Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how IELTSBeacon.com collects, uses, and protects your personal information when you visit our website or use our services. We take your privacy seriously and are committed to transparency about our data practices.

Who we are

IELTSBeacon.com is an independent online resource for IELTS exam preparation. We are not affiliated with IDP, the British Council, Cambridge Assessment English, or any other official IELTS test provider. For questions about this policy, you can reach us through our contact page.

Information we collect

We collect different types of information depending on how you interact with our website. The categories of information are:

How we use your information

The information we collect is used for the following specific purposes:

• To provide our services. Delivering the free study guides, practice tests and resources you request from our site.
• To communicate with you. Sending you the email updates you signed up for, responding to your enquiries, and notifying you about service changes.
• To improve our content. Understanding which pages are most useful helps us decide what to improve and create next.
• To ensure security. Protecting our site from spam, abuse and security threats.
• To comply with legal obligations. Meeting our legal obligations under applicable data protection laws.

Email communications

If you sign up for our free access programme, you consent to receiving emails from IELTSBeacon. These include study tips, new content notifications, and updates about our services. We use Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) to manage email communications. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email we send. Unsubscribing removes you from our mailing list immediately. We will never sell, rent, or share your email address with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Cookies we use

Our website uses the following categories of cookies:

Third-party services we use

We use the following third-party services that may collect or process information about you:

• Google Analytics for anonymous usage statistics. Google Privacy Policy
• Google Search Console for monitoring our search performance.
• Brevo for email communications to subscribers. Brevo Privacy Policy
• Namecheap Stellar Plus hosting for hosting this website. Namecheap Privacy Policy

Your rights

Depending on your location, you may have specific rights regarding your personal information. These include:

• Right to access. You can request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to correction. If any information we hold is inaccurate, you can ask us to correct it.
• Right to deletion. You can request that we delete your personal information from our records.
• Right to object. You can object to certain types of processing, including direct marketing.
• Right to data portability. You can request your data in a portable format for transfer to another service.
• Right to withdraw consent. Where we process data based on consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us through our contact page. We will respond within 30 days.

Data security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction. These measures include:

• SSL/TLS encryption for all data transmitted between your browser and our servers
• Secure password hashing for any account credentials
• Regular security updates to our website software and plugins
• Limited access to personal data on a need-to-know basis
• Regular backups stored securely

While we work to protect your information, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security but commit to addressing any vulnerabilities promptly.

Data retention

We retain your personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this policy. Specifically:

• Email subscribers. Until you unsubscribe or we receive a deletion request
• Contact form submissions. Up to 24 months after our last interaction
• Analytics data. Anonymised and retained for up to 26 months in Google Analytics
• Server logs. Up to 12 months for security and troubleshooting purposes

Children's privacy

Our services are intended for users aged 16 and above. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately and we will delete that information.

International data transfers

IELTSBeacon is accessed by users worldwide. Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own, including countries with different data protection laws. By using our services, you consent to such transfers, subject to the protections described in this policy.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last changed. Significant changes will be communicated through a notice on our website.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please reach out through our contact page or by email. We respond to all privacy enquiries within 7 business days.