OTT’s privacy policy
We are Optical Technology Training Ltd, based in the UK, established in 1989. You can contact us here. This Privacy Policy describes the information and data collection, storage, and use practices and policies we use on our websites at https://www.ott.training and https://www.ott.co.uk. This Privacy Policy is only applicable to our websites and not to any other websites that you may be able to access from it using links such as those provided in our fibre field guides, each of which may have data collection, storage, and use practices and policies that differ from ours. When you leave our website via a link to another website, you are subject to that site’s terms and policies.
The information we collect via our website will be different depending on whether
> you are a casual visitor who does not make any contact with us
> you complete an enquiry form expressing your interest in our services
> you are registered with us or one of our partners to complete an OTT certification course
Casual visitors
If you are a casual visitor then we only collect information using some basic tracking cookies as described elsewhere in this policy. Information we obtain this way is typically only stored temporarily and will not be available to us within 10 days of your visit. We do not share this information with anyone. We cannot specifically identify you, unless you already have a known relationship with us such as being one of our partners.
Enquirers
If you complete an enquiry form, or contact us via email, then we will collect the data you provide to us in that contact. That data will be passed on to the relevant partner in our partner network who is best served to meet your requirement. By completing an enquiry contact you consent to us doing this unless you specifically request us not to. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting us again. It is likely that most of your future contact will be with one of our partners, as we do not sell direct. We do not currently take payments directly from our site.
Registered trainees
If you are a registered trainee who is attending or has attended one of our certification courses, we will collect the data you provide to us when you complete a registration form to obtain access to the online resorces to support you course. By completing a course resources registration form you are authorising us to use the information you give for the purposes of verifying your right to access these resources and for maintaining control of your access. We are the awarding body for the certification attached to the course you are attending. We don’t do anything with your data that you wouldn’t expect us to need to do in order to assess, award, verify and record your certification. The full terms of your access to the online resources are available here.
Information about how you use our website is collected automatically using “cookies”. Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity.
Cookies are small pieces of data, stored in text files, that are stored on your computer or other device when websites are loaded in a browser. They are widely used to ‘remember’ you and your preferences, either for a single visit (through a ‘session cookie’) or for multiple repeat visits (using a ‘persistent cookie’). They ensure a consistent and efficient experience for visitors, and perform essential functions such as allowing users to register and remain logged in. Cookies may be set by the site that you are visiting (known as ‘first party cookies’), or by third parties, such as those who serve content or provide advertising or analytics services on the website (‘third party cookies’).
We do use some necessary cookies to enable the functionality and security of our site, such as showing you a cookie notification banner and showing what cookies are on the site.
We also do use some basic analytic tracking cookies set by trusted third party networks such as Google Analytics, Microsoft analytics, & Statcounter to track details such as the number of unique visitors, the page views and the paths visitors follow.
Why do we do this? Because it allows us to check that some sales enquiries that we receive are valid and are not spam as we can correlate a recorded visit with a subsequent enquiry, by using location date, pages visited and exit action such as clicking on our contact email. Also having some insight into pages visited and paths taken, allows us to improve our site and our service to you by trying to correct any stages during a visit where it is not obvious to you how to find what you are looking for.
The course resources (logged-in only) area of the site uses functional cookies to make the membership and learning management systems work. Without these we would be unable to enable password reset facility, show you your progress in a course and scores for exercises, accept assignment uploads etc. Find more info in the full resources terms page. You’ll also find some more detail on the technical background stuff below.
We don’t use cookies for displaying advertising from any other organisations or even ourselves. We don’t have any affiliate relationships with any organisations referred to in our field guide. We won’t follow you about with adverts. We don’t do direct mail marketing or email newsletters anymore. Unless you contact us directly asking for information, it is very unlikely we will contact you. The only exceptions are rare and might be if tracking information led us to believe that an authorised trainee was having trouble accessing the site, or if we already have a relationship with you and activity is flagged for some reason.
For uniform representation of fonts, this page uses web fonts provided by Google. When you open a page, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly. For this purpose your browser has to establish a direct connection to Google servers. Google thus becomes aware that our web page was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web fonts is done in the interest of a uniform and attractive presentation of our plugin. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. If your browser does not support web fonts, a standard font is used by your computer. Further information about handling user data, can be found at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google’s privacy policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
Our website uses features provided by the Vimeo video portal. This service is provided by Vimeo Inc., 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA. If you visit one of our pages featuring a Vimeo video, a connection to the Vimeo servers is established. Here the Vimeo server is informed about which of our pages you have visited. In addition, Vimeo will receive your IP address. This also applies if you are not logged in to Vimeo when you visit our plugin or do not have a Vimeo account. The information is transmitted to a Vimeo server in the US, where it is stored. If you are logged in to your Vimeo account, Vimeo allows you to associate your browsing behavior directly with your personal profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your Vimeo account. For more information on how to handle user data, please refer to the Vimeo Privacy Policy at https://vimeo.com/privacy.
The course resources on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, webpages etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Our website uses features provided by a number of security utilities to keep the site safe from malware and other threats. In order to do this various things need to happen. The IP address of visitors, user ID of logged in users, and username of login attempts are conditionally logged to check for malicious activity and to protect the site from specific kinds of attacks. Examples of conditions when logging occurs include login attempts, log out requests, requests for suspicious URLs, changes to site content, and password updates. This information is retained for 60 days. This site is scanned for potential malware and vulnerabilities by a Site Scanner. We do not send personal information to the scanner and, as we do not allow public comments, it is unlikely the scanner could find personal information during the scan.
This site is part of a network of sites that protect against distributed brute force attacks. To enable this protection, the IP address of visitors attempting to log into the site is shared with a security service. If you’d like specific details please contact us for more information. Just like you, we’d like to live in a world where we didn’t need to do any of this security stuff.
Under data protection law, you have rights including:
Your right of access: which means that you have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification: which means that you have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure: which means that you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing: which means that you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Please contact us here if you have any questions about our privacy policy or about any information we hold about you, or if you have any concerns or complaints.
