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themontessori.world privacy policy

Last updated: August 15, 2026.

This policy explains how themontessori.world (MW) handles personal data relating to school accounts and to the use of the directory by families and other visitors.

Use of the directory is also governed by the Terms and Conditions.

1. Data controller

LIGHTHOUSES, S.C.P.
Tax ID J55213292
Avenida de España, 44, Colmenar del Arroyo, Madrid, Spain
info@themontessori.world

You can write to that address with any privacy question or to exercise the rights granted by data protection law.

2. School account data

Each school has an account in order to manage its listing. MW processes the email address linked to that account, the access password in encrypted form, and the record of acceptance of the terms and conditions, with its date and version.

This data is used to give access to the account, to keep in touch with the school about its listing, and to evidence acceptance of the terms.

This address is used to sign in and is not published on the listing. The school chooses which one to use, and MW recommends an institutional address belonging to the school rather than one belonging to an individual: people move on, the school remains.

The legal basis is performance of the contract for publication in the directory, or the pre-contractual steps requested by the school.

3. Information published on listings

Listings contain information about schools: name and address, contact phone and email, website and social media, description of the project, ages served, environments, materials, services and facilities, declared training of the guides, affiliations and recognitions, photographs and other content.

Some of that information may relate to individuals connected with the school. In small schools, for example, the contact phone or email may belong to a particular person, and in that case it remains personal data even though it is published as school data.

The legal basis is performance of the contract with the school, which decides what contact details to publish, together with MW's legitimate interest in offering a directory that is useful to families.

4. Listings created from public sources

In some cases MW creates a school's initial listing from publicly available information. These are seeded listings.

The data comes from the school's official website, from public registers and directories, and from other publicly accessible sources. It consists of contact details and professional information that has already been published.

The legal basis is MW's legitimate interest in creating and maintaining a public directory of Montessori schools, provided that this interest is not overridden by the rights and freedoms of the individuals concerned.

The school can claim the listing in order to manage it, ask for information to be corrected, or request its removal by writing to info@themontessori.world. MW handles these requests free of charge.

Anyone whose data appears on a seeded listing may object to this processing, even if they do not represent the school, and ask for their data to be removed.

5. Contacting schools

MW contacts Montessori schools to introduce the directory, invite them to manage their listing, and maintain a professional relationship with the school. For this purpose MW processes professional contact details of the school and of the person acting as its point of contact, public information about the school, and a record of the communications exchanged.

The data comes from the school's official website, from public registers and directories, and from the communication with the school itself.

The legal basis is MW's legitimate interest in reaching out to schools that may form part of the directory. This information is not published in the directory: it is used solely for internal management.

Anyone may ask MW to stop contacting them by writing to info@themontessori.world.

6. Photographs and graphic content

Photographs and other content supplied by schools are published as part of the listing and are visible to anyone accessing the directory.

The school is responsible for holding the legal basis and the permissions required to supply and publish them, with particular care where images may show identifiable minors. The school's specific obligations are set out in section 7 of the Terms and Conditions.

If MW receives a complaint about the publication of an image, it may withdraw the image while it looks into the circumstances. Requests concerning images of minors are handled as a priority.

7. "Request more information" form

Families can use the directory without creating an account.

When you use the form on a listing, you provide the data needed to send your message to the school: normally your email address and the content of the message. MW generates and sends that email to the school's address, with your email in the reply field so that the school can answer you directly.

MW does not store the content of the message or your contact details in its database. For each submission it keeps only a record without identifying data, containing the recipient school, the type of enquiry, the country and the date, which is used to understand how the directory is used.

Sending the message may generate technical logs — on the server, in the email system, or in error monitoring tools — which may include IP addresses or other technical information. These are necessary for security, abuse prevention and the operation of the service, and are kept for the periods indicated in section 9.

MW does not use this data for profiling, to build a commercial database of families, or to send you marketing communications.

The legal basis is your consent, given when you submit the form after accepting this policy. You may withdraw it at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out beforehand. Once the message has been sent, the school's use of your data is governed by its own privacy policy.

8. Other purposes

MW processes personal data where necessary to maintain the security of the service, prevent fraudulent or abusive use, resolve technical incidents, comply with legal obligations, and exercise or defend rights in administrative or judicial proceedings.

Depending on the case, the legal basis is MW's legitimate interest or compliance with a legal obligation.

MW does not sell personal data, does not disclose it to third parties for advertising purposes, and does not use it to build commercial profiles.

9. How long data is kept

MW keeps data for as long as the relationship with the school is active.

When a school asks to leave, MW stops displaying its listing publicly and keeps the associated information for as long as it remains useful for a possible return to the directory, since keeping the listing saves the school from rebuilding it from scratch. After five years without activity or contact, the data is deleted or anonymised.

The school may ask at any time for its data to be deleted permanently, and MW will do so except for anything it must keep by legal obligation.

Data on a seeded listing is kept for as long as the listing is published. The school may request its removal at any time.

Where no relationship with a school is established, MW keeps the information about the school itself and deletes the contact details of individuals once they are no longer necessary for that purpose.

Technical logs and email delivery logs are kept for short periods, determined by their security and debugging purpose and by our providers' retention periods.

Accounting and tax records are kept for the periods set by commercial and tax legislation.

10. Technology providers

MW relies on the following providers to deliver the service:

MW selects providers that offer adequate safeguards and enters into the corresponding data processing agreements with them. Where a provider or sub-processor is located outside the European Economic Area, MW applies the international transfer mechanism provided for in the General Data Protection Regulation.

Maps. Map tiles are served from OpenFreeMap, built on OpenStreetMap data. When a map loads, your browser connects directly to that service, which may record your IP address as part of its technical operation. OpenFreeMap does not process data on MW's behalf.

11. Who else can access the data

Data may be processed by the providers listed in the previous section where necessary for the operation of the directory.

It may also be disclosed where there is a legal obligation, a valid request from a competent authority, or where necessary to exercise or defend rights.

The contact details a school chooses to publish on its listing are publicly visible.

12. Usage analytics

MW measures how the directory is used with its own analytics tool, hosted on a LIGHTHOUSES, S.C.P. server. No external provider is involved: the data never leaves the controller, is not shared with advertising platforms, and is not transferred outside the European Economic Area.

These analytics use no cookies and store nothing in your browser, do not identify you, and do not track you across websites. For each visit we record the page viewed, the referring page, the language, the device and browser type, and the approximate country.

Your IP address is used only at the moment of the visit, to infer that approximate country and to distinguish repeat visits within the same day. It is neither stored nor linked to the information we keep, which is aggregated and cannot identify you.

The legal basis is MW's legitimate interest in understanding how the directory is used in order to improve it. In balancing that interest we have taken into account that the processing involves no profiling, no cross-site tracking, and no retention of the IP address.

13. Cookies

MW uses only cookies necessary for the operation of the site: session, protection against CSRF attacks, and preferences set by the user.

MW does not use analytics or advertising cookies. The usage analytics described in the previous section work without cookies and without storing information in your browser, and therefore do not require consent. If technologies requiring consent are introduced in the future, MW will update this policy and request that consent before using them.

14. Your rights

You may exercise the rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection, restriction of processing and portability, and withdraw consent where processing is based on it, by writing to info@themontessori.world.

The request must allow you to be reasonably identified and must indicate which right you wish to exercise.

Where the data has not been obtained directly from you, you may ask for information about its source.

If you believe your rights have not been properly addressed, you may lodge a complaint with the data protection authority competent in your country of residence:

15. Minors

MW does not offer accounts to families and does not deliberately collect personal data of minors.

Photographs of minors appearing on listings are supplied by the schools, which must hold the legal basis and the permissions required to publish them.

If you believe a photograph or any other content relating to a minor has been published improperly, write to info@themontessori.world. These requests are handled as a priority.

16. Changes to this policy

MW may amend this policy to reflect changes in the service, in legislation, or in the practices of the directory. Where changes are substantial, they will be communicated to schools with an active account. The current version is always available on the website.

17. Official version

The Spanish version of this policy is the official one. Translations into other languages are for information purposes only and, in the event of any discrepancy, the Spanish version prevails.