Automated analysis, and where it stops
Where you complete a Diagnostic or a practice submission, some of what you produce may be processed by a Google automated analysis service to help organise and analyse the evidence.
What is not sent. Your account identity, phone number, booking details and payment details are not intentionally sent to the automated analysis service as part of analysing your responses.
What may be sent. Your response content may be processed, but only after the approved redaction and confirmation step. Obvious identifiers are detected and removed, you are shown the exact text that will be sent, and you confirm it before anything leaves.
This is not a decision made by a machine. Automated analysis assists with organising evidence. Your final Diagnostic findings are reviewed live with you during your session and approved by your tutor before they are issued.
Privacy Policy
Quick Talk Tutor Ltd · Last updated 29 July 2026
Quick Talk Tutor Ltd respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, how we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and what rights you have under UK data protection law, including the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.
- Who we are
- What data we collect
- Verification codes
- How we use your data
- Legal bases for processing
- Learners under 18
- Sensitive information
- How long we keep your data
- Stripe and payment processing
- Marketing emails
- Who we share data with
- International transfers
- Your rights
- Complaining to us about your data
- The Student Practice Area
- Data breaches
- Cookies
- Security
- Third party links
- Changes to this policy
1. Who we are
| Company number | 16435617 |
| Registered office | 142 Collingwood Court, Washington, NE37 3EF |
| Data protection contact | Through the Contact page on this website |
2. What data we collect
We collect only the personal data reasonably needed to respond to your enquiry, arrange a booking, deliver a session, manage payment, and communicate with you about the service you requested.
This may include:
- Your name
- Your email address
- Your phone number
- Your country
- Whether you are aged 18 or over
- Your booking details and the service you requested
- Your test type, target score or goal, and deadline
- Your score report or related exam information, if you choose to send it
- Your messages, questions, essays, or recordings, if you send them
- Payment confirmation and transaction reference details
- Where a learner is under 18, the name, email address and consent record of a parent or legal guardian
- Basic technical data needed for website security
We do not ask for more information than we need.
3. Verification codes
When you use our contact form we send a short code to your email address and to your phone number so you can confirm both are yours. This reduces spam and automated submissions, and makes sure we can reach you. Codes are deleted once used or once they expire.
4. How we use your data
- To reply to your enquiry
- To arrange and confirm bookings
- To deliver the session or service you requested
- To review your score report, essay, or other submitted material
- To send booking confirmations, reminders, or follow up messages
- To manage cancellations, rescheduling, or refunds
- To hold and act on parental consent where a learner is under 18
- To keep basic business records
- To process payments through Stripe
- To send optional English test updates or learning emails, only if you have given consent
- To comply with legal, tax, accounting, and dispute handling obligations
We do not use your data for automated decision making that produces legal or similarly significant effects, and we do not use it for profiling.
5. Legal bases for processing
| What we do | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Deliver the service you booked | Performance of a contract |
| Reply to enquiries and run the business | Legitimate interests |
| Verify your email and phone | Legitimate interests |
| Hold parental consent for under 18s | Legal obligation and legitimate interests |
| Keep tax and accounting records | Legal obligation |
| Send marketing emails | Consent |
Where consent is the basis, you may withdraw it at any time.
6. Learners under 18
We teach learners aged 16 and over. Some learners are aged 16 or 17 and are legally children. We take extra care with their personal data.
- Our contact form asks whether you are aged 18 or over
- Where a learner is under 18, we require written consent from a parent or legal guardian before the first session, and we hold that consent on file
- We keep a parent or guardian contact email for the duration of the learner’s programme
- Written communication about a learner under 18 includes their parent or guardian
- We never send marketing emails to anyone under 18
- We do not use profiling or automated decision making on any learner’s data
- A parent or guardian may at any time ask to see what data we hold about their child, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it
Our full approach to young learners is set out in our Safeguarding Statement.
7. Sensitive information
We do not ask for health information about you and you do not need to provide any.
Healthcare professionals preparing for OET sometimes mention their profession or workplace context, which is fine. Please do not send patient information or anything identifying another person. If you send us practice material containing real patient details, we will delete it and ask you to send an anonymised version.
8. How long we keep your data
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Enquiries that do not lead to a booking | 12 months |
| Learner records and correspondence | 6 years after your last session |
| Financial and payment records | 6 years, as required by tax law |
| Essays, recordings and other work you send | 12 months after your last session, or sooner if you ask |
| Session recordings, where agreed | 3 months |
| Parental consent records | 6 years after the learner's last session |
| Verification codes | Deleted once used or expired |
| Marketing contact details | While you remain subscribed |
We do not keep unnecessary copies. When data is no longer needed we delete it or anonymise it.
We cannot promise instant deletion in every case, because some records must be kept by law, and Stripe retains payment records under its own legal obligations.
9. The Student Area
If your programme includes access to the Student Area, some additional processing happens there and we want to be plain about it.
What is sent, and where
When you submit a written answer or a spoken response, that content is transmitted to Google for analysis. Nothing else goes with it. We do not send your name, your email address, your score report, your booking reference, or any other identifying detail.
On the free service tier we currently use, Google may use submitted content to train and improve their systems. You are asked to confirm that you understand this before you can use the workspace, and that confirmation is recorded against your account with a timestamp.
Audio recordings
Where you record a spoken answer, the audio is converted to text and the audio itself is then discarded. We do not keep recordings of your voice. Only the transcript and the resulting feedback are stored.
What you must not submit
You agree not to type or speak real personal details while using the workspace. That includes your own identifying information and, in particular, any real patient information if you are a healthcare professional practising OET tasks. If we find identifying content in a submission we will delete it, and repeated breaches will end your workspace access.
Age
The workspace is restricted to users aged 18 and over by default, because of the third party processing described above. Selecting the under 18 option blocks access and records that status on your account.
This is narrower than our teaching age. Live lessons are open to learners aged 16 and over with written parental consent, because a live lesson involves no automated third party processing of the learner’s work. The two rules are different because the risks are different.
A parent or guardian may contact us to request supervised workspace access for a 16 or 17 year old. We handle those case by case, and only after the verification described in our Safeguarding Statement.
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Audio recordings | Not kept. Discarded once transcribed |
| Written answers and transcripts | 12 months after your last session |
| Feedback reports | 12 months after your last session |
| Consent confirmation record | 6 years, as evidence that consent was given |
| Session scores for your progress chart | 6 years after your last session |
Your report
A copy of each session report is sent to your tutor and forms the plan for your next live class. That is the purpose of the workspace, and it is why the report also disappears from your screen after a short period rather than remaining available to download.
10. Stripe and payment processing
Payments are processed through Stripe. We do not store your full card details on our systems. Stripe collects and processes payment data as part of the transaction and retains certain information for its own legal, security, compliance and fraud prevention purposes, under its own privacy policy.
11. Marketing emails
We send marketing emails, such as English test updates or service news, only where you have given consent, or where you are an existing customer and we are telling you about a similar service. In either case you can opt out at any time.
To opt out, click the unsubscribe link in any email, or contact us and ask to be removed. We will stop sending marketing emails once your request is processed. Opting out of marketing does not affect emails about a booking you have made.
12. Who we share data with
We do not sell your data. We share it only with providers who help us operate, and only what they need:
- Hostinger and WordPress, website infrastructure and hosting
- Brevo, transactional email
- Cal.com and Cal Video, booking and online sessions
- Our payment provider, for taking payment. We never see or store your full card details
- Cloudflare Turnstile, to tell real visitors apart from automated abuse
- Google services, including GA4, only where you have consented to analytics
- A Google automated analysis service, where Diagnostic or practice response content is processed
We may also disclose information where we believe a child is at risk of harm, as set out in our Safeguarding Statement.
13. International transfers
Some providers may process data outside the UK. Where that happens we rely on safeguards approved under UK data protection law, such as the International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
14. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data
- Ask us to delete your data in certain circumstances
- Ask us to restrict how we use your data
- Object to certain types of processing
- Withdraw consent where consent is the legal basis
- Ask for your data in a portable format
To exercise any of these, contact us through the Contact page. We will respond within one month. If your request is complex we may extend that by up to two further months and will tell you if we do. We may need to verify your identity first.
15. Complaining to us about your data
You have the right to raise a complaint directly with us if you believe we have handled your personal data incorrectly.
How to complain
Use the Contact page and select Data protection complaint as your reason for contact. We also accept complaints in any other reasonable form, including by post to our registered office.
What happens next
We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it. We will investigate without undue delay and tell you the outcome and what, if anything, we are doing as a result.
If you are still unhappy
You may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. You can go to the ICO at any point, but raising it with us first usually gets it resolved faster.
15. The Student Area
The Student Area is an optional part of our programmes. If you choose to use it, this section applies. If you choose not to, nothing here applies to you and your programme is unaffected.
What is sent, and to whom
When you submit a piece of writing for analysis, the text of that writing is sent to Google services for processing. Your name, your email address, your phone number and your score report are not sent.
Training
On the service plan currently in use, Google may use submitted text to improve their systems, which includes training their models. We tell you this before you submit anything, and you must give explicit consent by ticking a box before the tool becomes available. Your consent is recorded with the date and time.
You can withdraw consent at any time by telling us, and access to the tool stops. Withdrawing consent does not affect the rest of your programme.
Age restriction
The Practice Area is available to learners aged 18 and over by default. Before entering, you must declare whether you are 18 or over. If you declare that you are under 18, access is blocked and the block is recorded against your account so it applies on every future visit, until a parent or guardian completes our verification process.
This restriction applies to the Practice Area only. Live lessons remain open to learners aged 16 and over with written parental consent.
You are asked to answer honestly, and by continuing you confirm the age you have given is accurate. Where a learner provides an inaccurate age in order to gain access, Quick Talk Tutor Ltd cannot accept responsibility for the consequences of that data being processed as adult data. We will remove access as soon as we become aware.
What we keep
- Your submitted text and the feedback: 30 days, then deleted
- Your indicative scores and dates: kept for the duration of your programme, so progress can be tracked
- Your consent record and age declaration: 6 years, as evidence that consent was given
Who can see it
Your tutor can see your submissions and the feedback, which is the point of the tool. Nobody else at Quick Talk Tutor Ltd has access, and we do not share it with any other student or third party beyond Google as described above.
17. Data breaches
If a personal data breach occurs that is likely to risk your rights and freedoms, we will report it to the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware of it. Where the risk to you is high, we will tell you directly and without undue delay.
18. Cookies
This website uses only cookies that are strictly necessary for it to function, such as keeping your place in a form and protecting against spam submissions. We do not use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies of any kind. See our Cookie Policy.
19. Security
We keep your information on secure systems with access limited to those who need it. No online system is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security, but we take reasonable steps to protect what you send us.
20. Third party links
This website links to third party sites such as exam providers and official requirement pages. We are not responsible for their privacy practices. Their policies apply when you visit them.
21. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. The current version is always on this page with the date it was last updated.