Privacy | TLC Learner Portal

Browsing this site

You can read every page of this portal without telling us who you are. There are no accounts, no logins and no forms you have to fill in just to look around.

The pages load their fonts from Google Fonts, which means your browser requests those font files from Google when a page opens. Beyond that, the pages are self-contained.

The tools and checkers

The interactive tools on this site, including the readiness check, the career fit explorer, the decision kit, the eligibility checker and the learning story, all run inside your own browser.

Nothing you type or select is sent to TLC unless you press Save to my portal at the end, with the two exceptions set out below.
Nothing is kept anywhere unless you choose to keep it, and closing the page clears your answers.
Reports and PDFs are created on your device, and only you decide who sees them.
You can use every tool on this site without giving a name.

Two tools are exceptions, and both are worth stating plainly. The apprenticeship readiness check and Every learner each send us an anonymous copy of your result at the moment it appears on your screen: the options you picked from the lists, and for the readiness check the four scores and the verdict. We use them to see which routes people are landing on and what support keeps coming up, which is how we decide what to put in place.

The same two rules cover both. Anything you typed in your own words is left out, including your name, the sentence about what teachers never understood, what you are good at and anything you wanted a trainer to know. And the copy is separate from your portal, with nothing in it that could join the two together, so neither we nor anyone else can work back from it to you. Every learner asks some searching questions, about maths, about money, about caring for someone, about difficult days, and it asks them precisely because the answers should change how we teach. What reaches us is the pattern, never the person.

Your portal, if you choose to have one

At the end of the main tools you are offered the chance to keep your result. Nothing is kept until you press that button, and you can use the whole site and never press it.

If you do keep something, here is exactly what happens. Nothing whatsoever is written to the device you are using: no account, no cookie, no hidden file. The result is stored, encrypted, on our server, and the server gives you a 32 character code which it shows you at the moment you save. That code is how you get back in.

What that code is not is a lock against TLC, and we would rather say so plainly than let you assume otherwise.

TLC staff can see what is inside your portal. We have an admin area, and through it authorised members of our team can open the portals that have been saved and read what is in them. Your portal is private from other learners and from the public. It is not private from us.
We can also retrieve the details that open your portal. If you lose your code, ask us and we can get you back in. It is not an unrecoverable, no-way-back arrangement, whatever this page may have said before.
We email you the code when it is made. That is the main reason we ask for an address: so you have your own copy and do not have to come to us for it. Keep the email, or write the code down when it appears.
Anyone holding the code can open the portal. There is nothing else to get past. Treat it like a key to a locker: keep it to yourself, and think twice before writing it on something a shared device or a shared bag would carry.
Because nothing is kept on your device, closing the tab closes the portal. Coming back means entering the code again, on any device you like.
You can read all of it, download a plain copy, or delete it in one press on your portal page. Deleting removes it from our server for good, and the code stops working straight away.

When we look, and why. Not out of curiosity, and never to mark you. Staff open portal records to help someone who has asked us for help, to answer a question about a result, to fix a fault on the site, to understand which tools are actually being used, and where there is a safeguarding concern. If there is something you would rather we could not read, the remedy is simple and it always works: do not press save. Every tool on this site runs start to finish, and gives you your full result, without ever creating a portal.

Alongside the results we can see the shape of the thing too: that a portal exists, the first and last name you gave it, the email address we sent the code to, the area you said you were looking at, when it was saved, when it was last opened, and which of the five tools it holds a result for.

The address is used for that email and nothing else. It does not go on a marketing list, and we do not sell or share it. If you would rather we did not have it, you can work through every tool on this site and read every result without ever saving one: the address is asked for only at the point of making a portal, because that is the only point at which there is a code to send.

When TLC Base opens, that page will offer to carry your saved work through with you so you are not asked the same questions twice. That only happens when you choose to go, and it is carried in the web address rather than through our servers.

If you are under 18. Anything you save to a portal can be read by TLC staff, so write it knowing a grown-up here may see it. A device is rarely as private as it feels either, and neither is a code written on a piece of paper. Please leave out anything you would not want a parent, a carer or a friend to read if they picked up your phone, and use the wipe button when you have finished if the device is shared.

The short version: you can explore every worry, question and self-check on this site without giving a name, and nothing you write reaches us unless you press save. If you do press save, TLC can see it: our team can open your portal from the admin area, and can get you back into it if you lose your code. Private from other people, not private from us. Anything you would rather we did not read, simply do not save.

When you contact us

If you express interest, send us a message through a contact form, or email us directly, we receive what you send: usually your name, your contact details and whatever you choose to tell us.

We use it to answer you, to arrange the conversations you ask for, such as a careers chat or a skills check, and for nothing else. We do not add you to marketing lists, and we do not sell or share your details.

If you tell us something in confidence, for example through a question you have asked us to keep private from your employer, we respect that. The exception is safeguarding: if what you share suggests you or someone else is at risk of harm, we may need to act on it, and our safeguarding page explains how that works.

If you enrol

Becoming an apprentice with TLC involves more information, including the details needed for your training plan, funding rules and your individual learner record. At that point you will receive a full privacy notice explaining exactly what is collected, why, how long it is kept and who it is shared with, before you sign anything.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us what information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and in many cases ask us to delete it. Write to info@tlc-uk.org and we will respond promptly.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to us first, and you also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Questions

If anything on this page is unclear, or you would like this information in another format, contact info@tlc-uk.org. Our accessibility page explains the other ways we can help.