required to do so by law, or for the purposes of reporting any actual or suspected breach of applicable law or regulation;
  • In common with most organisations, some of our functions using your Personal Data are outsourced to third-party Processors and service providers, such as analytics providers (e.g. Google) to track user behaviour on the Platform, and email service providers (e.g. Mailgun, Mailchimp, Mailjet) to deliver electronic newsletters and promotional emails, and hosting and IT infrastructure partners (e.g. Laravel Cloud). School Scout performs due diligence on all third-party Processors and ensures that appropriate contractual safeguards, including Data Processing Agreements (DPAs), are in place to protect personal data and ensure compliance with applicable data protection laws;
  • Any relevant party, law enforcement, agency or court, to the extent necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal rights;
  • Should another company acquire our company or our assets, we may share your personal information with potential buyers, their advisers and connected third parties in connection with the potential sale or transfer of our business or assets, or any part of our business or assets. If we sell, transfer or restructure any part of our business that holds your personal information, we may share or transfer that information to the buyer or new entity: for example, so that they can continue to provide continuity of service to you. We will use reasonable efforts to ensure that the buyer or new entity continues to use your personal data in a manner that is consistent with our privacy policy. We will always notify you of such a change of control and/or ownership, such as by way of public announcement and updates to this privacy policy or any new privacy policy;
  • If you send a testimonial or comment to us, we may post it on our websites or use it in advertising materials. We will attribute your testimonials to you by posting your first name and first initial of your surname next to your testimonial on our site or advertising materials;
  • Your internet browser or other accounts. Depending on which browser you use to visit our site, and in accordance with your browser cookie preferences, your browser (such as Google) may collect information about you and your visit for its own services, including services like segmented or personalised advertising that it provides to us and other sites.

Should you provide School Scout with your contact details and agree to receive promotional messages, then we may allow our partners or third-party businesses to promote goods or services that we believe are of interest to you. These communications will only ever be sent by School Scout, even when they refer to third-party products or services. Many customers appreciate the offerings they receive from such third parties; however, we allow you to opt out at any time of having your Personal Data offered to affiliated or unaffiliated third parties for the purposes of sending you relevant information and promotions. For information about how you can opt out of receiving these promotional messages, see Section 14 below.

8. International Transfer of Personal Data

Some of our service providers may be located outside of the UK. In such cases, we ensure appropriate safeguards (e.g. Standard Contractual Clauses) are in place to protect and secure your personal data.

9. Data Security

School Scout is committed to protecting the security of your Personal Data. We use a variety of industry-standard security technologies and procedures to help protect your Personal Data from unauthorised access, use, or disclosure.

On our website, we implement a secure connection, meaning that all communications between your browser and the website are secured via HTTPS.

School Scout implements other industry-standard electronic means of protecting your Personal Data. We store Personal Data behind a firewall, a barrier designed to prevent outsiders from accessing our servers. We also require you to enter a password to access or update your account information.

Except as provided elsewhere in this Privacy Policy, School Scout limits access to Personal Data in electronic databases to those persons (including employees and contractors) who have a business need for such access, and those persons are under contract to keep your data secure.

The password you provide when registering with the website is encrypted to ensure protection against unauthorised access to your personal information.

We invest in high-quality security and do our utmost to protect user privacy. No data transmission over the internet can be entirely secure, and therefore, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information and/or use of the website. Any information that you send is at your own risk and may be read by others. However, once we receive your personal information, we use strict procedures to protect it.

10. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active, or as required to meet legal obligations, or for as long as is necessary in connection with the purposes set out in this Policy. Enquiry information may be retained for 12 months unless deletion is requested.

11. Changes to Your Personal Data and Your Rights

Subject to applicable law, you may have a number of rights regarding the processing of your personal data, including: 

  • The right to request access to, and/or copies of, your Personal Data that we hold about you, or require that it is transmitted to another data controller;
  • The right to request the correction of any inaccuracies in your Personal Data that we process or control;
  • The right to request that we restrict our data processing activities or cease processing your personal data in certain ways, for example, because you do not consider it lawful;
  • The right to ask us to delete the personal data we hold about you, for example, because it is causing you distress or you believe it to be no longer relevant, or to correct the information if it is incorrect;
  • The right to object to our processing of your personal data, in particular where we are relying on our legitimate interest;
  • The right to require us not to send you marketing communications;
  • Where we process your personal data on the basis of your consent, the right to withdraw that consent, and;
  • The right to lodge complaints with a Data Protection Authority regarding the processing of your personal data by us or on our behalf.

To exercise one or more of these rights, or to ask questions about these rights or any other provision of this Policy, or your Personal Data, please use the contact details provided in Section 17 below.

There may be instances where we are legally obliged to request you to provide us with identification to verify your entitlement to the requested data.

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and we will be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply. You can find out more about your rights at www.ico.org.uk.

To exercise your rights, contact: datacontroller@schoolscout.uk

12. Cookies

A cookie is a small file that is placed on your device when you visit a website (including our Platform). When we refer to “cookies”, we include other technologies with similar purposes, such as tags and identifiers. Cookies record information about your device, your browser and, in some cases, your preferences and viewing habits. We will ask you to consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy when you first visit our Platform. We may process your personal data through cookie technology, in accordance with our Cookies Policy.

13. Other Websites

Except as otherwise expressly provided in this Privacy Policy or on this website, School Scout only collects Personal Data through the services provided solely by the Platform, and this Privacy Policy applies only to the use and disclosure of Personal Data that we collect while you use our services.

When you click on advertisements or links on School Scout, you will leave the Platform and go to another website. During this process, a third party (including a third-party advertising service that may provide services to an advertiser) may collect Personal Data or Anonymous Data from you, such as the URL you just came from, the URL you go to next, your browser type, and your IP address. Our display of advertisements or links to any other company or site is for your convenience, and it does not signify our endorsement of such company or website (or the contents of the website). We have no control over, we do not review it, and our Privacy Policy does not apply to these other companies, websites, or to any collection of data after you click on an advertisement or link to a third party.

14. Changes to Your Personal Data and Your Right

We offer you choices regarding the collection, use, and sharing of your Personal Data. When you register on our Platform or submit an enquiry form, we will ask you to receive future communications from us. You may indicate consent to receive these communications by entering your details and opting in per the on-page statements and/or tick boxes provided for School Scout and its partners to use your data for marketing purposes. When submitting an admissions enquiry for a school, you must agree to the Platform Terms of Use and consent for your data to be processed and shared by School Scout in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Should you decide you wish to stop receiving emails from School Scout, then you will have the opportunity to opt out of future communications by following the ‘Unsubscribe’ link or ‘Update your preferences’ link included in the footer of every email we send. If you wish to stop receiving further marketing emails from schools that you enquire about, then you will have to contact the relevant school to do this.

You may also opt out of receiving future marketing communications from us by writing to us or emailing us using the contact details provided in Section 17 below.

Despite your indicated communications preferences, we may send you notice of any updates to our Privacy Policy and other service communications.

15. Definitions

  • Controller means the entity that decides how and why Personal Data is processed. In many jurisdictions, the Controller has primary responsibility for complying with applicable data protection laws;
  • Data Protection Authority means an independent public authority that is legally tasked with overseeing compliance with applicable data protection laws;
  • Personal Data means information that is about any individual, or from which any individual is identifiable. Examples of Personal Data that we may process are set out in Section 4 above;
  • Process, processing or processed means anything that is done with any Personal Data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;
  • Processor means any person or entity that processes personal data on behalf of the Controller (other than employees of the Controller).


16. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time, and these changes will be made on this page. Please check the website regularly for changes to this Privacy Policy. Significant changes will be notified via email.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 5 August 2025.

17. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or wish to exercise your rights regarding your data or School Scout AI, please contact:

Email: datacontroller@schoolscout.uk
Address: School Scout Ltd, 71-75 Shelton Street, London, WC2H 9JQ


This School Scout Privacy Policy was last updated on 5 August 2025.