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Education liaison

Data Protection Notice for WP Activities

This privacy notice explains how Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) collects and uses personal data of people who attend events run by our Student Recruitment and Widening Participation team. It is in addition to QMUL’s Data Protection Policy.

Why are you asking me for this? Collecting this information helps us to evaluate how good our activities are and see what impact, if any, we are having on helping students to access higher education. The lawful basis for processing your data used by QMUL is Article 6(1)(e) of UK-GDPR, which allows us to process personal data where it is necessary to perform a task in the public interest. The Office for Students (OfS) has tasked universities with increasing participation in higher education from underrepresented groups. The activities delivered as part of QMUL’s Widening Participation work are designed to meet this task. The evaluation of the project, including our use of HEAT and the sharing of your data associated with using HEAT, is a necessary activity to meet this task as it helps us to see if our activities are increasing participation in higher education and whether or not funding is being used in the most effective way. Where we collect and use special category personal data such as information about your ethnicity or disability, the lawful basis Article 9(2)(g) of UK-GDPR: there is a substantial public interest in the processing and there is a basis to do so in law. The law which allows us to rely on this basis is Section 10 of the Data Protection Act, with reference to the following conditions from Schedule 1: (8) equality of opportunity or treatment, and (4) research.

There are three main reasons why we collect your data:
1. To fulfil compulsory external reporting requirements to regulatory bodies like the OfS, and to give us a clear picture of the types of students we are working with.
2. To help us understand whether the activities we run are beneficial to young people in helping them to achieve their full potential at school and find out more about university. It also helps us to see how we can improve our activities in the future.
3. If you choose to apply to study at Queen Mary University of London in the future, we may use your information to support your application.

What will you do with my data? The data will be entered onto the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) database, where it will be stored in accordance with the U.K. General Data Protection Regulation (UK-GDPR). We will store this information until you are aged 30, and if you enter university within this time, your data will be kept for an additional 15 years after you graduate. In the short term, we will use it to help us assess if we are reaching young people from backgrounds that are currently underrepresented in universities. Once you leave school/college, your data will be sent to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). They will tell us if you went to university, if you finished your degree and if you found a job at the end of your studies. Your record will not be used in a way that would affect you individually. We won’t ever use your data to send you ‘spam’ emails.

Who will you share it with? Only to enable the research and evaluation described above, your data may also be shared with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), the Department for Education (DfE) and HESA, and our partners including HEAT service subscribers and the National Data Service. We won’t ever share your data with companies for marketing purposes.

Will my data be safe? Yes, very safe. We have to comply with strict data protection laws to make sure that we protect your personal details, including the UK-GDPR.

Can I change my mind? Yes. You have the right to ask us to delete your data at any time, just email wp-dataprotection@qmul.ac.uk to do this. You also have the right to ask us what data we hold about you. For more information, including on other rights you have, please see https://www.qmul.ac.uk/privacy/

I’m still not sure… Please ask us about anything that concerns you or that is unclear. If you are really not comfortable with sharing your data, that is completely fine. You can still participate in our activities.

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