Privacy Policy
Toggle Navigation
Last updated: 8/11/2023
Purpose
American College of Education is committed to ensuring the privacy and accuracy of your confidential information. part of its commitment to maintain the privacy of its users, ACE has developed this privacy statement to educate users about privacy issues and to inform users about specific privacy policies and guidelines employed at ACE.
Scope
This policy is effective specifically for the ACE.edu website and domain, and any student information systems learning management systems, or student or public communications platforms utilized by the College, collectively known as the College’s Technology Service”.
- “College’s Technology Services” – include all College technologies and related forms such as the College website, mobile applications and text, questionnaires, surveys, referral or request for information forms, college chat boards, etc. where you may provide personal information voluntarily through the use of technology platforms and the completion of forms required for business purposes.
Consent
By visiting the ACE.edu domain and/or completing applications and forms, as applicable or using ACE student information systems and learning management systems, and similar you are indicating acceptance of the terms of this Privacy Statement and conditions in use.
Additionally, by submitting a request for information form you give American College of Education your informed consent to be contacted at the contact information provided and for the receipt of educational information via email, telephonic or SMS/text messaging services using automated technology.
For individuals located outside of the United States by visiting the ACE.edu domain and/or completing applications and forms or submitting a request for information form as described above, you also provide consent for the transfer of your data, as applicable, to the United States. Consent is not a required for admission or enrollment acceptance or to receive services.
Information Gathered by ACE
By using the College’s Technology Services such as ACE.edu or ACE student information systems and learning management systems, and similar, the College may collect Personal Information that you knowingly and voluntarily provide when completing applications and forms, including request for information or referral forms, sending emails, registering for classes or other programs or responding to surveys or questionnaires.
- “Personal or Sensitive Personal Information” means any non-public information, paper or electronic, collected directly or automatically, in personal or aggregate form that can be used to distinguish, identify, or contact a specific individual. This includes account information, social security numbers, grades, and financial or health data as well as any other information that is not considered public. Also included is all information required to be protected under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GBLA”), namely, (a) any non-public personal information (i) a student or other third party provides in order to obtain a financial service from ACE, (ii) about a student or other third party resulting from any transaction with ACE involving a financial service, or (iii) otherwise obtained about a student or other third party in connection with providing a financial service to that person; and (b) personally identifiable information as defined under state cybersecurity laws.
- For State of California residents “Personal or Sensitive Personal information” under the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) includes any information that “identifies, relates to, describes, references, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household,”
When you visit the ACE.edu domain and website our web servers may generate temporary logs that may contain the following Personal Information:
- Name, contact information, and other identifiers such as geolocation data.
- The IP address from which you access our domain and website.
- The Internet address of the website from which you linked to our domain and website.
- The type of browser and operating system used to access our domain and website.
- The date and time you access our domain and website.
- The pages, files, documents, and links that you visit in our domain and website.
- Aggregate information collected by the School or School Official internet analytics services.
Use of Gathered Information
While ACE will not share, provide, or sell Personal or Sensitive Personal Information, collected directly or automatically, in personal or aggregate form, with non-affiliated third parties for their own marketing, profiling, or targeted advertising purposes the College may actively share your information in personal or aggregate form to:
- Analyze, facilitate, manage and improve our services.
- Provide support and personalize experiences.
- Administer and improve admission and registration applications and financial services.
- Market and promote our programs and other services or provide other information we think may interest you.
- Secure and protect our domain and services and preventing misconduct.
- Respond to subpoenas, court orders, or any other legal requirements from government and law enforcement agencies or regulators.
- Protect and defend the legal rights of the College and protect your safety and/or the public’s safety.
The College may also share Personal Information with third parties such as service providers or vendors whom the College has engaged as School Officials who help the College with marketing, advertising, or promotion.
“School Officials” means employees of the College, including faculty and staff, as well as certain individuals such as vendors, contractors, or service providers, performing work for the College under proper authorization.
ACE also complies with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) administered by the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA protects students’ personal identifiable information (PII) and prohibits the release of education records without students’ permission or consent. Information on the College’s FERPA policy and practices may be found here.
The law allows us to share your account information or other personal information with non-affiliated companies when the information is used for financial transactions (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Part V, § 14-15). The following are circumstances when non-affiliated parties might be given personal information:
- Services providers to the extent necessary to enable us to provide you with the products and services you have requested, process transactions, and maintain accounts.
- Credit reporting agencies in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act .
- In connection with a proposed or actual sale, merger, transfer, or exchange of all or a portion of a business or operating unit. .
- When legally required to comply with a properly authorized civil, criminal, or regulatory investigation, or subpoena or summons by Federal, State, or local authorities. .
- When otherwise required to comply with Federal, State, or local laws, rules and other applicable legal requirements.
External Third-Party Content
Please note that this Privacy Policy applies only to your Personal or Sensitive Personal Information that the College collects from you, the College’s Site or the College’s Technology Services.
Some pages within the ACE.edu domain may contain content that is served from external third parties. Please be aware that when you visit pages that contain external third-party content, information such as your IP address, date, browser, and requested page are transmitted from your computer to that third party. ACE is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these external third parties and such links are not intended to be an endorsement of those sites nor their content.
Sites within ACE may enable you to pay for products or services online with a credit card. Although ACE makes every effort to ensure that the third parties providing these transactions are encrypted, ACE is not responsible for the privacy practices of these external third parties.
Security
Although no computer system is 100% secure, ACE has deployed extensive security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information collected through the Colleges’ services and under our control. ACE maintains physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to guard your nonpublic Personal or Sensitive Personal Information. We continually review our policy and practices, monitor our computer networks, and independently test the strength of our security to help us ensure the safety of Confidential Information. These security measures and our systems are routinely audited and updated by ACE security specialists.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), described as the most dramatic change to copyright law in a generation, was the 105th Congress’s effort to update copyright law for the digital environment. Please be aware that in accordance with Section 512(i)(1)(a) of the DMCA, ACE reserves the right to terminate computing services of users who repeatedly infringe upon the rights of copyright owners.
California Consumer Privacy Disclosure
For State of California residents, through your use of the College’s Technology Services such as ACE.edu or ACE student information systems and learning management systems, and similar, the College may collect Personal Information that you knowingly and voluntarily provide when completing applications and forms, sending emails, registering for classes or other programs or responding to surveys, “Personal Information” further includes “Sensitive Personal Information”.
Personal or Sensitive Personal Information may include:
- Email address, account name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, and passport number.
- Personal information under California’s records destruction law (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.80(e)).
- Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law.
- Commercial information, including records of personal property, products, or services purchased, obtained, or considered.
- Biometric information.
- Internet or network activity.
- Geolocation data.
- Professional or employment-related information.
- Financial account, and debit card, credit card number with security, logins, access code or password.
- Education information that is not publicly available personally identifiable information, as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 USC § 1232(g), 34 CFR Part 99).
- Inferences drawn from any of the information listed above to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.
Personal Information under the CCPA does not include aggregate consumer information,” which is defined as data that is “not linked or reasonably linkable to any consumer or household, including via a device,” as well as information that is publicly available from federal, state, or local government records.
As a California resident pursuant to the CCPA, you have certain rights. This Privacy Notice summarizes what these rights are and how you can exercise these rights. More detail about each right, including exceptions and limitations, can be found in the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CCPA”).
Right to access data
California law permits users who are California residents to request and obtain at no cost an annual list of the third parties to whom ACE has provided or disclosed personnel identifiable information (PII) in the immediately preceding calendar year. California residents shall only be entitled to have this information provided at most once per calendar year.
Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you within thirty (45) days of the receipt of such request:
- The categories and sources of personal information we collect about you.
- Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
- A list of categories of Personal Data provided to a third party for its own direct marketing purposes; and, the names of any third parties that received the California resident’s Personal Data within the preceding calendar year from us.
Right to Correct
You may request that we correct inaccurate Personal Information that we maintain about you.
Right to opt-in to sharing of minor Personal Information
If you are a California resident, under 16 and a registered user of the Services, you may ask us to opt-in to share posted to the Services by submitting a verifiable consumer request to us at the address below.
Right to be forgotten
Also, California residents have the right to request deletion any of personal information that we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions listed in the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act if retaining the information is necessary for us to facilitate your account or respond to requests under the law. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our school officials to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
Right to limit processing of Sensitive Personal Information
You may limit a business’s processing of Sensitive Personal Information subject to certain uses necessary to perform the services or provide the goods reasonably expected by an average consumer who requests those goods or services as set forth in § 1798.140(e)(2), (4), (5) and (8), of the California Privacy Rights Act.
Right to data portability
Where the basis for processing is either consent or performance of a contract between you and the College, and where the processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your Personal Information that you have provided to the College. The College will provide the Personal Information in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format. Where technically feasible and upon your request, the College will transmit the Personal Information directly to another entity.
Right to opt-out from having information sold
Under California’s Privacy law, Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.83, California residents may opt out of the sharing of Personal information to educational partners who are School Officials for their own marketing or profiling/targeted advertising purposes. However, although the College may actively share your information to facilitate, manage and improve our services the College will not share, provide, or sell Personal Information with school officials for their own marketing or profiling/targeted advertising purposes.
California Consumer Privacy Disclosure: Prospective, Current, and Former Employees
For State of California residents in connection with employment-related functions. Through your use of the College’s Technology services or recruitment and employment service providers, we may collect Personal Information you provide to us directly. Such as when you apply for employment with us, when you register for benefits, sign up for events, provide feedback, and through other interactions with us prior to, during, or after your employment. “Personal Information” further includes “Sensitive Personal Information”.
Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information may include:
- Email address, personal or business contact information, Social Security number, driver’s license number, and/or passport number.
- Personal information under California’s records destruction law (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.80(e)).
- Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law.
- Precise Geolocation data.
- Internet or network activity.
- Financial account, and debit card, credit card number with security, logins, access code or password.
- Personal or Commercial Records such as financial information and/or background check information, where permitted or required by law.
- Professional or employment-related information, such as job title, organization, professional licenses, credentials, specialty, professional affiliations, professional experience, references, performance and other evaluation information, disciplinary information, resumes, interview notes, human resource records, payroll, board of director’s appointments, or other professional information.
- Education information, such as type and date of receipt of applicable educational or experience related degrees, certificates, diplomas, recognitions, and projects or studies.
We may use gathered Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information in connection with employment-related functions:
- In connection with an employment application, such as completing pre-employment verification and screening activities, interviews, and/or testing to assess suitability for the position for which you have applied or other open positions.
- For human resources management, such as administering payroll and benefits.
- For our internal research and business improvement purposes such as managing and improving our recruitment and employment functions.
- For legal, safety or security reasons, to comply with college safety and security requirements, or for legal acts and orders or reporting requirements.
- In connection with notification of new employee benefit opportunities by the College or College partners.
As a California resident pursuant to the CCPA, you have certain rights. This Privacy Notice summarizes what these rights are and how you can exercise these rights. More detail about each right, including exceptions and limitations, can be found in the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CCPA”).
Right to access data
California law permits users who are California residents to request and obtain at no cost an annual list of the third parties to whom ACE has provided or disclosed personnel identifiable information (PII) in the immediately preceding calendar year. California residents shall only be entitled to have this information provided at most once per calendar year.
Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you within thirty (45) days of the receipt of such request:
- The categories and sources of personal information we collect about you.
- Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
- A list of categories of Personal Data provided to a third party for its own direct marketing purposes;
- The names of any third parties that received the California resident’s Personal Data within the preceding calendar year from us.
Right to Correct.
You may request that we correct inaccurate Personal Information that we maintain about you.
Right to be forgotten
Also, California residents have the right to request deletion any of personal information that we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions listed in the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act if retaining the information is necessary for us to continue to provide employee related services, or for other legally required purposes. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our school officials to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
Right to limit processing of Sensitive Personal Information
You may limit a business’s processing of Sensitive Personal Information subject to certain uses necessary to perform the services or provide the goods reasonably expected by an average consumer who requests those goods or services as set forth in § 1798.140(e)(2), (4), (5) and (8), of the California Privacy Rights Act.
Right to data portability
Where the basis for processing is either consent or performance of a contract between you and the College, and where the processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your Personal Information that you have provided to the College. The College will provide the Personal Information in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format. Where technically feasible and upon your request, the College will transmit the Personal Information directly to another entity.
Right to opt-out from having information sold
Under the CCPA California residents may opt out of the sharing of Personal information for their own marketing, profiling/targeted advertising purposes. Although the College may actively share your information to partners who are School Officials to facilitate, manage and improve our services, the College will not share, provide, or sell Personal Information with entities for their own marketing, profiling/targeted advertising purposes.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Your Personal Information may be stored and processed by service providers using cloud technology, and you understand that your information will be transferred to countries outside of your country of residence, including the United States, which may have data protection rules that are different from those of your country. In certain circumstances, courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies or security authorities in those other countries may be entitled to access your Personal Information.
The College may receive your Personal Information when you visit the College’s websites, apply for or take online courses or programs, voluntarily communicate with the College or request or services, or otherwise interact with the College while in the EU.
This GDPR Privacy Notice applies to you if:
- You are a “Person” or “Data Subject” which is a natural person, not a corporation, partnership, or other legal entity who is physically present in the EU;
- “Personal Information”—means any identifiable information that you voluntarily provide, or we collect while you are physically present in the EU and not while you are outside the EEA;
- And the Personal Information is provided to the College:
- During the course of application and enrollment into the College or College’s programs;
- While you are enrolled in the College programs;
- While you are participating in College activities or surveys;
- While you are communicating with College services.
- As part of the admissions process to evaluate applications. We also may obtain Personal Information from third parties, such as other schools, references, employers, and education as part of an application submission.
- As part of the program or course registration and scheduling process.
- To communicate College activities, messages, and special events.
The College requires Personal Information for a variety of purposes to provide requested services, including, but not limited to:
- As part of the admissions process to evaluate applications. We also may obtain Personal Information from third parties, such as other schools, references, employers, and education as part of an application submission.
- As part of the program or course registration and scheduling process.
- To communicate College activities, messages, and special events.
As a Data Subject pursuant to the GDPR, you have certain rights. This GDPR Privacy Notice summarizes what these rights under the GDPR involve and how you can exercise these rights. More detail about each right, including exceptions and limitations, can be found in Articles 15-21 and 77 of the GDPR.
Right of access
You have the right to request that the College confirm whether it is processing your Personal Information.
Right of correction
You have the right to request that the College correct any inaccurate Personal Information that it maintains about you.
Right to erasure
You have the right to request the erasure of Personal Information that the College maintains about you in certain circumstances. These circumstances are identified in Article 17 of the GDPR and include that the Personal Information is no longer necessary in relation to the purpose(s) for which it was collected.
Right to restrict processing of Personal Information
You have the right to request that the College restrict the processing of your Personal Information where one of the reasons identified in Article 18 of the GDPR apply. These reasons include that the Personal Information is inaccurate, the processing is unlawful, or the College no longer needs the Personal Information.
Right to data portability
Where the basis for processing is either consent or performance of a contract between you and the College, and where the processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your Personal Information that you have provided to the College. The College will provide the Personal Information in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format. Where technically feasible and upon your request, the College will transmit the Personal Information directly to another entity.
Right to withdraw consent
If the basis for processing your Personal Information is consent, you may revoke your consent at any time. Upon receipt of your notice withdrawing consent, and if there are no other legal grounds for the processing, the College will stop processing the Personal Information unless the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims. Revoking consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing that occurred before the revocation.
Right to file a complaint
You have the right to submit a complaint with an EU supervisory authority, specifically one in the EU Member State of your habitual residence, place of work, or place of the alleged violation, if you believe that the College’s processing of your Personal Information violates the GDPR. For more information on the process for submitting a complaint, consult the relevant EU supervisory authority.:
Contact Us
Your Rights: -– Although ACE will not share, provide, or sell Personal Information with third parties for their own marketing purposes, to notify ACE that you do not want ACE to share non-transactional information with non-affiliated companies, or exercise any rights listed above, or if you have additional questions about the College’s Privacy Policy or related items please contact us by E-mail at [email protected].
You may also contact American College of Education, Inc. in writing at the address noted below.
Attn: Office of Regulatory Affairs and Compliance
American College of Education
101 West Ohio Street, Suite 1200
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Please Note: A verifiable consumer request should contain your name and state of residence or student identifier as applicable, and the specific request as related to the rights described above. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.
The College reserves the right to update and change this Privacy Policy from time to time without notice to comply with legal requirements and/or reflect changes within the College’s privacy policy and practices. Changes to the Privacy Policy will be posted on the ACE.edu website.
Non-Discrimination: ACE will not discriminate against any person in any manner prohibited by law for exercising privacy rights under this policy.