Privacy Policy

MEA Toolkit (meatoolkit.com) helps students, families and education agents explore UK university degrees, study routes, entry requirements, tuition, scholarships and accommodation, and get in touch with our team.

MEA Toolkit is the controller of the personal information described here. Questions about this policy or your data: support@meatoolkit.com.

This policy covers the public website, student accounts (including sign-in with Google), enquiries, our emails and the Agent Portal used by our recruitment partners. It does not cover university or partner websites that we link to; their own policies apply there.

When you browse without an account. We count website activity anonymously: which pages and catalogue sections were viewed (for example a degree, a study route, the entry requirements for a selected country, a tuition section), searches (only how many results, never the words you typed), filters, and clicks on buttons such as Apply. Each record holds the event, the page type, public catalogue references, a device type (desktop, mobile or tablet) and an approximate location (country, region and city) that our hosting provider derives from the network address of the request. Location is approximate, can be wrong or unknown, and is never treated as your nationality or where you live. We do not set a cookie, store an identifier, keep your IP address or use device fingerprinting for these counts, and you can object to them at any time in Privacy Settings; a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser is treated as that objection. To protect the statistics from fake or automated traffic, our server turns your IP address into a one-way code that changes every day; it is kept for at most 48 hours to limit abusive traffic, is never stored with the statistics and cannot be turned back into your IP address.

Optional detailed analytics (only if you switch it on). Detailed analytics is off unless you switch it on in Privacy Settings. Visiting the site, or accepting this policy when you create an account, does not switch it on. If you do, your browser keeps a random visitor and session identifier, and we record the pages and interactions above together with the referring website, campaign tags in the link, browser family, device type and approximate country. This lets us measure returning visits. You can switch it off at any time in Privacy Settings, which deletes the identifiers from your browser.

Student Accounts. Your email address and password (stored only as a secure hash by our authentication provider), or your Google account if you sign in with Google. When you create an account we record that you accepted the Terms of Service and read this Privacy Policy, with the version and date. Optional profile details, which you can skip: full name, nationality, country of residence, phone number, current qualification, grades, English test and score, study budget, preferred contact method, and the study level, subject and intake you are interested in. A feature may ask for a missing detail when it needs it, and you can still say no. We never guess your nationality or country of residence from your location. If you answer the optional discovery questions, we keep your answers (such as the country and type of your qualification, grades, English test, nationality, preferred destination, intake and budget) to suggest suitable degrees. We also keep what you save in your account: wishlist, collections, comparisons, notes, documents you upload, messages and notification preferences.

Enquiries. Your name, email address, phone number, preferred contact method, message and the degree, university or route you asked about. If you had accepted analytics, the page and campaign through which you arrived is attached so we know which information helped.

Agent Portal. Recruitment partners can share details of students they represent (name, contact details, study interests and documents). Partners must confirm that the student has agreed before sharing.

Emails. Whether our emails were delivered, bounced or reported as spam, and your unsubscribe choices.

Security Records. Sign-in and account-security events (for example sign-in, password change, two-step verification) with device type, browser family and approximate country.

If you choose “Continue with Google”, Google shares your name, email address and profile picture with us, using the basic sign-in permissions (openid, email and profile). We use them only to create and sign in to your MEA Toolkit account and to show your name in your account. We do not request access to Gmail, Google Drive, Contacts, Calendar or any other Google data, and we do not use Google user data for advertising.

MEA Toolkit's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. You can remove MEA Toolkit's access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

• To provide the website, your account and its features (saving, comparing, documents, messages, degree suggestions).
• To answer enquiries and help you with study options and applications you ask us about.
• To send service messages you can control in your notification preferences.
• To send marketing emails only if you opted in; every marketing email has an unsubscribe link.
• To understand and improve the website using the statistics described below.
• To keep the service secure, prevent abuse and meet legal obligations.

We turn website activity into aggregate statistics, such as the most viewed universities and degrees, the countries whose entry requirements are checked most, English tests checked, tuition and scholarship views, and Apply clicks. These reports contain counts, never names, contact details, IP addresses, profile details or an individual's browsing history. Locations with very few visits are grouped together so that no small group can be singled out.

We use these statistics to run and improve MEA Toolkit and may share aggregate, non-identifying statistics with partner universities and education partners. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for third-party advertising. MEA Toolkit uses no third-party advertising or tracking scripts.

• Contract: providing your account and the features you use.
• Consent: optional analytics and marketing emails. You can withdraw at any time.
• Legitimate Interests: anonymous website statistics (including approximate location), responding to enquiries, service messages and security. You can object to the anonymous statistics in Privacy Settings.
• Legal Obligation: where the law requires us to keep or disclose information.

We share personal information only as follows:

• Service Providers acting on our instructions: Supabase (database, authentication and file storage), Vercel (website hosting), Resend (email delivery) and Google (sign-in, only if you choose it).
• Universities and Education Partners, when you ask us to help with an enquiry or application involving them.
• Recruitment Partners who represent you; they see only the students they work with.
• Authorities, where required by law or to protect rights and safety.

Our database and files are hosted in London, United Kingdom. Some providers may process data in other countries; where they do, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as UK adequacy regulations or standard contractual clauses.

• Optional analytics events: 90 days.
• Anonymous website statistics, including approximate location: up to 24 months, as daily totals only.
• The daily one-way code used against abusive traffic: at most 48 hours.
• Account data: while your account is open. A deletion request can be cancelled for 7 days, after which the account data is deleted.
• Data exports you download: available for 7 days.
• Enquiries and related correspondence: as long as needed to handle them and keep accurate records, then deleted or anonymised.
• Security and audit records: as long as needed to protect the service and meet legal obligations.

Depending on where you live, you can ask to access, correct, export or delete your information, object to or restrict certain uses, and withdraw consent. In your account you can edit your profile, download your data and request deletion (Account › Security), and change notification preferences. Use Privacy Settings to switch detailed analytics on or off, or to object to the anonymous statistics, and the unsubscribe link in any marketing email. For anything else, contact support@meatoolkit.com.

If you are in the UK you can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

• Sign-in cookies that keep you signed in (strictly necessary).
• A cookie that remembers your detailed-analytics choice (180 days), and one that remembers an objection to the anonymous statistics (12 months), so that we can honour your choices.
• Browser storage for your guest wishlist, comparison and discovery answers, which stay on your device until you sign in or clear them.
• Analytics identifiers, only after you switch detailed analytics on.

Data is encrypted in transit, access is limited to the people and systems that need it, account data is protected by database access rules, uploaded documents are private to you unless you share them, and two-step verification is available for student accounts. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong password and keep it private.

MEA Toolkit is designed for prospective university students, their families and advisers. It is not directed to children under 13, and anyone under 18 should use it with a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

We will update this page when our practices change and show the date of the latest version above. Contact: support@meatoolkit.com.