Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 6th 2025

This privacy policy (together with the terms and conditions) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by Global Admissions (UK). Please read the following carefully to understand our policy regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

We know you ("you" or the "User") care about how your personal information is used and shared – and we take your privacy seriously.

This Privacy Policy applies to all of your activities on our websites, services, web and mobile applications (www.global-admissions.com, www.china-admissions.com , www.blcuchinese.com (collectively, the "Service"). This Privacy Policy describes and governs our practices regarding the collection, processing and usage of information we collect from Users ("Personal Data"). Data we collect from Users ("Personal Data"), is used, disclosed and protected according to this Privacy Policy.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any material changes, we will notify you through one or more of the following:

• A prominent notice on our website
• An email notification (if we have your contact information)
• An alert when you next log in

We encourage you to review this page periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information. The "Last Updated" date at the top reflects the most recent changes. Your continued use of our services after changes have been made indicates your acceptance of those changes.

Consent

We only collect, use, and share your personal data when we have a lawful basis to do so. In many cases, this will be based on your explicit consent.

When We Ask for Your Consent

We will request your consent before processing your data for any of the following purposes:

• Sending you promotional emails or newsletters
• Sharing your contact details with universities or third parties for marketing or follow-up
• Using cookies or similar tracking technologies
• Allowing our AI assistant to access your profile and applications for personalized support
• Collecting and processing special categories of personal data, if applicable

You will be given the option to provide or withhold consent at the point of data collection (e.g., during account creation, event signup, chatbot use, or through a cookie banner).

Withdrawing Consent

You may withdraw your consent at any time by:

• Adjusting your communication preferences in your account settings
• Opting out via links in our emails
• Contacting our support team directly

Please note that withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before your withdrawal.

Mandatory vs. Optional Consent

Some types of data processing are required to deliver our core services (such as processing your university application). In these cases, your consent is not optional, and if you do not provide the required data, we would not be able to provide the service.

Other types of data use (such as receiving promotional updates or enabling chatbot personalization) are optional, and you can opt out at any time without affecting your access to core services.

If you have any questions or concerns about how we use consent, you can contact us at [email protected]

What we collect

We may collect and process the following information about you:

• Information which you provide to us from any of the input areas within the website.
• Information which you provide to us by any other means including (without limitation) telephone, fax or post.
• Information which you provide to us in connection with your application, which will be handled in accordance with this privacy policy and our data protection statement, which forms part of the declaration.
• If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.

By using or accessing the Service in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy, and you hereby agree that we may collect, use, and share your information as set forth below. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, the term "includes" or "including" mean including without limitation.

If you do not agree with any of the terms in this Privacy Policy, you should not use the Service. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email or mail using the contact information provided.

What we do with the information

We use personal information held about you in the following ways:

• to process your application.
• to notify you about changes to our service.
• to ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
• to keep you informed (with your consent) by electronic means, or other means, of information about specific funding, sponsorship opportunities or services and products that we think may be of interest to you.
• to provide you (unless you object) with general information relevant to students.

We may share personal information included in your application, or which you subsequently supply to us, with the staff of the institutions which (i) you have previously or currently attend as a student or (ii) you are making application to attend for further or higher education as indicated in your application (either directly or through a third party on your behalf). This may include cross-border transfer depending on your location and the university you are applying to.

Once we have provided your data to the institutions you are applying to, we no longer have control over the information and recommend that you contact them directly if you have questions about how it is handled.

We may share your information with our service providers including internet service providers, data and banks, financial institutions, service providers that help us verify your identity and help us comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; and our business, legal, tax, financial and other advisors, on a confidential basis. Your personal data may be maintained and processed by third party service providers. We do not authorise them to use or disclose personal data for their own marketing or other purposes.

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website and database, or conducting our business as those parties agree to keep this information confidential.

As part of your application, you will be asked if you wish to nominate a representative who may speak to Global Admissions on your behalf. You do not have to nominate a representative but where you do so you must have their consent that they will to act as your representative and that we may hold their personal details including their name and contact details. We will only discuss your application, give information or take directions from your nominated representative if you make us aware that you have appointed one.

We may, on occasion, be required to undertake a check of your identity. This will be conducted in confidence. We will normally discuss this with you prior to carrying out any identity checks except as set out in our data protection statement.

Global Admissions will cooperate, where it is required to do so, with enquiries from authorities which demonstrate a legal requirement for access to information about you.

All personal data that has been collected from you will only be stored for the duration that is relevant to the purpose for which it was processed and for as long as required by applicable law (usually 6 months).

Chatbot & AI Features

What Data We Collect

When you use our on-site chatbot, we process any text you enter (for example, questions about programs, or general inquiries). We also collect limited technical data -such as your IP address, browser type, and timestamps—for security, performance monitoring, and to improve our chatbot experience.

Notice at Signup

You'll be informed that any chat conversations may be reviewed by our support team. You will also be asked whether you want the AI to access your profile, saved programs, and applications to provide personalized recommendations - or you can decline and still use the chatbot.

How We Use That Data

Real-Time Responses

• Your input is sent to a third-party AI provider (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic) to generate an immediate response.
• We store full chat transcripts so that our support team can review them for quality, troubleshooting, and service improvement and provide support. Anonymized logs may also be used for broader debugging and performance analysis.

Third-Party AI Providers

We use OpenAI to power our chatbot. That provider may process and temporarily cache your inputs for the purpose of generating an answer. Under our current agreement, OpenAI does not store or use these inputs for model training. Learn more at OpenAI's Data Controls page: https://platform.openai.com/account/data-controls .

Your Choices & Controls

You may choose to allow AI to access your profile, saved programs, and applications to provide personalized recommendations. You can turn off anytime from your account settings, and don't need to share access to use the AI.

Disable Chatbot Entirely

If you do not wish to use our chatbot, simply do not click the chat icon. No data is ever collected unless you initiate a conversation.

Delete Chat History

You may clear your chatbot history at any time by clicking. Account Settings → Chatbot History → Delete All.

Data Subject Rights

As described in this policy, you may request a copy of any data we've retained (e.g., anonymized logs) or request its deletion. See "Your Rights" for details.

Security & Retention

• We encrypt all data in transit using TLS.
• Chat transcripts are stored for training purposes and may be accessed by our support agents to help you. You can delete your conversations at any time here.
• If you request data deletion, all personal identifiers linked to your chat inputs will be removed within 30 days.

Communication

The information we collect from you in connection with your application will include (without limitation) your name; postal and email address; and telephone numbers, both home and mobile. If any of these details change, it is important that you tell us straight away so that we can communicate with you about your application.

We will normally communicate with you by electronic means in respect of any application made by you.

You may contact us by any of the methods set out on our contact us page of the website. If you have any questions about our use of your personal data, contact us here.

If we intend to use any Personal Data in any manner that is not consistent with this Privacy Policy, you will be informed of such anticipated use prior to or at the time the Personal Data is collected, and we will obtain your consent for any such use. You can also disable the consent by contacting us on our support center or from your settings.

Promotional Information and Suggestions

In addition, from time to time, we would like to make use of your personal information to send you promotional information about (without limitation) products and services which may be of interest to you. Commercial mailings may include information sent by the Global Admissions on behalf of carefully selected third parties; these can include information on accommodation, discounts, tickets, travel, banking, and professional associations. Please note that except as set out in this privacy policy or data protection statement, your details will not be released to any third party.

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

You may, at any time, withdraw your permission for Global Admissions to use your personal information for the purposes of sending mailings by contacting us.

Transfer

Except for the purposes described above, we will not transfer your Personal Data to any company, organization or individual, except in the following circumstances:

• we may transfer your Personal Data to other parties with your explicit consent; or
• in case of any acquisition, merger, insolvency or liquidation of Global Admissions, if the transfer of Personal Data is involved, we will require the new company, organization or individual in possession of your Personal Data to continue to be bound by this Privacy Policy, or we will require such company, organization or individual to obtain your authorization and consent for any use of your Personal Data.

International Transfer

The Location Of Your Data

These facilities are either operated by Global Admissions, Global Admissions or our third-party providers. By using the Service, you are consenting to have this data stored, transferred and processed according to this Privacy Policy. Personal Data collected will be primarily stored at hosting facilities located in the USA.

Global Admissions is a global company. Subject to applicable laws, we may transfer your Personal Data to any CA or GA affiliate worldwide when processing that data for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. We may also transfer your Personal Data to our third party service providers, who may be located in a country or area outside the European Economic Area ("EEA").

EEA, SWITZERLAND AND UK ONLY

The EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"): In May 2018, a data privacy law known as the EU General Data Protection Regulation became effective. The GDPR requires us to tell you about the legal grounds we are relying on to process any Personal Data about you. The legal grounds for us processing your Personal Data in conjunction with the Service will be that: (i) you provided your consent; (ii) the processing is necessary for our contractual relationship; (iii) the processing is necessary for us to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations; or (iv) the processing is in our legitimate interest in providing you with the Service.
Transfers of Personal Data: Global Admissions and Global Admissions is a global company; thus, we will need to transfer your Personal Data outside of the country from which it was originally collected. This may be intra-group or to third parties that we work with who may be in jurisdictions outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, that have no data protection laws or laws that are less strict than those in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. Whenever we transfer Personal Data outside of the EEA, Switzerland or the UK, we take all legally required steps to make sure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your Personal Data.

Personal Data Retention/Rights: We retain your Personal Data for as long as necessary to provide you with the Service, comply with applicable laws, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements. If you have an account with us, we will typically retain your Personal Data for a period of 90 days after you have requested that your account is closed, or for up to seven years after your account becomes inactive but is not closed.

Data protection laws provide you with rights in respect to Personal Data that we hold about you, including the right to request a copy of the Personal Data, the right to request that we rectify, restrict or delete your Personal Data, and the right to unsubscribe from marketing communications.

You can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact information set out in this policy.

If you have a complaint about how we handle your Personal Data, please contact us as set forth in this policy If you are not happy with how we have attempted to resolve your complaint, you may contact the relevant data protection authority.

Global Admissions as a Data Controller and a Data Processor:

EU data protection law distinguishes between organizations that process Personal Data for their own purposes (known as "data controllers") and organizations that process personal data on behalf of other organizations or individuals (known as "data processors"). If you have any questions or complaints about how your Personal Data is handled, these should always be directed to the relevant data controller since they are the ones with primary responsibility for your Personal Data.

Global Admissions may act as either a data controller or a data processor with respect to your Personal Data, depending on the circumstances. We will be a data controller of any information you submit to us in order to create a User account or an Organizer account. However, once a User submits Personal Data to an Organizer in conjunction with use of the Services, Global Admissions and Global Admissions becomes a data processor with respect to the Organizer Collected Personal Data.

Public Disclosure

We will disclose your Personal Data to the public only under the following circumstances:

• you have explicitly authorized us to disclose your Personal Data;
• disclosing your Personal Data is in the interest of national security; public health, or another major public interest;
• your Personal Data is relevant to any criminal investigation, prosecution, judgment, or enforcement;
• disclosing your Personal Data is necessary to protect yours or another individual's life, property or other major lawful right;
• Personal Data is disclosed voluntarily by you to the public;
• Personal Data is collected from public channels, such as news reports or from public government documents.

Pursuant to applicable laws, sharing and transfer of aggregated data which cannot be recovered by the recipient to re-identify individual Personal Data does not constitute sharing, transfer and disclosure of Personal Data, and therefore it may be stored and processed without notice to you and without your consent.

Cookies

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify you as an individual.

For more information about the cookies we use and how to manage your preferences, please see our Cookie Policy.

Other Websites

The website may contain links that make it easy for you to visit other websites. Global Admissions does not have any control over these websites. Therefore, if you use these links to leave Global Admissions and visit websites operated by third parties, Global Admissions cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information that you provide whilst visiting these websites.

Minors

We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 14. If you are under 14, please do not attempt to register for the Service or send any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 14, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 14 may have provided us with personal information, please contact us on our support center .

Requesting or Amending Information

You may request for us to provide you with details of personal information that we hold about you by contacting us.

To the extent you have authorized us to collect and process your Personal Data, you may withdraw that authorization by deleting information, turning off device functions, or changing privacy settings on our website or in our software. You may also stop using the Service so that we cannot continue collecting your Personal Data. Please note that some parts of the Service may not function properly if you remove our authorization to collect your Personal Data. For any Personal Data that you have authorized the Organizers directly, you should contact the Organizers to withdraw such authorization.

If you request us to do so we will making changes or remove the information that we hold about you. We will change certain limited information that we hold about you where you tell us it is incorrect.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy policies, please send us a detailed message through our support center .

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about how your personal data is handled, or if you would like to exercise your privacy rights, you may contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) or designated privacy representative:

Email: [email protected]