Legal

By accessing any part of our website, or opening any e-mails that we send to you, you will be deemed to have accepted the terms set out below.

General disclaimer

The material we publish on our website is designed to provide general information only so we cannot accept responsibility for its use. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is accurate, it does not constitute legal or other professional advice.

We do not take responsibility for pages that are maintained by other organisations and are linked to our website.

User-generated content

We welcome your contributions to our websites. In order to keep the experience a positive one for all our website visitors, any contributions are subject to the following:

• You agree that you are fully responsible for the content that you post. You will not post material that violates the rights of any third party (including copyright), that is illegal, that is knowingly false/defamatory, that is libellous, obscene, offensive, abusive, accusatory or inappropriate in any other way.
• You agree that we may edit the content that you post, refuse to publish it or remove it. We may do so if we view the post to be inappropriate or if we receive complaints about it.
• You agree that posts are not to be commercial in nature. Advertisements or any other commercial activity are not to be engaged in.

We are not responsible for posts to our website made by you and others. Such posts express the views of the particular author, and not necessarily the views of the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

If you have a complaint about a post, please report this using the "Report Abuse" button on the relevant discussion page or by emailing webservices@gtcs.org.uk.

Copyright

We own the copyright in the information published by us on our website. You may use and reproduce this information provided that you do so fairly, non-commercially and acknowledge us as the source where you supply the information to others.

Authors who have contributed content to the website will retain their copyright, and will be free to give or sell their material to others, but GTC Scotland will retain a licence to use the content for as long as we need.

Data protection

The data supplied by a registered teacher and the data relating to a teacher held on the register will be processed in accordance with the functions of The General Teaching Council for Scotland as defined in The Teaching Council (Scotland) Act 1965, including such additional functions as may be conferred or imposed on the Council by Scottish Ministers under Section 4A(1) of the Act, and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Teachers' Registration (Scotland) Rules currently in force at the relevant time.

The Council will also use this data to undertake statistical analysis on an anonymous basis to inform policy development and to enable it to ensure the promotion of equality of opportunity and diversity within the teaching profession.

Registered teachers will have access to the information held in their register entry, and will be able to check and update it. The Council will also make available to employers or prospective employers limited information appropriate to their functions as employers and to facilitate placements under the Teacher Induction Scheme; such information will mainly relate to a teacher's registration and qualifications. The only information which the Council will make available to a member of the public will be the current registration status of a teacher.

Although we make every effort to protect user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law where such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, court order or legal process served on our website.

No details will be passed to other external organisations for marketing purposes without the teacher's prior consent.

Registering with our site

Users do not have to register with our website unless they wish to make use of the following facilities:

• site personalisation
• viewing their personal details (teachers only)
• viewing and contributing to any portfolios, profiles or reports (teachers only)
• newsletter subscriptions

The registration information we require to allow a user to register is:

• full name
• email address
• password
• GTCS registration number (for registered teachers only)

This information is stored securely on our database until such time as a user chooses to unsubscribe or de-register.