Privacy Policy

Novus Privacy Policy 

This Privacy Policy statement is formed by the TechSquad Solutions Limited (collectively, "TechSquad", "we", "us" or "our") and is effective as of 1st January 2021. It applies to all or any of our applications: Novus School Monitoring Portal, Novus Accounts, Novus Budgets, Novus Cash Flow 

Our Privacy Commitment 

At TechSquad Solutions, we take the privacy of our customers very seriously. We ask for only the least amount of relevant information, collecting only what we think is important for doing business, or for the particular transaction at hand. We let clients know the data we have on them and allow them to opt out of specific commitments. We do not sell your data or make any ad related revenue from it. 

The objective of this policy is to be absolutely transparent on what data we collect on behalf of our users and customers and how we will be using this data. 

Scope of Privacy Policy 

This privacy policy applies to all Cloud-based applications provided by TechSquad Solutions Limited namely Novus Apps, Novus Accounts, Novus Schools Portal, Novus Budgeting Module and Novus. We can divide our privacy policy into three parts as below 

Part I – Information Novus collects and controls 

We collect information about you only if we have a valid reason to collect it. Novus can only have information about you if 

(a) you have provided the information yourself, 

(b) the information has been gathered automatically by Novus or 

(c) the information has been received from a third party by Novus. The different scenarios that come under each of those three categories are listed below. 

Information provided by you 

● Account Registration: When you register for our services to use any of our applications, we require you to provide us with your name, company name, email address, contact number, a unique password and your DFE (Department for Education) number.

Information gathered automatically by Novus 

● When you visit our application, we collect information about the Web browser you use, the device you use, your IP address, browser type, time zone, referral URL, date and time of access & operating system. We use this information to understand how our site is being used and also for legal requirements, such as when submitting your VAT Return to HMRC, we are required to share this information. 

● We also use temporary and permanent cookies to identify users of our applications and to retain their authentication. We also use an embedded cookie for analysing traffic, navigation, demographics and user experience using Google Analytics. 

● We automatically collect a log of your use of our application such as features accessed, access time and frequency, errors generated, performance data, storage utilized, user settings and configurations, and devices used to access and their locations. This helps us improve our products and services. 

Information provided by your Local Authority 

● This applies only to schools that come to Novus Accounts through their Local Authority. If you expressed an interest in our product through your local authority, they may send us your school name, contact name and email address so we can issue you a license. 

Purposes for using your information 

We may use your information for the following purposes, in addition to the purposes listed above: 

● (Email you) To update you with any changes we have made to our Privacy Policy, Terms and conditions or any important notices; 

● To ask you to provide us your feedback to improve our products and services further. ● To provide your customer support as and when your require 

● Updating, extending and reviewing our records, finding new clients and providing you with products and services that may be of interest; 

Legal bases for collecting and using information 

If you are an individual or organization from the United Kingdom, our legal basis for information collection and use depends on the personal information concerned and the context in which we collect it. Most of our information collection and processing activities are typically based on (i) contractual necessity, (ii) one or more legitimate interests of TechSquad Solutions Limited or a third party that are not overridden by your data protection interests, or (iii) your consent.

Sometimes, we may be legally required to collect your information, or may need your personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person. 

You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time as we depend on your consent as the legal basis, but this would not change any processing that has already taken place. 

If we rely on legitimate interests as the legal basis and those legitimate interests are not mentioned above, we will clarify to you explicitly what those legitimate interests are when your information is collected. 

Your choice in information use 

By using the 'unsubscribe' feature included in all email messages, you can opt out of receiving newsletters and other non-essential messages. However, you will continue to receive notices and essential transactional emails. 

You can disable browser cookies before visiting our websites. However, if you do so, you may not be able to use certain features of the websites properly. 

You can choose not to provide optional profile information such as your photo. You can also delete or change your optional profile information. You can always choose not to fill in non-mandatory fields when you submit any form linked to our websites. 

Who we share your information with 

We do not sell any personal information for ad related revenue. We share your information only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy, and only with parties who adopt appropriate confidentiality and security measures. 

All employees of TechSquad Solutions Limited will only have access to any information covered in Part I when it is only necessary. We require all employees of TechSquad Solutions to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them. 

Your rights with respect to information we hold about you as a controller 

You have the following rights with respect to details that TechSquad Solutions keeps about you if you are in the UK. No matter where you want to live, TechSquad Solutions is committed to giving you the same rights.

Right to access: You have the right to access (and, if necessary, obtain a copy of) the categories of personal information we hold about you, including the source, intent and time of processing of the information, and the persons to whom the information is shared 

Right to rectification: You have the right to update the information we hold about you or to rectify any inaccuracies. Based on the purpose for which we use your information, you can instruct us to add supplemental information about you in our database. 

Right to erasure: You have the right to request that we delete your personal information in certain circumstances, such as when it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was originally collected. 

Right to restriction of processing: You may also have the right to request to restrict the use of your information in certain circumstances, such as when you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it. 

Right to data portability: You have the right to transfer your information to a third party in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, in circumstances where the information is processed with your consent or by automated means. 

Right to object: You have the right to object to the use of your information in certain circumstances, such as the use of your personal information for direct marketing. 

Right to complain: You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you have any grievance against the way we collect, use or share your information. 

Retention of information 

For the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy, we retain your personal information for as long as it is necessary. Sometimes, as allowed or necessary by law, we may retain your information for longer periods, such as maintaining suppression lists, preventing harassment, if required in connection with a legal claim or proceeding, implementing our agreements, taxing, accounting, or complying with other legal requirements. We will remove or anonymize your information from our active databases when we no longer have a valid need to process your information. We will also safely store and separate the information from further processing on backup disks until we can delete it. 

Part II – Information that Novus processes on your behalf 

Information provided in connection with services: You may entrust information that you or your organization (“you”) control, to Novus in connection with use of our services or for requesting

technical support for our products. This includes information regarding your customers, suppliers and your employees (if you are a controller) or data that you hold and use on behalf of another person for a specific purpose, such as a customer to whom you provide services (if you are a processor). The data may either be stored on our servers when you use our services, or transferred or shared to us as part of a request for technical support or other services. 

(All the information entrusted to Novus is collectively termed “service data”) 

Ownership and control of your service data 

We recognize that you own your service data. We provide you complete control of your service data by providing you the ability to (i) access your service data, (ii) share your service data through supported third-party integrations, and (iii) request export or deletion of your service data. 

How we use service data 

We process your service data when you provide us instructions through the various modules of our services. For example, when you generate an invoice, information such as the name and address of your customer will be used to generate the invoice;. 

Who we share service data with 

Techsquad Solutions: In order to provide services and technical support for our products, the contracting entity within the TechSquad Solutions engages other group entities and third parties. 

Employees and independent contractors: We may provide access to your service data to our employees and individuals who are independent contractors of the TechSquad Solutions involved in providing the services (collectively our “employees”) so that they can (i) identify, analyze and resolve errors, (ii) manually verify emails reported as spam to improve spam detection, or (iii) manually verify scanned images that you submit to us to verify the accuracy of optical character recognition. We ensure that access by our employees to your service data is restricted to specific individuals, and is logged and audited. Our employees will also have access to data that you knowingly share with us for technical support or to import data into our products or services. We communicate our privacy and security guidelines to our employees and strictly enforce privacy safeguards within the TechSquad Solutions Ltd. 

Other cases: Other scenarios in which we may share information that are common to information covered under Parts I and II are described in Part III.

Retention of information 

We hold the data in your account as long as you choose to use Novus. Once you terminate your Novus user account, your data will eventually get deleted from the active database during the next clean-up that occurs once in 6 months. The data deleted from the active database will be deleted from backups after 3 months. 

Data subject requests 

If you are from the United Kingdom and you believe that we store, use or process your information on behalf of one of our customers, please contact the customer if you would like to access, rectify, erase, restrict or object to processing, or export your personal data. We will extend our support to our customer in responding to your request within a reasonable timeframe. 

Part III – General 

Children's personal information 

Our products and services are not directed to individuals under 16. Novus does not knowingly collect personal information from children who are under 16 years of age. If we become aware that a child under 16 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to delete such information. If you believe that a child under 16 years has provided personal information to us, please write to privacy@techsquad-solutions.com with the details, and we will take the necessary steps to delete the information we hold about that child. 

How secure is your information 

At TechSquad Solutions, we take data security very seriously. We constantly improve our Data Centre Infrastructure to improve your security. We use only the known Cloud Services providers. We take all necessary steps to implement appropriate administrative, technical & physical safeguards to prevent unauthorized access, use, modification, disclosure or destruction of the information you entrust to us. If you have any concerns regarding the security of your data, we encourage you to check our write to us at security@techsquad-solutions.com with any questions.

Data Protection Officer 

We have also appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee our management of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and registered the Data Protection Officer with the Information Commissioner’s office. If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy practices with respect to your personal information, you can reach out to our Data Protection Officer by sending an email to dpo@techsquad-solutions.com or by writing to: Data Protection Officer, TechSquad Solutions Limited: Office 9, Dalton House, 60 Windsor Avenue, London, United Kingdom, SW19 2RR 

Locations and international transfers 

We do not share your personal information and service data outside the UK and only share the financial data that you consent and approve to your local authority. 

Data processing addendum 

To enable you to be compliant with the data protection obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018 (also known as UK GDPR), we are prepared to sign a Data Processing Addendum (DPA). 

External links on our websites 

Some pages of our websites may contain links to websites that are not linked to this Privacy Policy. If you submit your personal information to any of these third-party sites, your personal information is governed by their privacy policies. As a safety measure, we recommend that you not share any personal information with these third parties unless you've checked their privacy policies and assured yourself of their privacy practices. 

Disclosures in compliance with legal obligations 

We may be required by law to preserve or disclose your personal information and service data to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including to meet national security requirements. 

Enforcement of our rights 

We may disclose personal information and service data to a third party if we believe that such disclosure is necessary for preventing fraud, investigating any suspected illegal activity, enforcing our agreements or policies, or protecting the safety of our users.

Business Transfers 

We do not intend to sell our business. However, in the unlikely event that we sell our business or get acquired or merged, we will ensure that the acquiring entity is legally bound to honor our commitments to you. We will notify you via email or through a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership or in the uses of your personal information and service data. We will also notify you about any choices you may have regarding your personal information and service data. 

Compliance with this Privacy Policy 

We make every effort, including periodic reviews, to ensure that personal information you provide is used in conformity with this Privacy Policy. If you have any concerns about our adherence to this Privacy Policy or the manner in which your personal information is used, kindly write to us privacy@techsquad-solutions.com. We'll contact you, and if required, coordinate with the appropriate regulatory authorities to effectively address your concerns. 

Notification of changes 

We may modify the Privacy Policy at any time, upon notifying you through a service announcement or by sending an email to your primary email address. If we make significant changes to the Privacy Policy that affect your rights, you will be provided with at least 30 days' advance notice of the changes by email to your primary email address. If you think that the updated Privacy Policy affects your rights with respect to your use of our products or services, you may terminate your use by sending us an email within 30 days. Your continued use after the effective date of changes to the Privacy Policy will be deemed to be your agreement to the modified Privacy Policy. You will not receive email notification of minor changes to the Privacy Policy.