Customer Data Protection Policy

Background

This document constitutes United States Education Information Center’s (“USEIC”) Personal Data Protection Policy which is drawn up in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (the “PDPA”). We recognize the importance and sensitivity of any personal data which we may collect from you and are committed to protecting your privacy. USEIC will endeavor to process your personal data in accordance with the PDPA and any other relevant legislation.

Please read this Data Protection Policy carefully to ensure that you are aware of and understand the nature of the data which we may collect from you, use of such data, and how you can get in touch with us if you wish to limit or withdraw the right of such data. This Data Protection Policy also generally outlines the steps which we take to protect your personal data.

References in this Policy to our partners include our strategic partners, stakeholders, and third party service providers.

Data Protection Officer (“DPO”)

In accordance with the PDPA, USEIC has appointed a Data Protection Officer within the organization to ensure compliance with the Act. The contact information of the DPO is as follows:

Collection of Personal Data

In the event that we receive personal information through this website, we will only use it to perform the specific services which you have requested.

For personal data transmitted through this website, while we take reasonable steps to ensure security, by accepting these terms and conditions, you accept that the internet is not a totally secure medium of communication of information and that such transmission will be at your own risk.

Your personal data collected and retained by USEIC will be kept confidential and will only be used in accordance with product and service conditions.

We may collect personal data from you via the following channels:

  • When you complete our internal forms;

  • When you submit an inquiry through our website;

  • When you correspond with our staff;

  • When someone refers you to us with your consent.

Use of your Personal Data

Generally your personal data is used for the following purposes:

  • To follow up with your queries or requests;

  • For compliance with other relevant laws or authorities;

  • To facilitate the processing of examinations or tests;

  • To facilitate the processing of claims;

  • For our internal administrative purposes;

  • To resolve complaints.

Disclosure of your Personal Data

Please note that in accordance with the PDPA, your personal data is required to be kept confidential and not disclosed to any third parties, without your prior consent.

However, subject to other relevant laws and the provision of our services and products, your personal data may be disclosed to the following parties/entities:

  • Our Business Partners;

  • Regulatory bodies;

  • Any relevant parties that you have authorized us to disclose to.

Disclosing and transferring your personal data in Singapore and overseas

We may from time to time, engage external partners to perform various functions for and on our behalf, such as accounting and taxes, ticketing and sales services, as well as information and communication technology services.

Accordingly, we will share your data with our partners to the extent necessary to administer any products or services you have chosen to receive from us:

  • Our partners will not be entitled to use your personal data for their own purposes unless you have consented to them doing so.

  • We will not share or disclose your personal data to any other third parties (whether for marketing purposes or otherwise) without your consent, save as otherwise required or permitted by law.

  • Please note that the partners (and, with your consent, any other third parties) to whom we disclose your information may transfer it to countries outside Singapore. Where this is the case, we will put in place measures in our contractual arrangements with them to ensure that they will provide a standard of protection to your personal data comparable to the protections provided by the PDPA and other applicable legislation.

Consent

USEIC requires your consent before we can use your personal data for a specified purpose.

Protecting your data

USEIC uses industry standard efforts to protect the confidentiality of your personal data, storage of data and taking other security measures to prevent unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal or similar risks in relation to your data. We regularly review developments in relation to security and encryption technologies.

However, you will realize that no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as totally secure and therefore, unfortunately, we cannot ensure or warrant the complete security of any information transmitted from our online products or services.

Accuracy of personal data

We will take reasonable efforts to ensure that your personal data is accurate and complete if it is used by us or when we disclose it to our partners or to other third parties in accordance with this Policy. Please note that, in most circumstances, we will presume that personal data directly provided by you will be accurate and complete. However, depending on the circumstances, we may decide to contact you to ensure that this is the case or to ask that you verify that the data we hold in relation to you is up to date.

You can request information about the ways your personal data has been used or disclosed in the past year and if required, to correct an error or omission of your personal data.

To access your personal data - Please attention your request to the DPO and allow us 30 working days to complete your request.

We will carefully review any data access request we receive from you. Please note that we may decide to reject your request if we have determined that the burden or expense of providing it would be unreasonable to us or disproportionate to your interests, if your request concerns information that is trivial, does not exist or cannot be found or it is otherwise frivolous or vexatious. Accordingly, when making any data access request from us, we recommend that you set out the circumstances and reasons for your request in as much detail as possible to enable us to properly assess the matter.

Please note that we expressly reserve the right to charge an administrative fee in relation to any request you make to access personal data we hold and/or have disclosed to third parties in relation to you in the past year. If we decide to do so, we will inform you of the fee we will charge in relation to your request beforehand and we will only proceed once we have received confirmation from you to that effect.

Withdrawing consent

You may withdraw your consent to us and/or our partners collecting, using and/or disclosing your personal data at any time by contacting our Data Protection Officer.

We will also inform our partners of your request and will ensure that our partners comply with your request, to the extent permitted or required by law. Please note that we will then delete your personal data in accordance with the retention and disposal principles set out in this Data Protection Policy.

Retention and Disposal of personal data

We will only hold your personal data for as long as required for the purposes for which it was collected or as otherwise required or permitted by law. We will regularly review and assess whether personal data can legitimately be retained, having regard to the purpose for which it was collected and any other legal or business purposes for which retention may be necessary. Where we are satisfied that we no longer need to retain your personal data, we will take prompt action to ensure that we will no longer hold on to it, either by destroying or removing your data from our systems, files and other records completely and permanently or by removing any identifying information so that it has become anonymized.

Links to other websites

USEIC’s website may contain links to other websites. USEIC is not responsible for the data protection or privacy policy of these other websites.