Effective date: October 2025
1. Who We Are
VIMA Education Ltd (Trading as Virtuoso Academy) (‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’) operates the Virtuoso residential music course in partnership with Winchester College. We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Website: https://strings.vima.org.uk
Contact for data protection queries: info@vima.org.uk
2. The Data We Collect
We collect and process a range of personal data to manage applications, bookings, and participation in the Virtuoso Academy courses. This may include:
• Contact details (name, email, address, phone number)
• Application and course information (instrument, age, playing level, emergency contacts)
• Medical and dietary information (for safeguarding and welfare)
• Payment and billing information (processed securely through third-party payment services)
• Website usage and communication data (cookies, contact forms, newsletter subscriptions)
• Images, video, and recordings where consent has been provided for promotional use
3. Lawful Bases for Processing
We process personal data under the following lawful bases as defined by the UK GDPR:
• Contract – to deliver our educational services and manage bookings.
• Legal obligation – for safeguarding, health and safety, and record-keeping.
• Consent – for marketing communications, photography, and the processing of special category data (e.g. medical details).
• Legitimate interests – to improve our services, maintain security, and ensure appropriate pastoral care.
4. Special Category Data and Children’s Information
As our courses may include participants under the age of 18, we collect and process special category data such as health, dietary, and safeguarding information. This information is processed only where necessary for the provision of appropriate care and protection, and always in accordance with our safeguarding and data protection policies. We obtain parental or guardian consent before collecting or processing any data relating to children.
5. How We Use Personal Data
We use the information we collect to:
• Manage course applications and administration.
• Communicate with students, parents, and guardians.
• Ensure appropriate safeguarding and pastoral care.
• Maintain health and safety records.
• Process payments and issue invoices.
• Provide information about future courses and opportunities (where consent is given).
6. Sharing Your Data
Your personal data may be shared with the following parties, where necessary for the purposes outlined above:
• Winchester College (venue and safeguarding partner).
• Course tutors and pastoral staff (for educational and welfare purposes).
• Third-party service providers, such as payment processors, IT hosting, and email marketing services.
We do not sell or rent personal data to any third parties.
7. International Data Transfers
Some of our third-party service providers may transfer personal data outside the UK. Where this occurs, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as adequacy decisions or standard contractual clauses approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
8. Data Retention
We retain personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes it was collected for, including any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements:
• Course and application data – retained for 5 years after the last course attended.
• Mailing list data – retained until you unsubscribe.
• Financial and safeguarding records – retained for statutory periods in line with UK law.
All data is securely deleted or anonymised after the retention period expires.
9. Your Data Protection Rights
Under the UK GDPR, you have the following rights:
• To access your personal data.
• To request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
• To request erasure of your data (‘right to be forgotten’).
• To restrict or object to processing.
• To withdraw consent at any time (where consent is the lawful basis).
• To data portability.
• To lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe your data has been mishandled.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@vima.org.uk.
10. Cookies
Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience and gather anonymised usage statistics. You can manage or disable cookies at any time via your browser settings. For further details, please refer to our Cookie Policy.
11. Data Security
We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. Access to personal data is limited to staff and contractors who require it for legitimate business purposes and who are subject to confidentiality obligations.
12. Updates to this Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or operations. The latest version will always be available on our website and will indicate the effective date.Who we are
Virtuoso is a residential music course run in partnership with Winchester College. Our website address is: https://strings.vima.org.uk.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, 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.
How long we retain your data
For people who sign up for our mailing list and students who apply for our courses,
we store the personal information they provide in their application form for a maximum of 5 years. Our website administrators can see and edit this information.
What rights you have over your data
You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
