Privacy Policy

Last updated: January 1, 2023

ACLS is committed to protecting your privacy. To demonstrate our commitment to user privacy, we provide the following information describing the information we collect and store, how we might use that information, security measures to protect that information, and your rights regarding the way we collect and use that information. This Privacy Policy applies to the collection of information through the ACLS website or any other website or online service that links to this policy as well as the offline collection of information, such as when you contact ACLS by phone. ACLS reserves the right to amend or otherwise modify this Privacy Policy at any time. As such, you are encouraged to review this Privacy Policy from time to time for any changes. If a significant change is made, ACLS will give additional notice.

California Residents: For information relating to your rights and our processing of your personal information, please click here to go to the Additional State Disclosures Section.

COLLECTION AND STORAGE

ACLS collects and stores a variety of information from its website visitors. Some of this data is collected and stored automatically via the use of cookies. A cookie is a small file that is stored on your computer’s hard drive and may contain the following information:

Your Browser
Your internet domain
Your computer’s operating system
The links you followed to enter and leave our website
Your IP address

This information lets us see how users are finding our website and tells us which pages are visited most often. Cookies may also be used to recognize you and give you access to specific areas of our website. You can opt out of the use of cookies by having your browser disable cookies or warn you before accepting a cookie, although doing so may impact your user experience. For more information on cookies, including how you can delete or reject cookies, please refer to your web browser help file.

ACLS collects and stores in our database certain personal information provided when you request information from us, communicate with us, or sign up in one of our courses, as well as information provided by third parties, including our affiliate sister companies.¹ This information may include without limitation: name, address, email address, birth date, phone number, customer ID, social security number, prior education, demographic information, course progress, scores, completion status, and financial status. In addition, we may collect your credit card number in order to process your sign up and collect payment.

We never knowingly collect information from children under the age of thirteen, nor is our website designed to provide any service to children under the age of thirteen. If you are under thirteen, please do not give us any personal information. If you have reason to believe that a child has provided personal information to us, please contact us and we will attempt to remove that information from our databases.

¹ The ACLS sister companies include Penn Foster. Inc, the Distance Education Company, Ashworth College, and Sokanu.

USE OF INFORMATION

Non-personally identifiable information is used to help us improve our website by enabling us to discover and address the needs of our website visitors. This includes making our website accessible to the various web browsers and operating systems used to access our website.

ACLS may use third parties to show you ACLS ads when you visit different sites on the internet. These third parties use cookies to collect information and show ads based on your prior visits to the ACLS website. You can opt out of the use of cookies by these third parties by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page or the Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out page. You can opt out of the use of cookies generally by having your browser disable cookies or warn you before accepting a cookie. However, opting out of these third parties’ use of cookies or the use of cookies generally may impact your user experience. For more information on cookies, including how you can delete or reject cookies, please refer to your web browser help file.

By supplying your contact information when requesting information or signing up in one of our courses, you authorize ACLS and its agents (outsource calls centers and academic partners) to contact you (using the information you provide to us) about ACLS or its agents’ products and services, including product releases and updates, seminars, events, surveys, trainings, and special offers. You can opt out of future communications from ACLS by sending an email to support@acls.com or calling 1-888-364-1202.

Unless expressly prohibited by a learner in writing, in furtherance of certain training and job placement objectives, ACLS reserves the right to release learners’ personal information to certain third parties in order for the learner to request special training software included with program and share learner information on an as needed basis as follows:

Types Of Information	Available To
Program progress, completion status, and scores	Employer; Potential employer with whom a learner has applied or expressed interest; Sponsor paying all or part of learner fees; Third-party resolution agencies; Third-party organization through whom a learner has signed up with ACLS
Financial status (fee balance)	Sponsor paying all or part of learner fees

From time to time, ACLS may be required to provide personal information in response to a valid court order, subpoena, or government investigation, or as otherwise required by law. Unless prevented by law, ACLS will attempt to notify the learner involved prior to any release of such information.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to third parties with whom you may become involved in the process of training with ACLS or in the process of seeking employment. You are advised and encouraged to obtain applicable privacy policies of such third parties in order to know how they collect and use private information.

SECURITY

ACLS website(s) have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. We utilize industry standard SSL encryption when accepting your credit card information during the online sign-up process.

LEARNER RIGHTS

ACLS wants your information to be accurate and complete and recognizes that access and comment is necessary. You will not have the ability to change information on file, but may request a review or correction by either calling 1-888-364-1202 or emailing ACLS at support@acls.com. For information relating to rights you may have under applicable state law, see the Additional State Disclosures Section below.

ADDITIONAL STATE DISCLOSURES

This section provides information required under various state privacy laws about how we handle certain personal information we have collected, used, and disclosed.

Collect. As we describe in more detail in the section above titled Collection and Storage, we collect personal information online and offline directly from consumers, automatically when consumers use the ACLS website or contact ACLS by phone, and from third parties (such as from our sister companies) and have collected the following categories of personal information in the past 12 months:

Identifiers, such as your name, email address, or IP address.
Information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with you, including your address or phone number (and other data elements listed at Cal. Civ. Code 1798.80(e))
Commercial information (e.g., records of products or services purchased, obtained, or considered).
Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law, such as age.
Internet or other similar network activity, such as information on your use of the ACLS website.
Geolocation data.
Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.
Professional or employment-related information.
Sensitive information, as defined under applicable law, such as your Social Security number, demographic information, account login credential and passwords, and credit card or debit card information.

Use. The section above entitled Use of Information discloses how the categories of personal information we collect are used.

Disclose. As we describe in more detail in the section above titled Use of Information, we may disclose the following categories of your personal information for business purposes with funding services, payment processing services, background check services, placement/externship services, and employment/hiring partners, advertisers and affiliate sister companies, or other business partners: (1) identifiers, (2) information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with you, including your address or phone number (and other data elements listed at Cal. Civ. Code 1798.80(e)), and (3) professional and employment-related information. We may also disclose the following categories of personal information for business purposes with advertisers: (1) identifiers and (2) Internet or other similar network activity. We do not use or disclose sensitive Personal Information for purposes other than permitted under applicable local law.

Certain laws also require us to provide you with information about certain disclosures of personal information to third parties, where the disclosure involves monetary or other consideration. Some laws treat these disclosures as “sales” of information, even if no money changes hands. Some of the disclosures we have made in the last 12 months may constitute “sales” or “sharing” for cross-contextual behavioral advertising under local law and involve the disclosure of the following types of personal information to partners, advertisers, and our affiliate sister companies: (1) identifiers; (2) information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with you, including your address or phone number (and other data elements listed at Cal. Civ. Code 1798.80(e)), (3) professional and employment-related information; and (4) Internet or other similar network activity. We disclose this information to contact you regarding products and services in which we believe you may be interested, including through personalized marketing and advertising.

Deidentified Data. We may aggregate and/or deidentify your personal information and use it for any purpose, including product and service development and improvement activities. To the extent we deidentify any data originally based on personal information, we will maintain and use such data only in deidentified form and will not attempt to reidentify the data.

Retention. We retain your personal information for as long as we have a relationship with you. When deciding how long to keep this information after our relationship with you has ended, we take into account our legal obligations. We also retain records to investigate or defend against potential legal claims. If there is any information that we are unable to delete entirely from our systems for technical reasons, we will put in place appropriate measures to prevent any further processing or use of the data.

Rights Requests. You may have certain additional rights regarding the Personal Information we hold about you. Depending on where you live, and subject to certain exceptions, you may have the right to make the following requests, at no charge:

Deletion. You have the right to request the deletion of personal information that we have collected about you.
Correction. You may request the correction of your personal information that we have collected about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
Copy and Right to Know. You have the right to request a copy of the specific pieces of personal information that we have collected about you over the past 12 months, including the categories of information, sources, and purposes of collection, as well as categories of third parties we have shared it with.

To exercise any of these rights, please submit your request by either calling 1-888-364-1202 or emailing ACLS at support@acls.com. We may need to verify your identity before completing your rights request by, for example, requesting additional information from you. You may designate an agent to make a request on your behalf. That agent must have access to your account in order for us to verify the request. The agent must also provide proof that you gave the agent signed permission to submit the request on your behalf.

Opt-Out Rights. You may also have the right to opt out of the use of your Personal Information for targeted advertising, as that term is defined under applicable law. You may exercise your right to opt out of the use of your personal information by clicking here and following the instructions.

Where applicable, you may exercise your right to opt out of “sales” by clicking this Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link and following the instructions. We do not knowingly “sell” or “share” personal information from consumers under 16 years old.

Non-Discrimination. We will not discriminate against you, including by denying or providing a different level or quality of goods or services should you choose to exercise your options under applicable state law.

Questions. Please contact us by emailing ACLS at support@acls.com if you have any questions regarding this section.