Privacy Policy | StudentAid.uk

1. Who We Are

StudentAid.uk ("we", "us", "our") is an independent education consultancy based in London, United Kingdom. We help people already living in the UK on a valid visa to understand whether they may qualify for government student finance through Student Finance England (SFE).

We are the data controller for the personal information collected through this website. You can contact us about any data matter at: [email protected]

We are not affiliated with Student Finance England, the Student Loans Company, or any UK government body.

2. What Personal Data We Collect

When you submit the eligibility check form on our website, we collect:

First name
Contact details — your WhatsApp number or email address
Immigration status — the visa or leave type you currently hold
Length of residence — how long you have been living in the UK
Study preference — whether you are interested in full-time or part-time study
Study interest and enquiry details — optional information you type about the course or situation you want us to consider
Contact preference — whether you prefer to be reached by WhatsApp or email
Enquiry source — a limited label showing whether you started from our homepage, guides page, or one of our named guidance pages
Partner referral consent record — if we later offer a referral and you agree during a WhatsApp, email, phone, or other conversation, we retain a record of what you agreed to and when

If you contact us directly via WhatsApp or email, we may also retain your contact details, the content of that conversation, and the source label included in a pre-filled WhatsApp message.

Our form processor and website hosting providers may automatically receive technical information needed to operate and secure their services, such as your IP address, browser type, access time, referring website, and server access logs. We do not add this technical information to a marketing profile.

We do not ask for special category data, such as health information, racial or ethnic origin, religion, biometric data, or information about sexual orientation. Please do not include this kind of information, criminal-offence data, passport numbers, or immigration-document numbers in the optional free-text box. If sensitive information is volunteered unexpectedly, we will only use it where necessary to respond to your enquiry and will delete it when it is no longer needed.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To assess whether you may qualify for student finance based on your circumstances
To contact you with an honest eligibility assessment within 24 hours
To understand which of our guidance pages led to an enquiry and improve our guidance using aggregate enquiry counts
To refer you to our London-based education consultancy partner only if you later give clear consent during our conversation (see Section 5)
To respond to any follow-up questions you have

We do not use your data for automated decision-making, behavioural profiling, or direct marketing without your explicit consent.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Under UK GDPR, we rely on the following legal bases:

Legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) — processing your enquiry to provide the guidance you requested, protect and operate the service, and use a minimal guide-source label to understand which guidance results in enquiries. We have carried out a legitimate interests assessment and use safeguards including an allowlisted page label, no persistent identifier, no analytics cookie, and aggregate reporting.
Consent (Article 6(1)(a)) — sharing agreed information with our education consultancy partner after we identify the partner and ask you during a later conversation. This choice is optional, does not affect our initial response, and you can withdraw it at any time before the referral is made.
Contract performance (Article 6(1)(b)) — where you engage us to carry out an eligibility assessment on your behalf.

5. Who We Share Your Data With

We may share your personal data with the following parties:

Our London-based education consultancy partner — only after we identify the partner, explain what information we propose to share and why, and you clearly agree during our later conversation. We then share only the agreed information needed for the partner to contact you about a free consultation. You may withdraw consent by emailing us before the referral is made.
Formspree, Inc. — our form-processing provider. Formspree stores form submissions and sends them to our nominated email address. Formspree is based in the United States and states that it uses Standard Contractual Clauses for international transfers. Read its privacy policy and security information.
Website hosting, content-delivery, and email providers — these providers process the information needed to deliver and secure the website and our communications, which may include IP addresses, access logs, and enquiry emails.

If you choose to contact us through WhatsApp, WhatsApp and Meta also process your phone number, message, and technical data under their own terms and privacy policy. WhatsApp is optional; you can use email or the website form instead.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to any third party. We do not share your data with Student Finance England or any government body on your behalf — you remain in full control of any SFE application.

6. How Long We Keep Your Data

We retain your personal data for no longer than 24 months from the date of your enquiry, unless:

You ask us to delete it sooner (see Your Rights below)
We are required to keep it longer by law
You engage in an ongoing consultation, in which case we retain it for the duration of the engagement plus 12 months

The enquiry-source label and partner-referral choice are retained with the rest of the form submission for the same period. After the applicable period, the data is deleted from the systems we control, including our Formspree submissions and enquiry email records, subject to any limited backups or legal retention requirement.

7. Cookies and Tracking

This website uses no advertising or analytics cookies. We do not use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or any other behavioural tracking tools.

When you follow a check link from one of our guides, the link carries a short, allowlisted page label (for example, "Pre-settled status guide"). The form notice explains this collection, and the label is only submitted when you send the form or included in the pre-filled message when you choose WhatsApp. Our enquiry-source code does not add the raw referring URL, advertising identifiers, campaign history, or a persistent visitor ID to your enquiry, and it does not use cookies or browser storage. Formspree may separately receive the technical referral and log information described in Section 2 when it processes the submission.

We load Google Fonts for typography, which may result in a request to Google's servers. Google may log this request in accordance with its own privacy policy. No answers from our form are sent to Google.

Our enquiry-source feature does not store or access information on your device. If we introduce analytics, cookies, or other storage and access technologies in future, we will assess the applicable UK privacy rules and provide consent or an easy objection mechanism where required.

8. Your Rights Under UK GDPR

You have the following rights regarding your personal data:

Right of access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
Right to rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data
Right to erasure — ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten")
Right to restriction — ask us to limit how we use your data
Right to data portability — receive your data in a commonly used, machine-readable format
Right to object — object to processing based on legitimate interests
Right to withdraw consent — withdraw your optional partner-referral consent at any time, without affecting processing that already took place lawfully

To exercise any of these rights, email us at [email protected] with the subject line "Data Request". We will respond within 30 days.

Your right to object: You can object at any time to our use of your information under legitimate interests, including our use of the guide-source label. Email [email protected] and we will stop that processing unless we have a compelling lawful reason to continue.

9. Data Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, or disclosure. Form submissions are transmitted over encrypted HTTPS connections, stored in our Formspree account, and delivered to our nominated email inbox. Access is limited to authorised people who need the information to handle enquiries.

10. Links to Other Websites

This website may contain links to external services and sites, including WhatsApp, GOV.UK, and university websites. We are not responsible for their privacy practices and recommend you read their own privacy information before using them.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the most recent version. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

12. How to Complain

If you have a concern about how we handle your personal data and are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) — the UK's supervisory authority for data protection.

Website: ico.org.uk
Helpline: 0303 123 1113

We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concern directly before you contact the ICO — please reach out to us first at [email protected].