Privacy notice

Who controls your data

Pheon Agency Ltd is the data controller for Academy customer and account information. Contact us at help@pheonagency.co.uk.

Information we collect

Depending on how you use the Academy, we collect:

• your name and email address
• account, login and password-reset information
• Stripe Checkout, purchase and payment reference information
• course progress, quiz attempts and results
• programme completion, feedback, ratings and optional testimonial permissions
• protected download activity
• support or contact messages
• technical, security and audit logs

How and why we use it

We use account and purchase information because it is necessary to deliver our contract with you: authenticating your account, providing the purchased course, retaining progress, making protected downloads available, administering payment and sending transactional messages.

We use proportionate technical, security, fraud-prevention and service-administration records for our legitimate interests in protecting and operating the Academy. We retain records needed for tax, accounting or other legal duties under legal obligation. We rely on consent only where it is genuinely required, such as optional marketing.

Programme feedback and testimonials

We use programme feedback for our legitimate interests in evaluating and improving the Academy. Feedback remains private unless you separately give permission for an accurate testimonial or extract to be used in Pheon Agency marketing.

Where you give marketing permission, we record the wording you submitted, your attribution choice, the permission wording and date, and whether complimentary tester access must be disclosed. You can withdraw permission for future marketing use at any time by emailing help@pheonagency.co.uk. Withdrawing permission does not affect the lawfulness of earlier use.

Website traffic statistics

If you allow optional website statistics, our self-hosted Umami service records public page visits, referring websites, approximate location, browser and device information. It uses pseudonymous identifiers to estimate visitors and sessions; these are not linked to Academy accounts. We do not send names, email addresses, learning records, URL query strings or form contents. Tracking is not loaded on private learning or account pages. You can decline or change your choice using Privacy settings on public pages. Your choice is saved in your browser for up to 180 days. Our analytics service is hosted at analytics.metonic.co.uk and operated by Pheon Agency Ltd.

Optional LinkedIn sharing

If you connect LinkedIn, we use your permission to receive your LinkedIn member ID and name and an access token. The token is encrypted in our database and lets us publish only the post and image you explicitly approve. We do not request access to your messages, contacts or email address. Your LinkedIn password is entered on LinkedIn, not on the Academy.

The post preview tells you what will be sent to LinkedIn and made public. We keep your approved post text, the publishing result and post reference to show the result and prevent duplicates. Connecting is optional and does not affect your course or certificate. You can disconnect in the sharing page to remove the saved token or revoke the app in LinkedIn settings. Expired tokens are removed when checked or during service maintenance. Disconnecting does not delete a post already published on LinkedIn; you can manage that post on LinkedIn. LinkedIn processes shared content under its own privacy policy.

Payments

Stripe processes card and payment details as an independent payment service provider. Pheon does not receive or store your full card number, card security code or other complete card details. We retain the payment and Checkout references needed to administer access and answer purchase queries.

Who receives information

We share only what is reasonably necessary with:

• Hetzner, which hosts the Academy application and database
• Stripe, which provides payment processing and hosted checkout
• IONOS, which provides transactional email
• professional advisers, regulators, authorities or other service providers where legitimately required

Retention

We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably required for the purpose described, to provide an active account, resolve disputes, protect the service, and meet legal or accounting obligations. Feedback and permission records are retained while a testimonial is used and for a reasonable period afterwards so we can demonstrate that it was genuine and authorised. We review records and delete or anonymise them when they are no longer needed. Different categories may therefore be retained for different periods.

Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, UK data protection law may give you rights to access, correct, erase or restrict your information, receive portable information, or object to certain processing. Where processing depends on consent, you can withdraw that consent without affecting earlier lawful processing. These rights are not absolute in every case.

Email help@pheonagency.co.uk to make a request. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. We encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve the issue.