Privacy Policy
What we collect, why we collect it, who sees it, and the rights you have over it.
Last updated 5 November 2026 · The Certified Method Ltd · Company number 17303128
The short version
We collect what we need to run the course, take your payment, and check a refund claim fairly. We record which lessons you watched and when, because the Completion Guarantee depends on being able to tell. We do not sell your data, and we only share it with suppliers who help us run the business. You can ask for a copy or ask us to delete it at any time.
This is a summary. The sections below are the policy.
Section 1Who is responsible for your data
The Certified Method Ltd is the data controller for the information described here. We are registered in England and Wales under number 17303128, at 14/2e Docklands Business Centre, 10-16 Tiller Road, London, E14 8PX, United Kingdom.
For anything about your data, email info@thecertifiedmethod.com.
Section 2What we collect
When you create an account and pay
Your name, email address, billing address and country. Our payment provider handles the card itself; we never see or store your full card number. We receive the last four digits, the card type, and whether the payment succeeded.
While you take the course
Which lessons you have opened and completed and when, every quiz and assessment attempt with its score and the time it was taken, your progress through the modules, where you stopped in each lesson's video, and anything you type into the dashboard. We record the timing because the Completion Guarantee depends on it — it is how we tell a student who worked through the course from one who did not.
When you post or ask a question
Your display name and whatever you write in the community or the question area. Other students can see those posts, so treat them as public.
If you make a guarantee claim
Everything you send us as evidence: links, screenshots, your toolkits and your Proof Portfolio. If we ask for a verification call we note that it happened and what it confirmed. We do not record the call.
Automatically
Your IP address, browser and device type, and standard server logs.
We do not ask for and do not want special category data — your health, religion, ethnicity, politics or anything similar. Please do not put it in a support email or a community post.
Section 3Why we use it, and our lawful basis
| What for | What we use | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Give you access to the course | Account and login details | Performing our contract with you |
| Take payment and issue receipts | Billing details, transaction records | Performing our contract with you |
| Track progress and issue certification | Lesson completions, quiz and assessment attempts and their times | Performing our contract with you |
| Assess a Completion Guarantee claim | Your progress record and the evidence you send | Performing our contract, and our legitimate interest in preventing fraudulent claims |
| Send you emails about the course you bought | Your email address | Performing our contract with you |
| Send you marketing about other things we offer | Your email address | Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time |
| Run the community and question area | Display name, what you post | Performing our contract with you |
| Keep the service secure and working | Server logs, IP address | Our legitimate interest in running a secure service |
| Meet our legal duties | Transaction and tax records | Legal obligation |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether it is fair to you, and you can object at any time — see section 8.
Section 6Where your data goes
We are in the United Kingdom, and so are our website and database: they are hosted in London. Our encrypted backups are kept in Western Europe, in the European Union, which UK law recognises as protecting your data to the same standard. Some of our suppliers, such as Stripe, Cloudflare and Calendly, operate in the United States and elsewhere.
Where data leaves the UK we rely on the safeguards the law requires: an adequacy decision where one covers the country, and otherwise the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Ask us at info@thecertifiedmethod.com if you want the detail for a particular supplier.
The course is sold worldwide. Wherever you live, we handle your data to the UK GDPR standard.
Section 7How long we keep it
| What | How long | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account and course progress | While you have access, then 2 years | So you can come back, and so we can answer questions about your record |
| Payment and transaction records | 7 years | Tax and accounting law |
| Guarantee claim evidence | 3 years from the decision | In case the decision is challenged |
| Community posts | Until you delete them or we close the community | Conversations stop making sense with pieces missing |
| Marketing contacts | Until you unsubscribe, then a suppression record | So we do not email you again by mistake |
| Server and security logs | 12 months | Security and troubleshooting |
After that we delete it or anonymise it so it is no longer about you.
Section 8Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:
- Give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Correct it if it is wrong or incomplete.
- Delete it, where we do not need it for a contract or a legal duty.
- Restrict what we do with it while a dispute about it is sorted out.
- Hand it over, to you or another provider, in a portable format.
- Stop processing based on legitimate interests, by objecting.
- Withdraw consent at any time, where consent is what we relied on.
Email info@thecertifiedmethod.com. We reply within one month. It is free, and we may ask you to confirm who you are first.
One honest limit: if you ask us to delete your account while you still have access, your progress record goes with it, and that record is the evidence for requirements 1 and 2 of the Completion Guarantee. We will tell you before we do it.
Complaining
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, tell us first and give us the chance to fix it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. If you live outside the UK you may complain to your own country's data protection authority.
Section 9Marketing emails
If you buy from us we will send you emails about the course you bought — your login, your progress, things that have changed. Those are part of the service and you cannot opt out of them while you have an account.
Marketing about other things we offer only goes to people who have agreed to it, or who bought from us and did not opt out at the time. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link that works immediately, and unsubscribing never affects your course access.
Section 10Children
The course is sold to adults. You must be 18 or over to buy it and we do not knowingly collect data about children.
If you believe a child has given us their data, email info@thecertifiedmethod.com and we will delete it.
Section 11Changes to this policy
We will update this page when what we do changes. The date at the top always shows the current version.
If a change materially affects how we use your data, we will email you before it takes effect rather than quietly editing the page.