QMU Development & Alumni Office Privacy Statement

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Development & Alumni Office Privacy Statement

Queen Margaret University
Development & Alumni Office

Privacy Statement
June 2022

Introduction

Graduates of Queen Margaret University, and all of its predecessor or partner institutions, are part of a community of over 30,000 alumni from over 90 countries around the world whose knowledge, achievements and expertise are recognised in fields such as politics, health care, business and the arts.

Our alumni are hugely important to us and we are keen for you to continue to contribute to the life of the University long after graduation.

Queen Margaret University (The University) aims to stay in touch and deepen links with our alumni at home and around the world, provide services to them, seek their support both financially and non-financially. We also maintain relationships with non-alumni stakeholders which includes current students, parents, donors, mentors, employers, researchers, policymakers, and advocates.

This Privacy Statement explains how The University’s Development and Alumni Relations Office collects, stores, manages and protects your data. It outlines the types of data that we hold and how we use them to provide services to our alumni and supporters. We aim to be clear when we collect your personal information, and not do anything you would not reasonably expect.

Our responsibilities and legal basis for processing your data

As part of our work we process and store personal information relating to students, staff, alumni, current and potential supporters and friends of the University. We take our responsibilities in relation to this personal information seriously and ensure it is held, used, transferred and processed in accordance with all applicable Data Protection laws. This includes any law, enactment or regulation relating to the processing, privacy and use of personal data as applicable to the University.

The Development and Alumni Office processes the information outlined in this Privacy Statement in pursuit of our legitimate interests in:
(1) Furthering the University’s educational charitable mission (which includes fundraising
and securing the support of volunteers);
(2) Enabling the University to achieve its strategic and operational goals;
(3) Communicating with students, staff, alumni, and current and potential supporters;
(4) Providing benefits and services to students, staff, alumni and current and potential supporters.

We may pursue these legitimate interests by contacting you by telephone, email, post or social media. Information about how you can manage the ways that we contact you, including how to opt out from some or all contact from the Development & Alumni Relations Office, is outlined in the ‘Your rights’ section below.

Whilst the Development & Alumni Office relies on legitimate interest as the legal basis for processing, where this is not overridden by the interests and rights or freedoms of the data subjects concerned, it recognises that it is not the only lawful ground for processing data. As such, where appropriate the Development & Alumni Office will sometimes process your data on an alternative legal basis – for example, because you have given us consent to do so.

Personal data held by the University

We may hold information relating to you from a number of sources. A significant proportion of the information we hold on alumni and stakeholders is that which is provided to us (for example you may give us information face to face, filling in forms on the University’s website, or by corresponding with us by telephone, email or otherwise). If you are a graduate of the University (or any of its predecessor or partner institutions) some of your personal data is transferred from your student record to the University’s alumni database.

Most records contain:

- Details of your education (e.g. the course you have completed and the dates of study).

- Unique personal identifiers and biographical information (e.g. student number, date of
birth).

- Your contact details which we update whenever you let us know they have changed.

- Details of your interactions with the University, including:
(1) your membership of clubs, societies and alumni groups
(2) your attendance at University events
(3) communication you have received from the University or that the University has received from you
(4) details of any meetings that have taken place between you and the University

- Your employment information.

- Any history of donations to the University (please note we do not store full credit card details once the transaction has been processed).The original paperwork detailing bank account details are kept in a locked cupboard within Finance. The bank information is transferred on to our BACS system for direct debit collections. This system has restricted staff access.
We may also use information from publicly available sources, such as public LinkedIn profiles to gain up-to-date information about you, to carry out research to assess your inclination and capacity to support the University financially or by volunteering your time. We may use trusted third-party partners, such as Live Alumni, to carry out this type of data collection to automate some of this work. This information is in the public domain and includes details related to corporate business position, industry and location.

Any sensitive personal data (i.e. data relating to physical disabilities) will only be held if it has been provided by you for a specific purpose (e.g. event planning).

This data is held on a CRM database which is hosted by Blackbaud Inc. located in their European data centre. Access to personal data is restricted to those members of staff who have a requirement to maintain a relationship with you, and is controlled through password protection and user security profiles. All University employees, contractors and volunteers that are given access to personal data receive Data Protection training and have a contractual responsibility to maintain confidentiality.

How your data is used by the University

Your data is used by us for a number of purposes in support of alumni relations, supporter communications and fundraising. These include:

Sending you publications (e.g. QMYOU alumni magazine or electronic newsletters).
Sending you information on QMU courses, events and other activities that may interest you.
Conducting surveys, including assisting with course revalidations etc.
Sending you appeals and requests for donations.
Sending you details of volunteering and mentoring opportunities.
Inviting you to alumni and other University events.
Internal record keeping and administrative purposes (e.g. in order to process a donation you have made or to administer an event you are attending).

We want to communicate with you in a way that meets your needs and requests.

Communications may be sent by post, telephone or electronic means depending on the preferences you have indicated. Digital tools may be used to monitor the impact of our communications, such as email tracking to record when an email has been opened.

If you wish to alter how you receive communications or you wish to stop receiving communications altogether, you can change your preferences by contacting the Development & Alumni team by any of the contact methods below. You can also ask us to stop communicating with you at any time.

When the University shares your data with others

The security of your data is important to us. We will never sell your data. We will also never share your data with anyone to use for their own purposes unless disclosure is permitted or required by law.

The University may engage third parties to undertake marketing, research or fundraising projects on our behalf. Any such companies are acting as agents of the University and the University retains full responsibility for your personal data. Any transfer of data will be done securely and in accordance with good practice and in compliance with data protection
legislation.

We may facilitate the communication between individual alumni, for example for reunion purposes, but in doing so we do not release your personal contact details without prior permission.

Your rights and changes to this statement

We will retain your data indefinitely in support of your lifelong relationship with the University or until you request us to do otherwise.

You can amend the information we hold about you, or your mailing preferences, at any time by calling +44(0)131 474 0000 or emailing alumni@qmu.ac.uk. If you have any queries, wish to restrict data processing, including use for marketing, or do not want to be contacted by the University, please contact us. Please note that minimal information is always retained to make sure you are not contacted again inadvertently and to maintain your academic record for archive purposes. We may also need to retain some financial records about you for statutory purposes (e.g. Gift Aid, anti-fraud or accounting matters).

The controller for your personal data is Queen Margaret University,Edinburgh. Our Data Protection Officer is responsible for monitoring compliance with relevant legislation in relation to the protection of personal data and can be contacted at foi@qmu.ac.uk.

We will publish any changes we make to this data protection statement on our website and notify you by other communication channels where appropriate.
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information about you that we hold or to ask us to delete personal information about you where:
- You consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained
- We are using that information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent
- You have validly objected to our use of your personal information
- Our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.

You have the right at any time to require us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes. In addition, where we use your personal information pursuant to our legitimate interests then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue.

Where we use your personal information with your consent you may withdraw that consent at any time and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given.

Please contact us in any of the ways set out in the contact section if you wish to exercise any of these rights or discuss the use of your personal information.

For further information on the University’s policies in relation to Data Protection please see /footer/foi-and-data-protection/data-protection/.

If you are dissatisfied with the response you receive form the University you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. This can be done by email:

casework@ico.org.uk;

telephone:

030 123 1113:

or post:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF