Controller and scope
SMC Education Group Ltd, trading as Signum Magnum College, is the controller for the processing described here. Its address is Portomaso Business Centre, Portomaso PTM 01, St. Julian’s, Malta. Privacy questions and rights requests may be sent to office@smceducation.com.
Personal data we process
Depending on your interaction, SMC processes identity and contact details; date of birth, nationality, and residence; academic and professional history; application answers; uploaded degrees, transcripts, identity records, CVs, and research materials; SMC referral attribution; doctoral tuition proposals; correspondence and Information Desk questions; account, authentication, security, and audit data; admission, agreement, payment-status, enrollment, and academic records; and technical request data needed to protect the service.
SMC does not ask you to send card details, passwords, or authentication codes by email. Payment-card processing is handled through the authorized payment service.
Purposes and legal bases
SMC processes data to answer inquiries; establish and protect secure accounts; assess applications; verify evidence; administer admissions, offers, agreements, payments, enrollment, teaching, assessment, and records; meet accreditation, education, accounting, security, and legal duties; prevent misuse; and improve institutional services.
SMC uses Cloudflare Web Analytics for aggregate page-use and real-user performance measurement. Cloudflare states that this service does not collect or use visitors’ personal data and does not use cookies, local storage, or fingerprinting to collect usage metrics. With explicit analytics consent, SMC additionally uses Google Analytics to understand completed inquiry or application steps. The applicable basis depends on the activity and includes steps requested before a contract, performance of a contract, compliance with legal obligations, legitimate interests in secure and effective institutional administration, and consent where the law requires it.
AI-assisted internal drafting
The Information Desk processes the name, email address, and question submitted by the visitor. SMC may use AI internally to prepare a draft from approved institutional information. The visitor does not receive an automated AI response: an authorized SMC administrator reviews and approves every response before SMC sends it by email. AI does not make admission, recognition, progression, enrollment, payment, or degree decisions.
Do not include identity documents, payment details, passwords, authentication codes, health data, or unrelated sensitive information in an Information Desk question.
Recipients, processors, and transfers
Access is limited to authorized SMC personnel and service providers that support hosting, security, communications, document storage, payment processing, analytics, and academic administration. Current infrastructure includes Cloudflare for the secure platform and privacy-first Web Analytics, Postmark for transactional email, Stripe for authorized payment processing, and—only after analytics consent—Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for additional website measurement. Professional advisers, regulators, authorities, and academic reviewers receive data when their role or the law requires it.
Where processing involves a transfer outside the European Economic Area, SMC uses an applicable transfer mechanism and contractual or technical safeguards.
Retention and security
SMC retains records for the period required by education, accreditation, contractual, accounting, limitation, and legal obligations, and otherwise only as long as necessary for the stated purpose. Retention decisions account for record type, institutional duties, active relationships, disputes, security, and deletion or anonymization feasibility.
SMC applies access controls, encrypted transport, protected storage, audit records, upload validation, and operational review. No system eliminates all risk; users must protect their account access and report suspected misuse promptly.
Your rights
Subject to applicable conditions and exceptions, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, or objection; withdraw consent where processing relies on consent; and request information about safeguards for international transfers. SMC may need to verify identity before acting on a request.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with Malta’s Information and Data Protection Commissioner or another competent supervisory authority.
Cookies, analytics choice, third-party links, and updates
The Cookie Notice explains the strictly necessary session technology, cookie-free Cloudflare Web Analytics, and optional Google Analytics cookies. Cloudflare Web Analytics operates independently of the Google analytics choice and does not use cookies, local storage, or fingerprinting to collect usage metrics. Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics remain blocked until analytics consent is granted. The Google analytics choice can be changed at any time through “Cookie settings” in the footer.
External websites linked from SMC operate under their own privacy notices. SMC updates this notice when the platform, processing, or law changes and identifies the effective date on this page.
Contact: office@smceducation.com · SMC Education Group Ltd, Portomaso Business Centre, Portomaso PTM 01, St. Julian’s, Malta.