Who we are

TheUniMentor provides university admissions consulting, academic tutoring and entrance examination preparation. We are registered in the United Kingdom and in Hong Kong, and we work with students internationally.

Because we are established in both places, both the UK GDPR and the Hong Kong Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance apply to what we do, and this policy is written to meet the higher standard of the two wherever they differ.

You can reach us at the contact details at the foot of this page.

What we collect

We collect only what we need in order to answer an enquiry and deliver a service:

Enquiry information

The name, contact details, year group, subjects and academic aspirations you send us when you request a diagnostic, by email or through WhatsApp.

Engagement information

For students we work with: target courses and universities, predicted and achieved grades, drafts of written application material, session notes and progress updates.

Parent or guardian information

Name and contact details, where a parent or guardian is the person arranging or paying for the engagement.

Billing information

A record of what was invoiced, what was paid and when. Payments are taken online. We do not store card details.

Website information

This site does not run analytics. If, and only if, you accept advertising cookies on the cookie banner, the Meta Pixel tells Meta which pages you view here and when you use the WhatsApp or email link to contact us. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to Google and Google receives your IP address. See our Cookie Policy.

Why we use it, and on what basis

• To respond to enquiries and arrange diagnostics. Because you asked us to, and because it is in our legitimate interest to answer people who contact us.
• To deliver the service you have engaged us for. To perform our contract with you.
• To keep records of sessions and progress. Our legitimate interest in running the service properly, and yours in being able to see what has been done.
• To take payment and keep accounting records. To perform our contract, and to comply with legal obligations.
• To send occasional updates about our services. Only with your consent, and you can withdraw it at any time.
• To measure and improve our adverts on Facebook and Instagram. Only with your consent, given on the cookie banner. You can withdraw it at any time with Cookie settings at the foot of every page.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not build advertising profiles ourselves. If you accept advertising cookies, Meta receives information about your visit and uses it under its own privacy policy, as our Cookie Policy explains.

Who we share it with

We share personal information only where it is necessary:

• With the consultant or tutor assigned to a student, so that they can prepare and deliver sessions.
• With service providers who process information on our behalf — sessions are delivered on Google Meet, and we use providers for email, scheduling, payments and file storage — under written terms that require them to keep it confidential and use it only for us.
• With Meta Platforms, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, only if you accept advertising cookies: the pages you view on this site and when you use its WhatsApp or email links, together with your IP address and browser details. We send Meta no names, email addresses, phone numbers or messages. Meta decides how it uses this, under its own Privacy Policy.
• Where we are required to do so by law, or where there is a safeguarding concern; see our Safeguarding Statement.

We do not share a student's information with a university except at your direction.

International transfers

Our students, our consultants and our service providers are in different countries, so personal information may be transferred across borders. If you accept advertising cookies, the information the Meta Pixel sends goes to Meta, which may transfer it to other countries, as its Privacy Policy explains.

How long we keep it

• Enquiries that do not become engagements: 12 months from the last contact.
• Engagement records, including session notes and drafts: 3 years after the engagement ends, so that we can answer questions about work we did.
• Financial records: 7 years, in accordance with the Inland Revenue Ordinance.
• Your cookie choice: in your own browser, until you change it or clear this site's data. Meta's _fbp and _fbc cookies last 90 days; how long Meta keeps what it receives is set out in its own policy.

We delete or anonymise information once these periods have passed.

Students under 18

Most of the students we work with are under 18. Where that is the case we expect a parent or guardian to arrange the engagement, and we will provide progress updates to that parent or guardian.

We do not knowingly collect information directly from a child without a parent or guardian being aware of the engagement. If you believe we hold information about a child that we should not, contact us and we will delete it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask us to:

• give you a copy of the information we hold about you;
• correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
• delete information we no longer need;
• restrict or object to how we use it;
• transfer it to another provider in a portable format;
• stop sending you marketing, at any time.

To exercise any of these, contact us using the details below. We will respond within one month. If you are not satisfied with our response you can complain to the relevant supervisory authority — in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk; in Hong Kong, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data at pcpd.org.hk.

Security

We keep personal information on services that require authentication, limit access to the people who need it, and require consultants to keep student material confidential.

In practice that means personal information is held in encrypted storage, and every staff and consultant account that can reach it requires two-factor authentication.

Cookies

This site sets no cookies for its own purposes. The Meta Pixel sets advertising cookies only if you accept them on the cookie banner, and you can change your answer at any time with Cookie settings at the foot of every page. The details, and the other third-party requests, are in our Cookie Policy.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of the page. Where a change materially affects how we use information you have already given us, we will tell you directly.