Privacy policy

The School of International Financial Services MENA FZE (“SIFS”) Privacy Policy

This privacy policy should be read alongside, and in addition to, our Terms and Conditions, which can be found at: https://www.sifs-mena.ae/w/termsandconditions/

Definitions and Interpretation

‘We’, ‘our’ or ‘us’ – means The School of International Financial Services MENA FZE.

You or ‘your’ – means any customers, customer employers, consultants, suppliers or users of the The School of International Financial Services MENA FZE website. This includes anyone who accesses our online courses, classroom courses, conference events or Open Access CPD solution.

Data – means all the personal data that you provide to us and that we receive about you in providing our services.

Cookies – means a small text file placed on your computer by this Website when you visit certain parts of the Website and/or when you use certain features of the Website.

Data Protection Laws – means any applicable law relating to the processing of personal Data, including but not limited to the Federal Decree-Law No. 45/2021 on the Protection of Personal Data and any subsequent legislation.

Website – means www.sifs-mena.ae, and any sub-domains of this site, unless expressly excluded by their own terms and conditions

In this privacy policy, unless the context requires a different interpretation: the singular includes the plural and vice versa.

Why This Policy Exists

We gather and use certain information about individuals and their businesses in order to provide professional development products and services to both individuals and businesses.

Collecting this information helps us to:

understand how to help and support our customers;

know what topics individuals and businesses are interested in hearing about; and

administer online and classroom courses, conference events, and other educational or professional development activities.

Data We Collect

We may collect the following Data:

* name;

* job title;

* profession;

* company name/role;

* contact information, such as email addresses and telephone numbers and

* billing address.

How We Use Data We Collect

Data that you give us will be used to:

* arrange your attendance at online or classroom courses, conference events or other professional development opportunities;

* to improve the products and services that we provide;

* to send you information that you have asked for or which we think will be relevant to you; and

* to customise or update the Website.

Sharing The Data You Give Us

We use certain secure tools and applications to provide our services. This includes a CRM system, booking system and E-learning platform. At times your information will be shared with these external systems and platforms to enable us to provide our services to you.

We do not lease, distribute or sell your information to other third parties unless we have your permission or the law requires us to do so.

When running a course or event conference, we may share your name and organisation with partners, speakers or other delegates. We will only do this when it is beneficial for the administration of an event or when sharing a list of participants will help with networking. With your agreement, we may also share your contact details with event presenters or sponsors.

We also organise events via LinkedIn and in those circumstances we download delegate information from LinkedIn.

In the event of the sale and/or the transfer of control of all or part of SIFS, Data may be transferred to or shared with any new owner or prospective purchaser. However, in such circumstances, we would take appropriate steps to ensure your privacy, where possible.

How We Collect And Store Data

We collect and hold Data in different ways and the following sections describe how we do this:

Via Our Website: Signing Up To An Email Newsletter

When you fill in a form or submit your details via our website, we will hold that information in order to send you information associated with the topic you have subscribed to. We will ask you to agree that we can hold your personal information for this purpose, as part of the sign-up process.

We gather information on email openings and link clicks to help us monitor and improve our newsletters and occasionally we may contact you to confirm that you wish to continue receiving communications from us.

If you change your mind about receiving emailed information from us, you can easily do so by unsubscribing from the next mailing you receive.

Via Our Website: Signing Up For A Course or Conference Event

We organise a continuous programme of courses and conference events, across multi-jurisdictions. Bookings take place through our Website. We will process and store the details inputted to sign up to the event.

Via Our Website: Cookies and Analytics

When you visit our Website, we automatically collect some information about your visit. This information helps us to make improvements to Website content and navigation, and includes your IP address, the date, times and frequency with which you access the Website and the way you use and interact with its content. This is done via ‘Cookies’. You always have the option to consent or disable the placing of the Cookies. However, if you choose to disable the placing of Cookies then some functionality of the website may be impaired and reduce your experience as a user. For more information generally on cookies, including how to disable them, please refer to aboutcookies.org. We also monitor the use of the Website with Google Analytics.

The Website may, from time to time, provide links to other websites. We have no control over such websites and are not responsible for the content of these websites. This privacy policy does not extend to your use of such websites. You are advised to read the privacy policy or statement of other websites prior to using them.

On Social Media

We have a number of social media platforms where we interact with individuals who follow our sites or respond to our postings. We will engage with and respond to individuals who also have a presence on these platforms. We use the analytics provided by these platforms in order to understand how our posts are engaging users.

Our Customers And People Who Email Or Telephone Us

We receive email and telephone enquiries from individuals and businesses about our services. In these cases, we enter into telephone or email correspondence with individuals in order to provide the information they need. During this process, individuals may share commercially sensitive information with us about their business.

We handle all commercially sensitive information as confidential information and will not share this with third parties unless we have your permission or the law requires us to do so.

The content of our email traffic and the documents that we receive are stored on an online Microsoft 365 platform. The Data stored on this platform is encrypted but you should be aware that if we are corresponding with you via a platform that you use which is not encrypted then these emails and their attachments may not be protected in transit.

People Applying To Work With Us

If you apply for a position with us ,all the Data you provide during the recruitment process will only be used for the purpose of contacting you and progressing your application. We will not share any of the information you provide during the recruitment process with any third parties.

The information we ask for such as your name, contact details, work experience, qualifications, entitlement to work and referees, will be used to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for. It will be accessible to the recruitment team and the senior management team.

If you are successful, the information you provide during the application process will be retained in your employment file for seven years after the termination of your employment.

If you are unsuccessful at any stage of the process the information you have provided up to that point will be retained for 6 months after the end of the recruitment process for that role, unless otherwise specifically agreed with you.

Data Retention

We retain Data in line with retention schedules. Data about our customers is retained for 5 years from the last interaction. Our data retention schedules can be viewed here: https://sifsltd.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/SIFSSharedDrive/EWElEOywP2FBgjBJiYZz3ZQBpSFnKoYrFWzN9ZYn3AyjQQ?e=AVPhDj

Even if we delete your Data, it may persist on backup or archival media for legal, tax or regulatory purposes.

Your Rights: Amending Or Accessing Data

You have the right to:

Access the Data we hold about you;

Request that we modify, update, delete, move or copy the Data we hold about you; and

To object to our use of your Data.

If you have any questions about this policy or your rights then please contact our team at events@sifs-mena.ae

If you make a complaint about our use of your Data and are not happy with our handling of that complaint, you may be able to refer your complaint to the Jersey Office of the Information Commissioner.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We keep our privacy notice under regular review and reserve the right to update it as we see necessary from time to time.

This policy was last updated on 24 October 2023