Privacy notice
1. Who we are
Lotus Academy, LDA (“Lotus Academy”, “we”, “us”) is responsible for the personal data described in this notice.
Registered address: Avenida Engenheiro Arantes e Oliveira, 3, Sobreloja A, Sala D22, Areeiro, 1900-221, Lisboa, Portugal
Company number: 519428170
Contact for privacy matters: discover@lotus-academy-pt.com
2. What this notice covers
This notice explains how we handle personal data collected through our website, including our enquiry forms, our consultation booking, and any contact you make with us by email, telephone or WhatsApp.
It applies to enquiries and to the early stages of our admissions conversation.
3. The information we collect
When you make an enquiry or book a conversation
- Your name
- Your email address
- Your telephone or WhatsApp number
- Your country and time zone
- The age or school year of the young person you are enquiring about
- Anything you choose to tell us in the free-text field about your family and your young person
When you use our website
- Technical information such as IP address, browser type and device type
- Information about how you use the site, where you have accepted analytics cookies
See our Cookie policy for detail.
Information about a young person’s needs
Our enquiry form invites you to tell us what you would like us to understand about your young person. Many families use it to describe educational, emotional or medical needs, and this may include a diagnosis.
Information about health, including a diagnosis of ADHD, autism, dyslexia or any other condition, is treated as a special category of personal data under data protection law. It receives additional protection.
We do not require you to give us this information in order to enquire. You can tell us as much or as little as you wish, and you can raise anything sensitive in conversation rather than in writing. Where you do choose to share it through the form, we rely on your explicit consent to process it.
Information about children
Where a parent or guardian enquires, the personal data of the young person is provided by the adult, and we deal with the adult.
Where a young person contacts us directly, additional protections apply. Portuguese law sets the age at which a child can consent to online services at 13.
We do not knowingly collect personal data from children through the website other than the information a parent or guardian provides about them.
4. Why we use your information, and our legal basis
| What we do | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Respond to your enquiry and arrange a conversation | To answer your questions and explore whether Lotus Academy may suit your family | Steps taken at your request before entering a contract |
| Understand your young person’s needs so the conversation is useful | To have a meaningful discussion rather than a generic one | Our legitimate interests, and your explicit consent for any health information |
| Keep a record of our correspondence with you | To maintain an accurate account of what was discussed and agreed | Our legitimate interests |
| Improve our website | To understand how the site is used and make it better | Your consent, where analytics cookies are accepted |
| Meet our legal obligations | Where the law requires us to retain or disclose information | Legal obligation |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, our interest is in operating and developing an education service and responding properly to families who contact us. We have considered your rights and freedoms and do not believe this processing is unexpected or intrusive. You can object at any time. See section 8.
5. Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing.
We share it with service providers who help us operate:
- Website hosting. Hostinger
- Consultation booking. Calendly, which is based in the United States. See section 6
- Messaging. WhatsApp, where you choose to contact us that way. Meta Platforms Ireland Limited is separately responsible for your use of WhatsApp itself
Enquiry form submissions are sent to us by email. No personal data from the form is stored on the website itself.
We may also disclose information where we are required to do so by law, or to protect the safety of a child.
6. International transfers
Lotus Academy is based in Portugal and serves families internationally. Some of our service providers are based outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States.
Where personal data is transferred outside the European Economic Area, we rely on approved transfer arrangements, including European Commission adequacy decisions where they apply and standard contractual clauses where they do not.
7. How long we keep it
We delete or anonymise personal data when we no longer need it.
8. Your rights
Under data protection law you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Correct it if it is inaccurate or incomplete
- Ask us to erase it in certain circumstances
- Ask us to restrict how we use it in certain circumstances
- Object to processing based on our legitimate interests
- Receive certain data in a machine-readable format
- Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent. This does not affect anything done before you withdrew it
To exercise any of these, contact us at discover@lotus-academy-pt.com. We will respond within one month.
You also have the right to complain to the Portuguese supervisory authority:
Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (CNPD)
Av. D. Carlos I, 134 – 1.º, 1200-651 Lisboa, Portugal
www.cnpd.pt
If you are in another European Union or European Economic Area country, you may complain to your local supervisory authority instead.
9. Automated decision-making
We do not make decisions about admission by automated means, and we do not profile you.
10. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice. The date at the top shows when it was last changed.
