Privacy Policy

Introduction

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information is collected when you visit our website, how it is collected, how we may use that information, where it may be stored and processed, how long we store it for, and how we protect it. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal information.
This Privacy Policy also applies where you interact with third-party services that we use in connection with our website and services, as further described below.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at privacy@gordonstoun.jp or, if you prefer to call or write to us, you can find our contact details at the bottom of this page.

COOKIE NOTICE: We do not currently use cookies or similar tracking technologies on this website, except where strictly necessary for the operation and security of the site.
We may introduce cookies or similar technologies in the future for analytics or marketing purposes. Where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent before doing so and provide you with appropriate controls and information.

1. Who We Are

We are Gordonstoun School Japan West, operated by OCC Educational Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as "we", "us", or "our"). We are incorporated and registered in Japan as a school corporation with registration number 1120005004776. Our registered office is at 1-3-61 Maruyamadori, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka 545-0042, Japan.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, we are referred to simply as "we."

We may work closely with our affiliated institutions, including our Scotland-based school, in delivering educational services. Depending on the circumstances, such institutions may act as independent data controllers or jointly with us in relation to certain processing activities.

2. What This Privacy Policy Governs

This Privacy Policy applies to our website, www.gordonstoun.jp, and any other services we may provide through our website (referred to as "our services"), including where you are redirected to or interact with third-party platforms that we use to collect or process personal information on our behalf.

In the context of this Privacy Policy, "personal information" means information which, on its own or in combination with other information, can be used to identify you — in particular by reference to an identifier such as your name, your address, or location data.

We process personal information in accordance with applicable data protection laws and rely on different legal bases depending on the purpose of processing, including consent, contractual necessity, and legitimate interests.

Note for Minors: Our website and services are not intended for children under the age of 16 without parental consent. If you are under 16, you must obtain your parent’s or guardian’s permission before submitting any personal information through our website or services. We encourage parents to monitor their children’s use of our website and services.

3. Applicable Law and International Compliance

Because we are a school located in Japan, the personal information you give us or that we collect from you will be held in accordance with the Act on the Protection of Personal Information of Japan (個人情報の保護に関する法律, hereinafter "APPI") and its related guidelines and Cabinet Office Ordinances.

We are a personal information handling business operator (個人情報取扱事業者) as defined under the APPI. In other words, we determine the purposes for which and the manner in which your personal information is, or are to be, processed by us.

In addition to complying with the APPI, we will comply with applicable international data protection laws where they apply to our processing activities, including:

  • The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 ("GDPR"), applicable to individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA);
  • The UK General Data Protection Regulation ("UK GDPR"), applicable to individuals in the United Kingdom;
  • Other applicable international data protection laws and guidelines where relevant.

By aligning our practices with both Japanese law and these international frameworks, we aim to ensure a consistently high standard of data protection for all individuals whose personal information we process, regardless of their location. Where we transfer personal information across borders, we will implement appropriate safeguards in accordance with applicable laws.

4. How You Consent to Us Collecting Your Personal Information

When you visit our website, you may be directed to this Privacy Policy.
We process personal information in accordance with applicable data protection laws and rely on different legal bases depending on the purpose of processing, including consent, contractual necessity, and legitimate interests.
Where we rely on your consent, we will obtain it through appropriate mechanisms (such as forms, checkboxes, or similar tools) and you will have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

You are not required to provide personal information in all cases. However, where certain information is necessary for us to provide services to you, we may not be able to offer those services if such information is not provided.

Caveat: Even if you do not actively provide personal information, we may automatically collect certain technical information from your device when you use our website and services. This may include your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting, operating system, and other usage data.
We use this information for purposes such as administering our website and services, ensuring security, troubleshooting, data analysis, and improving performance.

5. Information We Collect

A. Information you give to us

You may give us personal information by filling in forms on our services or on third-party platforms that we use (such as application or enquiry forms), or by corresponding with us by phone, email, or otherwise. This includes information you may provide when you register to use our website, subscribe to our services, search our website, participate in any discussion boards or other social media functions on our website, enter a competition, promotion or survey, or when you report a problem with our website.
Where you provide information relating to a child, you confirm that you have the authority to do so and, where required, that you have obtained appropriate consent from a parent or guardian.

The information you give us may include:

  • Your name
  • Your child’s/children's name
  • Address
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • IP address
  • Financial and credit card information
  • Personal description
  • Photographs and/or videos

B. Information we collect about you

When you visit our website we may collect information about you, including which pages you have visited (including date and time), which services and pages you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, files downloaded, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from a page.

The purpose of this information is to administer our website and services, ensure their security, and improve their functionality. We may rely on our legitimate interests or other applicable legal bases to process such information.

C. Information we receive from other sources

Data collected from any of the other sites we operate may be shared internally and combined with data collected on our website and our services. We are also working closely with third parties (including, for example, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, analytics providers, and search information providers) and may receive information about you from them. These third parties may act as data processors on our behalf or, in some cases, as independent data controllers. Their use of your personal information will be subject to their own privacy policies.

D. Information you may pass to third parties outside our control

On some of the pages on our website you may see social buttons. These enable you to share or bookmark pages on our website. These may include buttons for: X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, Slack, or other social features. In order for us to implement these buttons and connect them to the relevant social networks and external sites, scripts may be executed from domains owned by third parties and outside of our control.

These third parties may collect information about your interactions with our website in accordance with their own privacy policies. We recommend that you check the respective policies of each of these sites to see how they use your personal information and to find out how to opt out or delete such personal information.

Additional privacy policies may apply depending on your relationship with us (for example, as a parent, student, alumnus/alumna, or staff member). If you are unsure, please contact us.

6. How We May Use Your Personal Information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes, and we rely on different legal bases depending on the purpose of processing, including contractual necessity, legitimate interests, and, where applicable, your consent:

  • To perform our obligations under any contracts entered into between you and us, and to provide you with information and services that you request from us.
  • To provide you with information about our school and educational programmes.
  • To ensure that content from our website and our services is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device.
  • To administer and improve our website and services, including security, troubleshooting, and performance optimisation.

If you provide us with your contact details, we may contact you using those details for purposes described above. However, we will not use your personal information for marketing purposes without your express consent.

Marketing

Where you have opted in to receive communications from us, we may contact you via email, SMS, telephone, post, or other communication channels.

You may withdraw your consent or opt out of such communications at any time.

In order to facilitate such communications, we may share your personal information with third-party service providers acting on our behalf (such as communication or messaging service providers).

We do not sell your personal information. We will not share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes without your consent.

7. Disclosure of Your Information

We may share your personal information within our group and affiliated educational institutions where necessary for operational and administrative purposes. Such sharing will be limited to what is necessary and carried out in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

In some cases we may disclose information about you to select third parties. Where required under applicable law (including Japanese law), we will obtain your consent before sharing your personal information with third parties, unless an exception applies:

  • We may anonymise and aggregate your information with other users. We may use such aggregate and anonymised information to help reach a particular target audience or understand who uses our website.
  • Debt collection agencies where you have breached a condition of any contract entered into between us and you.
  • If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal information held by us about you may be one of the transferred assets.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce any agreements with you, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our pupils, our employees, or others.

8. Where We Store Your Personal Information

Your personal information may be stored and processed in Japan, the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area (EEA), or other jurisdictions where our service providers operate.
We use third-party service providers, including cloud service providers (such as Google LLC), to store and manage personal information on our behalf. These providers may process personal information in multiple locations depending on their infrastructure and operations.
Where personal information is transferred outside your country of residence, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with applicable data protection laws. These safeguards may include adequacy decisions, standard contractual clauses, or other legally recognised mechanisms.
Where required under applicable law (including Japanese law), we will take additional steps, such as obtaining your consent or ensuring that the recipient provides an equivalent level of data protection.

If we have provided you with (or you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website or services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. Please do not share your password with anyone.

Any online payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL/TLS technology.

While we take appropriate measures to protect your personal information, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to or from our website or services, and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard it.

We apply a 'Privacy by Design' approach to protecting your personal information, ensuring that data protection principles are integrated into our systems and processes from the outset.

9. Data Retention

We will retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, to comply with legal obligations, or to enforce our agreements. The retention period may vary depending on the type of information and the purpose for which it was collected.
After this period, we will securely delete, anonymise, or otherwise dispose of your personal information in a manner consistent with applicable laws and internationally recognised data protection standards.

10. Your Rights

Under the APPI and, where applicable, under internationally recognised data protection frameworks such as the GDPR (for EEA residents) and UK GDPR (for UK residents), you have certain rights in relation to your personal information. These include:

  • The right to access personal information we hold about you.
  • The right to request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
  • The right to request deletion of your personal information (subject to legal and contractual obligations).
  • The right to request restriction of processing of your personal information.
  • The right to object to processing of your personal information.
  • The right to data portability (where applicable).
  • The right to withdraw your consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information or to restrict the purposes for which we may process it. However, if you have an account on our website or our services and you withdraw your consent, we may suspend or terminate your access to certain parts of our website or our services.

If you change your mind about consenting to our collection or processing of your personal information, you may request the deletion of information we hold about you.

Please note that we may be required to retain certain information due to legal obligations, contractual requirements, or legitimate interests, for example where personal information relates to another pupil or ongoing obligations, but we will inform you accordingly.

11. Access to Information

Applicable law gives you the right to access a copy of the personal information we hold about you. To request a copy, please submit a request using the contact details at the bottom of this page.

Please be aware that certain types of data cannot be disclosed as part of your request. For example, we cannot disclose information that identifies another individual or information subject to legal protection. In many cases we may be required to redact some documentation in order to comply with applicable law.

We can only release your personal information to you or an authorised third party who can demonstrate that you have consented to the release — this is a legal requirement. We must confirm your identity before releasing any personal information.

If you send us a request to provide a copy of your personal information, we may ask you to provide identification. We may ask for:

  • A copy of your valid passport, driver's licence, or My Number Card (マイナンバーカード)
  • A recent utility bill or Certificate of Residence (住民票) no more than three (3) months old confirming your current address

We may also ask you to visit one of our offices or obtain confirmation of your identity from a notary public (公証人). We appreciate this may seem onerous, but we have an obligation to protect your personal information and must ensure it is released only to the appropriate person.

12. What If I Do Not Consent or Withdraw Consent?

If you do not consent to us collecting your personal information, then we cannot guarantee the full functionality of our website and our services and cannot be held responsible or liable to you for any reduction or restriction in access to our website or any of our other services.

Our website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the sites of our partners and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these sites, please note that these sites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal information to these sites.

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise your rights, or have any concerns about how we handle your personal information, please contact us:

OCC Educational Corporation Limited
1-3-61 Maruyamadori, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka 545-0042, Japan
Email: privacy@gordonstoun.jp
Tel: +81-6-6652-2091

Last updated: Mar 31 2026