Privacy Policy

BlackForce ("we", "us", "our") is a technology training and workforce development organisation offering education programmes, career placement services, financial products, mentorship, venture incubation, and study abroad opportunities.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect your personal data when you use our website, platforms, applications, and services. It applies to all BlackForce products including the Education Hub, Skill Capitalization Platform, Careers Marketplace, Ventures Programme, Mentorship Network, and Study Abroad services.

By using our services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with our practices, please do not use our services.

We collect data that you provide directly, data collected automatically through your use of our services, and data from third-party sources where relevant.

Information you provide includes: name, email address, phone number, date of birth, nationality, address, educational background, employment history, professional certifications, government-issued identification (where required for verification or financial services), payment and billing information, and any other information submitted through forms, applications, or communications with BlackForce.

For financial services (Skill Capitalization, Tuition Loans), we may additionally collect: income information, employment contracts, bank details for payment processing, credit or financial history where relevant, and information required for earnings share agreements.

For University Preparatory Academy (UPA) participants aged 13 to 18, we collect: the student's name, date of birth, educational details, and parent or guardian contact information and consent. We process children's data with enhanced protections as described in Section 9.

Automatically collected data includes: IP address, browser type, device information, operating system, pages visited, time spent on pages, referral source, cookies, and similar tracking technologies. Our AI skill valuation engine processes programme performance data, certification results, and project deliverables to generate skill assessments.

We use your personal data to deliver, improve, and personalise our services. Specific uses include:

Programme delivery: administering your enrolment, tracking your progress, delivering training content, managing certifications, coordinating internships, and facilitating mentorship matching.

Career services: creating and maintaining your skill profile on the employer marketplace, matching you with opportunities, sharing your verified credentials with potential employers (with your consent), and tracking placement outcomes.

Financial services: processing tuition loan applications, managing earnings share agreements, conducting AI skill valuations, reporting investment outcomes to investors (in aggregated or anonymised form unless specific consent is provided), and processing payments.

Communication: sending programme updates, scheduling reminders, marketing communications (where you have opted in), and responding to enquiries.

Platform improvement: analysing usage patterns, improving our AI models, enhancing user experience, and conducting research into workforce development outcomes (using anonymised or aggregated data).

Legal and compliance: meeting regulatory obligations, preventing fraud, enforcing our terms, and protecting the rights and safety of our users and organisation.

We process your personal data under the following legal bases:

Contract: Processing is necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations to you, including programme delivery, career services, and financial agreements.

Consent: Where you have given specific consent, such as for marketing communications, sharing your profile with employers, or participating in testimonials and case studies. You may withdraw consent at any time.

Legitimate interests: Processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests, including improving our services, analysing programme effectiveness, fraud prevention, and maintaining the security of our platforms. We balance our interests against your rights and freedoms.

Legal obligation: Processing is necessary to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and legal processes.

We share your personal data only where necessary and with appropriate safeguards:

Employer partners: Your verified skill profile, certification status, and portfolio may be shared with employer partners through the BlackForce Careers Marketplace. You control what is visible on your profile and can opt out of marketplace listing.

Investors: Investment reporting includes aggregated and anonymised learner outcome data. Individual learner data is only shared with investors where the learner has provided specific consent under their earnings share agreement.

Service providers: We use third-party providers for payment processing, cloud hosting, email communications, analytics, and AI infrastructure. These providers process data on our behalf under contractual data processing agreements.

Study abroad partners: Where you participate in study abroad programmes, relevant data is shared with host institutions and accommodation providers as necessary for programme delivery.

Legal requirements: We may disclose data where required by law, court order, or regulatory authority, or where necessary to protect our legal rights or the safety of our users.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We do not share your data with advertisers.

BlackForce uses AI systems including our skill valuation engine and career matching algorithms. These systems process your programme performance, certification results, project deliverables, and market data to generate skill assessments and career recommendations.

AI-generated skill valuations are used to inform financial products (Skill Capitalization), career marketplace profiles, and personalised programme recommendations. These valuations are regularly reviewed and updated.

You have the right to request human review of any significant decision made solely by automated processing. You may contact us to request an explanation of how our AI systems have assessed your data or to challenge an automated decision.

We regularly audit our AI models for accuracy, bias, and fairness. We are committed to ensuring that automated systems do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, or other protected characteristics.

We retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including legal, regulatory, accounting, and contractual requirements.

Programme data: Retained for the duration of your programme plus 7 years, or longer where required for certification verification or alumni services.

Financial data: Retained for the duration of any financial agreement (tuition loan or earnings share) plus 7 years, as required by financial regulations.

Career marketplace data: Retained for as long as your profile is active. You may request deletion of your marketplace profile at any time.

Marketing data: Retained until you withdraw consent or unsubscribe.

When data is no longer needed, it is securely deleted or anonymised for research and statistical purposes.

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

Right of access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.

Right to rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.

Right to erasure: Request deletion of your data where there is no compelling reason for continued processing. This may be limited where we are required to retain data for legal or contractual reasons.

Right to restrict processing: Request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.

Right to data portability: Request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.

Right to object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing purposes.

Right to withdraw consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the details provided in Section 12. We will respond within 30 days.

The University Preparatory Academy (UPA) serves students aged 13 to 18. We are committed to protecting the privacy of children and process their data with enhanced safeguards.

We collect and process UPA student data only with verified parent or guardian consent. Parents or guardians may review, correct, or request deletion of their child's data at any time.

We do not use UPA student data for marketing purposes. UPA student data is not shared with financial services, investors, or the employer marketplace.

UPA students under 16 are not eligible for financial products (Skill Capitalization, Tuition Loans) or career marketplace profiles. Students aged 16 to 18 may participate in limited career services with parent or guardian consent.

We implement additional security measures for UPA data, including restricted access controls and enhanced monitoring.

BlackForce operates internationally, with learners, employers, and partners across the United Kingdom, Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, and other countries. Your data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside your country of residence.

Where data is transferred internationally, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, including standard contractual clauses, adequacy decisions, or other legally recognised transfer mechanisms.

For learners in the European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom, we comply with GDPR and UK GDPR requirements for international data transfers.

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, destruction, or alteration. These measures include encryption, access controls, secure hosting, regular security audits, and staff training.

While we take reasonable steps to protect your data, no system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of data transmitted over the internet or stored on our systems.

If we become aware of a data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify you and the relevant supervisory authority in accordance with applicable law.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your data rights, please contact us at: privacy@blackforce.co or through our Contact page.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority. In the United Kingdom, this is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or legal requirements. We will notify you of material changes by posting the updated policy on our website and, where appropriate, by email.

The date at the top of this policy indicates the last update. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.