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Alumni, Supporters and Friends privacy notice

This privacy notice explains what types of information will be gathered about you as Alumni, Supporters or Friends of the University and how this information will be used.

Introduction

Nottingham Trent University is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

We value our relationship with you and would like to send you relevant communications, offer beneficial services, thank you for your support, and share future opportunities to get involved, which may be of interest to you. To do so, we need to process your personal information.

This Privacy Notice provides important information about how Nottingham Trent University (“NTU”) holds and uses personal data about Alumni, supporters and friends in accordance with its legal and regulatory obligations. It applies to all NTU Alumni, supporters and friends (“you” or “your”) and/or any services that are linked to Alumni, supporter and friend activity (collectively, our “Services”). Occasionally, a service will link to a different privacy statement that will outline the particular privacy practices of that service, such as:

NTU encourages you to review the privacy statements of any websites you choose to navigate to from our website (or navigate from to our website) or digital services that we provide links to, so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your information. Any third party sites that you can access through the NTU website are not covered by this Privacy Notice and we accept no responsibility or liability for these sites.

This privacy notice explains what types of information will be gathered about you as Alumni, Supporters or Friends of the University and how this information will be used.

Who we are

NTU is a Controller, which means we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

The University aims to establish and develop lifelong relationships with our Alumni, supporters and friends. We are here to help you stay in touch with each other and to provide you with news, Alumni community information, events and networking opportunities, volunteering opportunities, information about giving, research and career advice and opportunities.

Please read this Privacy Notice carefully and contact the Alumni team or our Data Protection Officer if you have any questions about our privacy practices or your personal information choices, as follows:

Nottingham Trent University
Address: 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ
Email: DPO@ntu.ac.uk

We may need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. If changes made to this Privacy Notice are considered to be material, we will notify you of the changes.

Personal information

NTU is committed to the responsible handling and protection of personal information.

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about you as a “Data Subject”. The information will be your personal data if you can be identified either directly or indirectly; in particular, by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that person. For example; personal data may include names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers; it may also include images in photographs or films and recorded telephone conversations. It does not include data where your identity, or potential to be identified, has been removed (ie anonymous data).

The types of personal information we hold

We may collect, hold and process the following types of personal information about you:

Biographical

  • Name, address(es), telephone number(s), email address(es);
  • Date of Birth and gender;
  • Alumni Constituent ID;
  • Spouse/partner name and other relevant connections where known (family, friends, work colleagues, NTU staff and students and other personal contacts);
  • Bank details and/or payment card details (collected and used for donations and event registrations);
  • Gift Aid Declarations and tax status;
  • Computing and email information, including login details and network access;
  • Links to your public social media presence e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, website or blog and membership of Alumni and NTU social media groups;
  • Visual images/photographs, which may come from publicly available sources where copyright allows; and
  • Your current interests, activities and accolades and involvement in sports teams, clubs or societies whilst at NTU and subsequently.

Educational

  • Current or past Student ID Number and UCAS number (if relevant);
  • Your course details and attainment record; and
  • Details of any philanthropic scholarships, bursaries or awards that you received.

Employment/Business

  • Professional and employment/engagement details, including current and past professional titles, contact details, publications and your income band; and
  • Your affiliations with other organisations (e.g. board memberships).

Data relating to interactions with NTU

  • Communications relating to decisions we make;
  • Records of your interactions with us (correspondence, notes) including your communication preferences;
  • Your attendance and/or involvement in events;
  • Details of the NTU and/or Alumni benefits/services provided to you since completing your course (e.g. employability);
  • How you may be able to support us, for example our estimate of your capacity to volunteer or donate (which may include details of your estimated or actual financial worth and internal classifications of your engagement with NTU and/or potential for supporting us e.g. through future donations); and
  • Your support for NTU (e.g. your donations, volunteering or advocacy).

In some circumstances, we also collect, store and use “special categories” of more sensitive personal data, which may include:

  • Health information including medical conditions – we may use health information to help us to make reasonable adjustments to improve our service to you; to ensure our engagement with you is based on a suitable understanding of, and respect for, your particular circumstances.
  • Criminal conviction offences – we may use publicly available information relating to convictions, offences or allegations, including money laundering or bribery offences, to carry out Due Diligence on donors or prospective donors in line with our guidelines on the acceptance of gifts.
  • Race or ethnicity – we may use this information to support monitoring purposes and help to ensure activities reflect the make-up of our alumni and student community.
  • We do not seek to obtain sexual orientation, religious beliefs or political opinions, but they may sometimes be inferred from other data we hold about you (activities or event attendance, memberships, relationships, donations to specific causes).

How we collect your data

We collect personal information in three ways:

  1. Directly from you during your ongoing relationship with the University, which includes personal information held on your student record and which is shared to the Development and Alumni Relations database when you graduate;
  2. From publicly available sources; and
  3. From third parties providing us with services or acting on our behalf.

Personal Information may be created or collected from the following range of sources:

  • We and our staff generate about you, such as event attendance, meetings, groups and information in connection with your attendance and involvement with NTU;
  • Transferred from your student record if you are a current or previous student at NTU or one of its predecessor institutions;
  • Through our “Digital Services”, which for the purposes of this Privacy Notice, we mean the NTU websites at www.ntu.ac.uk, and www.ntualumni.org.uk, and any other NTU-authorised internet services, websites, products, social media, mobile phone apps and/or software applications that enable you to use, access, view, listen to and/or download NTU content or to interact with us online (or through any other digital means) on any device. We collect information that you provide to us by filling out forms on the website or by corresponding with us through the Digital Services. It includes information that you provide when you participate in discussion boards or other social media functions within the Digital Services, enter a competition, promotion or survey, and when you report a problem with the Digital Services;
  • Through sources such as social media (eg LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter), facilities available publicly or through subscription such as Companies House, Burke’s Peerage, Who’s Who, National Change of Address files or the Land Registry, internet sources such as Google or Zoopla, or publications and articles in the public domain, such as the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and the Times Rich List. We may use this information to assess your level of engagement, your likelihood and capacity to volunteer or to make donations;
  • Email or telephone correspondence you have with NTU; and
  • Our servers, logs, and other technologies automatically collect certain information to help us administer, protect, and improve our Services; analyse usage; and improve users’ experience.

We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. This includes the use of "cookies" when you access our website. Please refer to our cookies policy for further information regarding our use of cookies. We may also automatically record visits to our website for the purposes of improving our services. These recordings may record mouse clicks, mouse movements, page scrolling and any text keyed into website forms. Information collected by cookies or session recordings is stored and is used for aggregated and statistical reporting.

NTU uses CCTV around campus, and will collect and store information. For full details of our CCTV use which will apply if you access NTU’s campus (for example, to attend Alumni events or other activities), please refer to our CCTV Policy.

How we use data about you

When processing personal data, we rely on a combination of the grounds permitted by data protection law.

Your rights as a “Data Subject” can depend on the legal basis relied upon (please see heading below “Your Rights”).

Illustrative examples of the types of processing activities which fall under each of the legal bases are as follows:

Processing activityLegal basis
Creating (which will include importing aspects of your NTU Student Record), administering and maintaining your record in our Development and Alumni Relations relationship management systemLegitimate Interests, Contract or Consent

Identifying opportunities, products and services that may be of interest to you, and inviting you (through a range of post, telephone, email and text message channels, as appropriate in the circumstances) to get involved with NTU activities, including events, fundraising events, fundraising, mentoring, guest speaking and research. This may include disclosing personal data to trusted third parties, such as appointed service providers, from time to time.

In some cases, we may carry out analysis of the personal information we hold about you to create a profile of your interests, preferences and ability to support NTU, including your volunteering preferences and the amount or level of potential donations or legacy you may be able to give, to enable NTU to better target its resources and to ensure that you receive communications that are of interest to you.

Legitimate Interests or Consent
Event registration and managementContract and Consent
Volunteer registration and managementContract and Consent
Career mentor/mentee registration and managementContract and Consent
Conducting due diligence on prospective major donors in accordance with our Gift Acceptance PolicyLegal Requirement or Legitimate Interests
Processing your giftsContract and Consent
Processing our Gift Aid claims, including sharing information with HMRC for this purposeConsent and Legal Requirement
Making legacy estimates/valuationsLegitimate Interests
Analysis of use of / visits to our Digital ServicesLegitimate Interests
Targeted advertising, using data collected from our Digital Services to target and tailor advertising and analyse marketing activities. This may include external data matching to match customer lists with online platforms (through applications such as Facebook, Google Customer Match) to target and tailor advertising, understand audiences and analyse marketing activitiesLegitimate Interests
Analysis of the effectiveness of our email communicationsLegitimate Interests
Other internal analysis of Development and Alumni Relations performanceLegitimate Interests
Meeting our obligations in relation to the Telephone Preference ServiceLegal Requirement

Responding to our obligations in relation to the Higher Education Statistics Agency Destination of Leavers from Education Longitudinal Survey (please see HESA’s Graduate Outcomes Survey Privacy Notice)

Legitimate Interests or Consent
Participating in higher education ranking or league tables providers with whom we hold a data sharing agreementLegitimate Interests or Consent
Sharing your information as is necessary with relevant third parties (eg emergency services) in order to protect or safeguard your, or someone else’s, lifeVital Interests

Where special categories of personal data (see above) are processed, the permitted legal bases for doing so will include:

  • Explicit consent of the data subject.
  • Processing necessary for employment law or social security law.
  • Processing necessary to protect vital interests (see above).
  • The processing of personal data manifestly made public.
  • The establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
  • Purposes specified in data protection law as being in the substantial public interest.
  • The processing is necessary for reasons of public interest in the area of public health.
  • For archiving, statistical and research purposes.

Who we share your data with

Beyond individual departments and functions of NTU directly (which will include both academic and support services; eg our Employability team), we may, from time to time, share your personal information with NTU associated entities or third parties working on our behalf.  Where we share personal information, we do so in accordance with data privacy and security requirements. We may also occasionally share non-personal, anonymised or pseudonymised, and statistical data with third parties.

NTU is required to collect and process certain information about you for external agencies. These bodies include, but are not limited to: The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) grant awarding bodies, Office for Students (OfS), relevant professional standards and registration bodies, government agencies, police and the emergency services for legitimate purposes. NTU may also be asked by the Office for Students (OFS) to provide student data collected by us to other bodies acting on their behalf such as the Graduate Outcomes Survey.

NTU may share your personal information with our trusted partners and selected third parties to help us perform functions such as statistical analysis, sending you e-mails, postal mail, and text messages or anonymously as part of a research paper and for our marketing purposes. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to NTU, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information. NTU ensures such third parties handle your information in accordance with the GDPR.

Below are the parties with whom we may share personal information and why:

  • We will facilitate communication between Alumni members, but we will not release any personal information to other members without your prior consent (or we are required by law to do so).
  • With NTU associated entities, including Nottingham Trent Students’ Union and Confetti Constellations Ltd:  personal information will be made available to them if necessary for the provision of Services, account administration, marketing, student and technical support, for instance.
  • Our business partners: We occasionally partner with other organisations to deliver co-branded services, provide content, or to host events, conferences, and seminars. As part of these arrangements, we and our partners may collect and share information about you. NTU will handle personal information in accordance with this Privacy Notice, and we encourage you to review the privacy notices of our partners to learn more about how they collect, use, and share personal information.
  • Our selected third-party service providers: We partner with and are supported by service providers both in the UK and around the world. In some cases, these third parties may assist us in fundraising and other related services by providing data about individuals and their capacity and propensity to donate. Personal information will be made available to these parties only when necessary to fulfil the services they provide to us, such as registering for events, direct marketing services; advertising; data analytics and delivery; market research and university rankings (e.g. Financial Times). Our third-party service providers are not permitted to share or use personal information we make available to them for any other purpose than to provide services to us.
  • We may be required to use and retain personal information for legal and compliance reasons, such as the prevention, detection, or investigation of a crime; loss prevention; or fraud.
  • We may also use personal information to meet our internal and external audit or governmental requirements, information security purposes, and as we otherwise believe to be necessary or appropriate:
    (a)  Under applicable law, which may include laws outside your country of residence;
    (b)  To respond to requests from courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies, and other public and government authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence;
    (c)  To enforce our Terms and Conditions; and
    (d)  To protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, or those of other persons.

How long we keep your data for

We retain your personal data in support of your lifelong relationship with the University unless you request otherwise, or there is no longer a legal basis for holding your personal data. Where we no longer need to retain personal information we ensure it is securely disposed of. We may retain anonymised statistical information indefinitely, but you cannot be identified from such data.

How we secure your data

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business requirement to know.

The Development and Alumni Relations team and NTU take data security seriously, and we use appropriate technologies and procedures to protect personal information.

For example:

  • Policies and procedures – measures are in place to protect against accidental loss and unauthorised access, use, destruction, or disclosure of data.
  • Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery strategies that are designed to safeguard the continuity of our service to our clients and to protect our people and assets.
  • Appropriate restrictions on access to personal information.
  • Monitoring and physical measures, to store and transfer data securely.
  • Data Privacy Impact Assessments (DPIA) in accordance with legal requirements and our business policies.
  • Periodic training on privacy, information security, and other related subjects for employees and contractors.
  • Vendor risk management.
  • Contracts and security reviews on third-party vendors and providers of services.

How we keep your data secure in other countries

Your personal information may be transferred by us or our trusted partners outside of the UK and the European Economic Area (the “EEA”).

NTU has networks, databases, servers, systems, and support located throughout the world. NTU collaborates with third parties such as cloud hosting services, suppliers, and technology support located around the world to serve the needs of the NTU, workforce, and students. Your personal information may be shared with record matching and customer targeting partners, including Google, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.  Some of these partners process personal data in Canada and the United States of America.

In some cases, we may need to disclose or transfer your personal information within NTU or to third parties in areas outside of the UK.  The areas in which these recipients are located will vary from time to time, but may include the United States, Europe, Canada, Asia, Australia, India, and other countries.

We take appropriate steps to ensure that personal information is processed, secured, and transferred according to applicable law.  When we transfer personal information from the UK to other countries in which applicable laws do not offer the same level of data privacy protection as in the UK, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy protection.

This means, your rights and protection remain with your data, ie: we use approved contractual clauses, multiparty data transfer agreements, intragroup agreements, and other measures designed to ensure that the recipients of your personal information protect it. If you would like to know more about our data transfer practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer at DPO@ntu.ac.uk or contact the NTU Development and Alumni Relations team at alumni@ntu.ac.uk.

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes.

Your rights

We respect your right to access and control your information, and we will respond to requests for information and, where applicable, will correct, amend, or delete your personal information.

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you.

Request erasure of your personal information in limited circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).

Object to processing of your personal information where we are processing your personal information on the basis of our legitimate interest (or that of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Request the restriction or suspension of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

Object to any direct marketing (for example, email marketing or phone calls) by us, and to require us to stop such marketing.

Object to any automated decision-making about you, which produces legal effects or otherwise significantly affects you.

Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

How to contact us

Please contact us with any requests related to your personal information, or with any questions or queries you may have about this statement. Please contact us by email at alumni@ntu.ac.uk, by telephone +44 (0)115 848 8777 or in writing to: Development and Alumni Relations, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ.

Alternatively, our Data Protection Officer can be contacted at: DPO@ntu.ac.uk

If you are not satisfied with how NTU manages your personal information, you may wish  to contact NTU’s Data Protection Officer at DPO@ntu.ac.uk or make a complaint to the ICO.

This privacy notice was last updated on 31 August 2022.

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time. Any changes to this privacy notice will be posted on this page.