Privacy Policy

World's Top Schools ("WTS", "we", "us") is an editorial publication that ranks and profiles schools worldwide. This policy explains what personal data we collect when you use WorldsTopSchools.com, how we use it, and the rights you have under the UK GDPR, EU GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA).

1. Who is responsible for your data

The controller for the personal data described in this policy is World's Top Schools. You can reach our editorial team at hello@worldstopschools.comor our privacy contact at privacy@worldstopschools.com.

2. What we collect and why

2.1 Data you give us directly

• Account details — if you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email and profile picture from Google.
• Shortlists — the schools you save to your account.
• Voice reviews — the audio recording you submit about a school, its transcript, and the name/handle you attach to it. Reviews are moderated before publication.
• Enquiries and lead forms — the name, email, child's age range, and message you send when you request info from a school or contact the editorial team.
• Penny AI chats — the questions you ask our parent assistant, so it can answer follow-up questions in the same conversation.

2.2 Data collected automatically

• Search queries and filters — the terms you type into the school search bar and the filters you apply. Stored anonymously so we can improve rankings, spot content gaps, and surface popular schools.
• Anonymous analytics — pages visited, referring site, coarse country/region, device type. Collected only after you accept the analytics cookie.
• Technical logs — IP address, user-agent, and error traces, kept for 30 days for abuse-prevention and debugging.

2.3 Data we do not collect

• We do not run ad-tech trackers, third-party ad pixels, or session recorders.
• We do not sell or rent personal data to anyone.
• We do not accept payments from schools to raise their ranking or hide criticism.

3. Legal bases (UK/EU GDPR)

• Consent — analytics cookies, marketing emails, publication of your voice review.
• Contract — running the account features you signed up for (shortlists, chats, saved comparisons).
• Legitimate interests — improving the editorial product, protecting against abuse of the site, moderating user-submitted reviews. You may object at any time (see §7).

4. AI features

Some product features use third-party AI models to answer questions or draft editorial content:

• Penny AI — your chat messages are sent to Anthropic Claude and to OpenAI (for speech-to-text on voice queries) via the Emergent LLM proxy. Providers process the message only to generate a reply and do not train their models on that content.
• Voice reviews — audio is transcribed by OpenAI Whisper via the same proxy, then discarded after transcription unless you asked us to keep the audio.
• Editorial research — we use Claude to summarise information from schools' own websites for our editorial team; no personal user data is sent to the model.

5. Cookies and similar tech

We use two categories of cookies:

• Strictly necessary — session cookies to keep you signed in, and a cookie recording your consent choices. These are set without asking because the site can't run without them.
• Analytics — set only after you accept via the cookie banner. You can withdraw consent at any time by clicking "Cookie settings" in the footer.

6. Sharing your data

• Schools you enquire with — when you submit a "book a call" or contact form, we forward the details to that school so they can reply. Each school is a separate controller from that point.
• Hosting and infrastructure providers — MongoDB Atlas (database), Emergent Cloud (hosting), Emergent LLM proxy (routes chats to Anthropic/OpenAI/Google), Resend (transactional email).
• Legal disclosure — if compelled by a valid court order or regulator.

All processors are bound by written data-processing agreements.

7. Your rights

Under UK/EU GDPR and CCPA you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct it if it's wrong.
• Delete your account and associated data.
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests.
• Port your data to another service.
• Withdraw consent for analytics cookies or marketing emails at any time.
• (EU/UK) Complain to your local data-protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@worldstopschools.com. We aim to reply within 30 days.

8. How long we keep data

• Signed-in account data — for as long as your account is active, then deleted 90 days after closure.
• Published voice reviews — until you (or a school with a valid takedown) request removal.
• Search queries and analytics — 24 months in aggregated form.
• Technical logs — 30 days.

9. International transfers

Our infrastructure runs in the EU/US. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK/EEA (for example, to a US-based hosting or LLM provider), it is protected by the UK IDTA or EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

10. Children

The site is directed at parents, guardians and school professionals, not at children. Do not create an account or submit a review if you're under 16. We remove any content we discover was submitted by a child under 16.

11. Changes

We'll post any material change to this policy on this page and update the "Last updated" date above. Substantial changes will also be emailed to signed-in users.