Privacy Policy

EduSCOT keeps what it collects to a minimum. Google Analytics stays switched off until you choose on our cookie banner, and you can decline and still use the whole site. The site also carries adverts, which come with their own separate privacy prompt — see Advertising below.

Analytics

We count page views on our own server. Your browser sends us the page you viewed, roughly where the visit came from (for example “a Google search” or “a link from another site”), and a short-lived random identifier so we can tell one visit from another. It sets no cookies, holds no personally identifiable information, does not fingerprint your device and never follows you to other sites. Nothing is shared with a third-party analytics company.

We also use Google Analytics (GA4), which does set cookies. Under Google Consent Mode it is switched off by default — it sets no cookies and tracks nothing until you choose Accept on our cookie banner. Decline (or ignore it) and Google Analytics stays off; you can use the whole site either way, and you can change your mind at any time from the Cookie settings link in the footer.

Advertising

The site is paid for by display adverts, served by Journey by Mediavine. Like all display advertising, this involves third parties — Google Ad Manager and the advertising exchanges Mediavine works with — which set cookies and similar identifiers in order to select adverts and measure them. Some of that amounts to sharing data with advertisers.

Mediavine’s own privacy prompt controls this, not our cookie banner. Their advert code includes a consent tool that asks you separately about advertising cookies and passes your answer to their advertising partners. Our banner covers Google Analytics only, and says so.

Some pages carry no adverts at all: everything under /benefits, the benefits wizard, our family-benefits guides, and the embeddable tools other sites host. Those pages are read by people working out what they are entitled to, and we would rather not put an advert auction on that.

Mediavine’s privacy policy covers how they and their advertising partners handle data on their side.

Separately, we log anonymous, aggregated usage events (pages viewed, searches, tool use) to our own database to understand what’s useful. This uses a single first-party session identifier and contains no personal data — no names, emails, IP addresses or raw device details.

Calculators and tools

All calculations run in your browser. Inputs are not sent to us or stored. The SAAS calculator, the benefits calculator and the UCAS tool all work entirely client-side.

The catchment checker uses the public postcodes.io API to look up your postcode. We don’t log your postcode.

If you sign up to our newsletter (“The School Bell”), your email address is passed to our email provider, MailerLite, which stores it so we can send you the newsletter and nothing else. We do not share email addresses with anyone outside MailerLite, we never sell lists, and unsubscribing is a one-click action in every email we send. MailerLite’s own privacy policy covers how they handle the data on their side.

Cookies

Our own page-view counting sets no cookies. Google Analytics sets analytics cookies (such as_ga) only after you accept on our cookie banner — decline and none are set. We also set one first-party session cookie for our own anonymous usage analytics, which holds a random identifier and no personal data. Advertising cookies are set by our advert partners under Mediavine’s own privacy prompt, not this banner, and never on the ad-free pages listed above.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to know what data we hold about you and to have it deleted. For the newsletter, that means unsubscribing; for analytics, there’s no personal data to delete. Contact us at hello@eduscot.co.uk if you’d like to check.