Privacy Policy

Who we are

Optimum Business English is run by Lyn Laubscher, with the contact information provided on the site under the ‘Contact’ tab.

We based in Johannesburg, South Africa and our website address is: https://optimumbusinessenglish.com.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, powered by WordPress (the website engine) it by default collects the data shown in any comments form, together with the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public, in relation to your comment.

Media

If you upload images or media files to the website, all such approved files will usually be publicly accessible.

You should always avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS), as visitors can download and extract any location data from images on the web.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site, WordPress (the website engine) may request you to opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience, so that you do not have to fill in your details again should you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

Other website plugins may use additional cookies and we recommend you manage these, via your cookies settings, to be set to essential cookies only for maximum protection.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may on the rare occasion include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website and is thus governed by the settings of that website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content, if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

If you leave a comment (see ‘Comments’) your IP address and browser user agent string will be collected to help detect span. An anonymised string created from your email address (‘hash’) may be provided to the Gravatar service (their privacy policy: https://automattic.com/privacy/) to confirm you are using it. Finally, after your comment is approved and added to the site, your comment and profile picture will become visible to the public.

Our website is powered by WordPress, who by default do not share any personal data with anyone.

Any information you share with us that is stored on a cloud-based service may be retained by that organisation and would thus be outside of our control.

Payment processing applications and services will also store your payment and personal information, according to their service requirements and are also outside of our control.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely, as they remain attached to the article upon which you commented.

Should you contact us in order to engage our services, we shall retain your pertinent information, for as long as is required to offer you the service you requested. This information may include: Name, company information, job title, other relevant personal information, purchase information, email address, contact number and other contact information, training: gaps, history or progress. Upon completion of said service you may request that we delete all your personal data, which is not required for legal, security or accounting records.

Customer purchase records are retained for ten years in order to comply with legal accounting standards.

By default WordPress (the website engine) does not collect any personal data about visitors, and only collects the data shown on the User Profile screen from registered users.

Some website analytics packages may use tracking data, however we do not currently use such services and WordPress (the website engine) does not collect any such data on its own.

What rights you have over your data

If you have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you, which would include the comment you made.

Upon completion of any service you may request that we delete all your personal data, excluding that which must be legally kept for administrative, accounting, security and similar record purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

WordPress (the website host) does not store your personal data.

Cloud storage of documents shared with us will be subject to the data protection standards of that organisation, Google Workspace and Google Cloud platform services, details available here: https://cloud.google.com/privacy/gdpr#:~:text=Google%20Workspace%20data%20in%20transit,one%20or%20more%20encryption%20mechanisms.