Privacy Notice

Applying to study abroad means handing someone your passport, your results and your family's plans. This page sets out exactly what we do with that, in plain language rather than legal shorthand.

It covers this website and the application service behind it. We follow the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, and the sections below are written to answer the questions that Act says you are entitled to ask.

Who we are

Espelum-Spring Nigeria Ltd is the data controller, which means we decide what is collected and why. You can reach us at info@espelumspring.com or +234 806 976 6484.

Ibadan office. First Floor, Premium House, Beside First Bank, Magazine Road, Jericho, Ibadan.

Abuja office. Suite 114B, First Floor, Fusion Plaza, Plot 312, Olusegun Obasanjo Way, Wuye, Abuja.

What we collect

When you apply

The application form asks for:

• Your name, email address, phone number, date of birth, nationality, first language, gender and marital status.
• Your education so far: where you studied, to what level, your grading scheme and grade, your field of study, the courses and country you are interested in, and the intake you want to start.
• Your visa history, including whether you have been refused a visa before and the details of any refusal, and any permit you currently hold.
• The budget range you are working with.
• Documents you upload: your school certificate, international passport, transcripts, CV, degree certificate where you have one, and anything else you choose to attach.
• Optionally, the name of whoever referred you, an emergency contact and their phone number, and any notes you want to add.

When you send an enquiry

Your name, email address, an optional phone number and subject, and your message.

When you share your story

If you accept an invitation to write a testimonial, we collect the name you want shown, your course, institution, country and level of study, what you wrote, and your explicit agreement to publish it. We only publish it after you tick that box, and we can take it down whenever you ask.

Automatically

We record the IP address a form was submitted from. It exists to stop automated abuse of our forms, nothing else. We do not use analytics, advertising pixels or tracking cookies of any kind. The only cookies this site sets are the ones that keep you signed in to your own application and protect forms against cross-site attacks.

Why we use it, and on what basis

• To prepare and submit your applications. This is necessary to perform the service you asked us for.
• To keep you updated by email about your application's progress, and to let you track it yourself. Also necessary to perform the service.
• To answer enquiries you send us, on the same basis.
• To publish a testimonial, only with your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• To protect our forms from automated abuse, which is our legitimate interest in keeping the service working for real applicants.

Giving us this information is not a legal requirement, but we cannot prepare an application without it. A university will not consider one without documents.

Who we share it with

We share your application and documents with the universities and colleges you are applying to, and with nobody else. We do not sell your information, we do not pass it to marketing lists, and we do not share it with other agents.

Two suppliers handle data on our behalf, under instruction and only to run the service: the company that hosts this website and its database, and the company that delivers our email. They are not allowed to use your information for their own purposes.

We will also disclose information where the law requires it, for example to a court or a regulator.

Information leaving Nigeria

Studying abroad means your application travels abroad. The institutions you apply to are outside Nigeria, and our hosting and email suppliers may store data outside Nigeria. We only send what the application needs, and only to the institutions you have asked us to approach.

How long we keep it

We keep your application and the documents attached to it for two years after your case closes, whether it ended in an offer, a refusal or a withdrawal. Two years covers a deferred intake, a reapplication the following year, and any question that comes back to us afterwards. After that we delete it.

Enquiries sent through the contact form are kept for two years as well. Published testimonials stay up until you ask us to remove them.

How we protect it

The site is served only over an encrypted connection. Uploaded documents are never published at a public address: they are stored privately and can only be opened by signed-in staff. Access is limited to the people working on your case.

Your rights

Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the information we hold about you;
• correct anything that is wrong or out of date;
• delete your information, where we are not required to keep it;
• pause what we are doing with it while a concern is sorted out;
• stop using it where we have relied on our own legitimate interest;
• send a copy to you or to someone else in a portable format;
• withdraw consent you gave, for example for a published testimonial.

Email info@espelumspring.com and we will respond within one month. There is no charge.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled it, you can complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission at ndpc.gov.ng.

Children

Our application form is for applicants aged 15 and over. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian should go through it with you. If you are younger than 15, ask a parent or guardian to contact us directly instead.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we handle your information we will update this page and change the date at the top. Where a change is significant and affects an application in progress, we will email you about it.