Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 22, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how personal information is collected, used, disclosed, and protected when you use the website https://giscourse.online (the “Platform”) and the services provided through it.

The Platform is owned and operated by Marcel Abel Cedrez Dacosta, an individual carrying on business under the trade name “GeoRGB” (“GeoRGB”, “we”, “us”, “our”), based in the Province of Alberta, Canada.

GeoRGB is a one-person operation. There is no staff, no team, and no third-party instructors. Your personal information is handled by one individual and by the service providers identified in this Policy.

This Policy should be read together with our Terms of Use.

1. Who is Responsible for Your Information

The data controller responsible for your personal information is:

Marcel Abel Cedrez Dacosta, carrying on business as GeoRGB
Province of Alberta, Canada
Email: admin@giscourse.online

For any question about this Policy or about how your information is handled, or to exercise any of the rights described in section 8, contact us at the address above. We aim to respond to all enquiries within 30 days.

2. What Information We Collect

2.1 Information you provide to us

• Account information — name and email address when you register for an account, together with a password (stored in encrypted form and never visible to us).
• Subscription information — the fact and date of your subscription, its status, and its billing history. Payment card details are collected and processed directly by our payment processor; we never receive or store full card numbers or card authentication data.
• Profile information — any optional information you choose to add to your profile, such as a display name, biography, or profile picture.
• Communications — the content of any message you send us, including support requests and enquiries about professional work, together with your contact details.
• User content — course reviews, ratings, comments, and questions you post on the Platform. Please note that this content, together with your display name, is visible to other users.
• Newsletter subscription — your email address, and the date and source of your consent, if you choose to subscribe to our mailing list.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Technical data — IP address, browser type and version, operating system, device type, screen resolution, language settings, and referring website.
• Usage data — pages viewed, time spent on pages, links clicked, scroll depth, navigation paths, and dates and times of access.
• Learning progress — the courses you are enrolled in, the lessons you have started or completed, your progress through each course, quiz results where applicable, and completion records. This is generated by the learning management system and is used to operate the courses and to display your progress to you.
• Session recordings and heatmaps — where you have consented to analytics cookies, we use a session recording tool that records mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, and page navigation during your visit, and replays them as an anonymised session. This is described further in section 5.
• Server logs — our hosting provider automatically records requests to the server, including IP addresses, for security and diagnostic purposes.

2.3 Information we do not collect

We do not knowingly collect special categories of personal data (such as health, religious, political, or biometric data). We do not collect payment card numbers. We do not purchase personal information from data brokers or third-party list providers.

The Platform is not directed to persons under 18 and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

3. Why We Use Your Information, and Our Legal Basis

Where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or equivalent legislation applies to you, we rely on the following legal bases.

3.1 To provide the Services — legal basis: performance of a contract

Creating and managing your account, authenticating you, giving you access to courses and scripts, recording your learning progress, processing your subscription, and providing support.

3.2 To process payments — legal basis: performance of a contract

Charging your subscription fee, managing recurring billing, handling failed payments, and maintaining transaction records.

3.3 To comply with legal obligations — legal basis: legal obligation

Retaining transaction and tax records, responding to lawful requests from authorities, and maintaining records of consent.

3.4 To send you marketing communications — legal basis: consent

If, and only if, you have given specific consent, we may send you newsletters and information about new modules, courses, and updates. Consent for marketing is requested separately from account registration and from acceptance of the Terms of Use. It is never bundled and never pre-ticked. You may withdraw it at any time, as described in section 4.

3.5 To understand and improve the Platform — legal basis: consent (cookies) and legitimate interests

Analysing which pages and courses are used, identifying where users encounter difficulty, and improving content and structure. Where this involves cookies or similar technologies, we rely on your consent, obtained through the cookie banner.

3.6 To secure and protect the Platform — legal basis: legitimate interests

Detecting and preventing fraud, unauthorised account sharing, unauthorised access, and misuse of the Services, and enforcing our Terms of Use. Our legitimate interest is in protecting the Platform, our intellectual property, and our users.

3.7 To respond to professional enquiries — legal basis: legitimate interests or steps prior to a contract

Responding to messages sent through our contact channels regarding consulting, collaboration, or employment.

4. Marketing Communications

We comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and with the GDPR in respect of electronic marketing.

We will only send you marketing email if you have expressly opted in. Registering for an account, subscribing to the Services, or downloading a free module does not by itself constitute consent to receive marketing.

Every marketing email includes a clearly visible unsubscribe link and our contact information. You may unsubscribe at any time, either through that link or by emailing us. Unsubscribing is honoured promptly and takes effect for all marketing communications.

We will continue to send you transactional and service messages regardless of your marketing preferences, because they are necessary to operate your account. These include payment receipts, billing notifications, password resets, security notices, and notices of material changes to our Terms or this Policy. You cannot opt out of these while you hold an active account.

We maintain a record of when and how you gave your marketing consent, as required by CASL and the GDPR.

5. Cookies and Similar Technologies

The Platform uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are strictly necessary; others are used only with your consent.

5.1 Strictly necessary cookies

These are required for the Platform to function and are set without consent. They maintain your login session, remember your cookie preferences, secure forms against cross-site request forgery, and support the checkout process. The Platform cannot operate without them.

5.2 Statistics and analytics cookies

Set only with your consent. These help us understand how the Platform is used.

• Google Analytics 4 — aggregate measurement of traffic, pages viewed, and user journeys.
• Microsoft Clarity — heatmaps and session recordings. Clarity records interactions during your visit (mouse movement, clicks, scrolling, navigation) and replays them so that we can identify usability problems. Clarity automatically masks text input fields; we do not use it to capture the content you type. Microsoft may use the data it collects for its own purposes as an independent controller.
• Google Search Console — reports on how the Platform appears in search results. This works from aggregated search data and does not set cookies on your device.

5.3 Third-party embedded content

Some pages embed video content hosted by Vimeo (course lessons) and YouTube (public tutorial videos). When you load a page containing an embedded video, the relevant provider may set cookies and receive your IP address and information about the page you are viewing, in accordance with its own privacy policy. Where required, these embeds are blocked until you consent.

5.4 Managing your preferences

When you first visit the Platform you are presented with a cookie banner allowing you to accept or reject non-essential categories. Non-essential cookies are not set before you make a choice. You can change your preferences at any time through the cookie settings link, and you can delete or block cookies through your browser settings, although doing so may prevent parts of the Platform from working correctly.

6. Who We Share Your Information With

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We share it only with the service providers necessary to operate the Platform, and only to the extent required.

• Hostinger — website hosting and data storage. Our server is located in the United States (North Carolina).
• Stripe — payment processing and subscription billing. Stripe acts as an independent controller of payment data under its own privacy policy.
• MailerLite — delivery and management of newsletters and marketing email, and maintenance of consent records, where you have subscribed.
• Google (Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights) — analytics and performance measurement.
• Microsoft (Clarity) — behavioural analytics, heatmaps, and session replay.
• Vimeo and YouTube — video hosting and delivery.

We may also disclose personal information:

• where required by applicable law, regulation, legal process, or a lawful request by a public authority;
• where necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims, or to investigate suspected fraud, unauthorised redistribution of our software, or breach of our Terms of Use;
• in connection with a reorganisation, merger, or sale of all or substantially all of the business, provided the recipient continues to handle the information in accordance with this Policy.

7. International Transfers

GeoRGB operates from Canada. Our server is located in the United States. Our service providers are located in the United States, the European Union, and other jurisdictions.

This means that your personal information will be transferred to, stored in, and processed in countries outside your own, including countries whose data protection laws may differ from those of your jurisdiction. Information stored in a given country may be accessible to the courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities of that country under its laws.

Where personal information of individuals in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom is transferred outside those areas, we rely on the safeguards implemented by our service providers, which include the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, certification under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. You may request further information about these safeguards by contacting us.

By using the Platform, you acknowledge these transfers.

8. Your Rights

Subject to applicable law, you have the following rights in respect of your personal information:

• Access — to be told whether we hold information about you and to receive a copy of it.
• Rectification — to have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected.
• Erasure — to have your information deleted, where there is no overriding legal basis for retaining it.
• Restriction — to ask us to limit how we use your information in certain circumstances.
• Portability — to receive the information you provided to us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, and to have it transmitted to another controller where technically feasible.
• Objection — to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to object at any time to processing for direct marketing.
• Withdrawal of consent — to withdraw any consent you have given, at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

To exercise any of these rights, email admin@giscourse.online. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. We will respond within 30 days, or within any shorter period required by applicable law.

Please note that withdrawing consent or requesting erasure may mean that we can no longer provide you with access to your account, your courses, or the Services.

Some information cannot be deleted on request where we are required to retain it, for example transaction records kept for tax purposes or records of consent kept to demonstrate compliance.

Complaints. If you are dissatisfied with how we have handled your information, we would like the opportunity to resolve it directly. You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority: in Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada; in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the data protection authority of your country of residence.

9. How Long We Keep Your Information

• Account and learning progress data — for as long as your account remains open, and for 24 months after your last activity, after which inactive accounts may be deleted.
• Transaction and billing records — for the period required by Canadian tax and accounting law, currently six years from the end of the relevant tax year.
• Marketing consent records — for three years after consent is withdrawn, in order to demonstrate compliance with CASL and the GDPR.
• Newsletter subscription — until you unsubscribe, after which your address is retained only on a suppression list to ensure we do not contact you again.
• Correspondence and support requests — for up to three years from the last exchange.
• User content (reviews, comments) — until you request removal or your account is deleted.
• Server logs — in accordance with our hosting provider’s retention schedule, typically a short period for security and diagnostic purposes.
• Analytics data — in accordance with the retention settings of the relevant provider.

Where we are required to retain information for legal reasons but no longer need it operationally, we restrict its use to that purpose alone.

10. Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), encrypted password storage, restricted administrative access, and reliance on established service providers with recognised security practices. Payment data is handled entirely by our payment processor and never reaches our systems.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping your account password confidential and for notifying us promptly of any unauthorised use of your account.

If a breach of personal information occurs that creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify affected individuals and the relevant authorities as required by applicable law.

11. Automated Decision-Making

We do not use your personal information to make decisions about you by automated means that produce legal effects or similarly significantly affect you. We do not profile users for advertising purposes.

12. Advertising

The Platform does not currently display third-party advertising and does not use advertising or retargeting cookies. If this changes, we will update this Policy and, where required, obtain your consent before any advertising technology is activated.

13. Links to Other Websites

The Platform contains links to external websites, including our YouTube channel and third-party resources referenced in courses and tutorials. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites. We encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing them with personal information.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The date of the most recent update appears at the top of this page.

Non-material changes take effect on the date they are posted. Material changes take effect 30 days after posting, and we will notify registered users by email. We encourage you to review this Policy periodically.

15. Contact

GeoRGB — Marcel Abel Cedrez Dacosta
Province of Alberta, Canada
Email: admin@giscourse.online