Outreach activity privacy notice

UWE Bristol provide a range of outreach activities and events for school and colleges to support progression and widen access to Higher Education (HE). This programme is led by the Widening Access team and aims to engage young people, their parents/guardians and teachers/advisers. The programme is designed to support informed decision making, raise aspirations, maximise attainment and promote social mobility.

The University processes your personal data to plan, deliver and monitor participation in our outreach activity. Your data will also be processed to help evaluate programmes, to report on effectiveness and impact of our outreach, and to understand the student journey through education and progression to HE.

As a data controller we are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (or any successor legislation) and any other legislation directly relating to privacy laws that apply (together “the Data Protection Legislation”).

General information on Data Protection law is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

We use your personal data for the following tasks:

• To plan, manage and deliver events and activities to provide you with the best participant experience
• To ensure your safety and well-being during our events and activities
• To monitor and report on participation in activities, ensure engagement with groups that are under-represented in HE, and to assist with future planning
• To evaluate and report on the effectiveness and impact of outreach activities on participants, for example with respect to progression to HE
• To compile statistics and conduct research for reporting purposes to government departments, such as the Office for Students (OfS).

We will only process your personal data when the law allows us to. In addition, we will always comply with UWE Bristol’s policies and procedures in processing your personal data.

Our lawful basis for using your personal data for the above activities is as follows:

• Personal data is processed under the condition of Public Task
• Where special category personal data is used, such as racial or ethnic origin, personal information about health, for research or statistical purposes, we rely on the lawful basis under Article 9(2)(j) in accordance with Article 89(1) of the UK GDPR and Schedule 1 part 1(4) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

You can find out more information from the Information Commissioner's Office about a guide to lawful basis.

We will always tell you about the information we wish to collect from you and how we will use it. We will not use your personal data for automated decision making about you or for profiling purposes.

We collect and process personal data from students and teachers/advisers who participate in our activities.

We collect data from individuals either directly or via schools and colleges where a data sharing agreement is in place to govern this (this includes data that is collected direct from your institution as part of the overall delivery aim of the University, even if you do not attend any of our activities).

If a data sharing agreement is not in place between UWE Bristol and your school or college or if you are directly registering for an activity, you will be asked to share this data with us via an online or hard copy form.

We may also utilise data from internal departments within the University who are processing your information for similar and compatible purposes, such as the Future Quest Uniconnect programme. Find further information relating to Future Quest. 

The amount of data we collect is dependent on the type of activity the individual engages with. For students the data we collect may include:

For professional staff the data we collect may include your name, email address, phone number, institution/organisation name, job title and subject area.

If you are under 13 years of age you must have parental/guardian consent to disclose personal information.

We will only share relevant items of your information where it is necessary to fulfil the lawful purposes listed above. Otherwise, we will not share your personal data without your consent.

Recipients of your personal data will include:

• Academic staff, professional services staff and student ambassadors employed by the University and involved in outreach processes
• Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT). HEAT provides a secure online platform to collect, analyse and research data on activities and participants. This service enables UWE Bristol to monitor and evaluate Widening Access outreach programmes longitudinally, and help evidence effectiveness of programmes to education regulators such as the Office for Students.
• The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
• Third-party software providers who may process your data on UWE Bristol's behalf.

HESA and HEAT may share your data as detailed in their own privacy notices:

• HESA privacy notice
• HEAT privacy notice.

We take a robust approach to protecting your information, with secure electronic and physical storage areas for data with controlled access. Access to your personal data is strictly controlled on a need-to-know basis and data is stored and transmitted securely using methods such as encryption, and access controls for physical records where appropriate.

Alongside these technical measures there are comprehensive and effective policies and processes in place to ensure that those who process your personal information are aware of their obligations and responsibilities for the data they have access to.

By default, people are only granted access to the information they require to perform their duties. Mandatory data protection and information security training is provided to staff and expert advice is available if needed.

We will only retain your personal data for as long as we need it to carry out the purposes in this notice.

• The Widening Access outreach team use Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) to help us link to large administrative datasets. We will keep this data in accordance with HEAT’s privacy notice for up to 15 years or until the student turns 30.
• For professional staff, we will retain your information unless you opt out of receiving communications from us. 

Please see our University Records Management Policy and Records Retention Schedules for more detailed information. These are available by contacting our Data Protection Office at dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk.

Under the Data Protection legislation you have the following qualified rights:

• The right to access your personal data held by or on behalf of the University
• The right to rectification if the information is inaccurate or incomplete
• The right to restrict processing and/or erasure of your personal data
• The right to data portability
• The right to object to processing
• The right to object to automated decision making and profiling
• The right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, we will verify your identity before giving effect to your rights. To exercise any of your rights please contact the Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk.

We will always respond to concerns or queries you may have. If you wish to exercise your rights or have any other general data protection queries, please contact UWE Bristol’s Data Protection Officer via dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk.

For questions about this privacy notice, please contact:

Widening Access team
University of the West of England, Bristol
Frenchay Campus
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1QY

Email: widening.access@uwe.ac.uk