Privacy Notice - Alumni and Donors

A bit about us

The University of Salford is the “Data Controller” of your personal data and is subject to the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulations (“UK GDPR”). We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”).

The Alumni Engagement and Development team is committed to preserving and developing the University’s relationship with its graduates. The university has a global alumni community of over 170,000 graduates who are working in all sectors and are our biggest advocates and supporters. Our aim is to help graduates continue to feel supported and connected to the University of Salford by providing educational, employability and well-being benefits and services, networking and philanthropic opportunities and a series of educational events.

When do we collect data?

We collect data about you at various stages in your relationship with us. This may be:

1. From elsewhere in the university 

We transfer the names of all our students, their degree information and contact details to the database of the Office of Alumni Engagement & Development from the University’s student database at the point of graduation. We also gather information on membership of University clubs and societies, sports centre membership and alumni library membership.

We also share information with the University’s Enterprise and Industry Collaboration team to identify where we are, or may soon be, working with the same contacts or organisations. This helps us to provide a joined-up service to you.

2. Directly from you

When you enquire about our activities, sign up for an event, register for or make changes to your information on the From Salford online alumni platform, make a donation to the University or otherwise provide us with personal information.

You can also let us know about any changes in contact information at any time by filling in this form Update Your Details form or emailing alumni@salford.ac.uk.

3. Indirectly from you

Your information may also be passed to us from sources such as the University of Salford crowdfunding website where you have made a donation through them. We will only use your personal information if you have specifically given permission for us to contact you.

To ensure we can continue to communicate with you we may use publicly available information obtained by a third party to help us keep your postal address details up-to-date (we only use the Royal Mail National Change of Address service) and to remove deceased people from our communications list.

4. From other organisations or public sources

As with other universities and charities we may use your personal data to help us make estimates of your potential ability and willingness to make donations to the university. These estimates help us to tailor our fundraising activities and communications to you. To ensure we are providing you the best experience for you we may also use insight companies to provide us with general geo-demographic or wealth information (sometimes known as ‘wealth screening’). This information is compiled using publicly available data and information you have already supplied to us.

We may use publicly available information ensure we communicate with you in the best way for you. We use sources such as:

• The Charity Commission and The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)
• Rich Lists, such as The Sunday Times Rich List
• Company and charity websites and company social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We do not search for or collect information from personal and private social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram
• Information shared publicly on personal LinkedIn accounts
• Online newspapers.

Why do we collect your information?

Under the UK GDPR we have to have justification (“legal basis”) for obtaining your information, for alumni and donors we believe that this is:

1. Legitimate interests

To ensure that we can carry out our role as your alumni engagement and development team we hold and process relevant data on our alumni, supporters and potential supporters. We ensure all of your personal information is used and stored fairly and treat it in a way that you would reasonably expect. This privacy statement outlines exactly what we do with your data and why.

2. Consent

Where we would like to contact you by email or SMS with direct marketing messages we require your permission to do so. All email and SMS communications contain an unsubscribe option so you can withdraw your consent at any time. We may record some special category data* but only if you provide this information to us directly and it is relevant to our relationship with you.

What sort of data do we collect?

Under the UK GDPR we are only permitted to collect the minimum amount of information needed to carry out a specific purpose. We may collect the following type of personal data about you:

1. Information that helps identify you:

• Your name and date of birth
• Contact information (address, email, phone number)
• Country of domicile and nationality.

2. Information relating to your education and employment history:

• Your course title, University of Salford school, start and end dates at the university, graduation date and degree classification
• The school(s), sixth form(s)/college(s) and other Universities you’ve attended
• Current and past places of work and job title.

3. Information about your family or personal circumstances plus both academic and extracurricular interests, where this is relevant to your relationship with the university or our relationship with you.

• Areas of interest or potential interest within the University
• Your potential capacity to make a gift
• Relationships to other alumni, family or partner details
• All communications sent to you by the university to do with event attendance and details of any donations made
• Detail of verbal or email conversations/meetings we’ve had with you
• Whether you have given us permission to claim Gift Aid on donations you have made.

4. We do not record sensitive personal data unless you provide it to us directly, you consent and it is relevant to our ongoing relationship with you. We delete this information as soon as it is no longer applicable. Sensitive information we may record includes:

• Information concerning your health and medical conditions
• Information about your racial or ethnic origin, religion or political beliefs and sexual orientation.

How do we use your information?

Your personal information will be used to provide any services you have requested and to keep in touch with you as a member of the Salford Alumni community.  We may communicate with you about the following:

• University updates and news
• Offers and discounts to which you may be entitled
• Promotions of benefits or services
• Invitations to events
• Ways to get involved
• Fundraising.

Your data is used and processed for the full range of university, alumni and supporter activities and programmes involving academic and administrative departments and all relevant communications, fundraising and marketing activity (by mail, email and telephone). You can request to stop receiving communications at any time, by completing this Communication Preferences Form. Alternatively you can email us at any time at alumni@salford.ac.uk specifying your requirements or use the unsubscribe link at the end of every email we send to you.

If you have provided us with your postal address, email address or telephone number we may contact you via these means unless you have told us you’d prefer us not to.  

We actively check phone numbers against the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and we will only call you on a number listed on TPS if you have specifically told us we may. We also check against the Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) and do not send communications to those who have opted out.

The university does not collect and store any bank or credit/debit card details.

We use information on your employment, university subject of study and membership of University clubs and societies to help tailor our communications with you, including asks for you to become involved in fundraising, or volunteering with our alumni and student communities.  We collect information on alumni library and sports centre membership to monitor uptake of services.

To ensure we only accept fundraising donations from legal sources and in line with our Gift Acceptance and Ethical Fundraising Policy we carry out due diligence research on our potential major donors using publicly and freely available sources.

Your data will not be disclosed to external organisations other than those acting as agents for the University. We always make sure there are appropriate controls in place (as outlined below) so that your data will remain secure. The university will never sell, trade or give away your data.

Tools may be used to monitor the effectiveness of the university’s communications with you, including email tracking (which records when an email from us is opened and/or how many links are clicked within the message) and internal data analysis and reporting.  This helps us to understand how our communications are being received and understood.

The university is committed to holding your data securely and treating it with sensitivity. The university will only hold the data for as long as it considers necessary for the above purposes.

How long do we keep your data for?

Data is retained for as long as it is required to perform its purpose, or for as long as is required by law. At the end of that retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised.

Who do we share your information with?

In order to meet our contractual needs or to improve our services, sometimes we share your personal data with trusted third parties.

Here’s the policy we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:

• We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services
• They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them
• We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected & protected at all times
• If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.

Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:

1. Our employees, agents & contractors where there is a legitimate reason for their receiving the information, including:

• Third parties who provide mailing or data processing services, e.g. the mailing house which sends out our alumni magazine, and the company we use to maintain accurate and up-to-date personal data on our alumni and supporters
• Third parties who work with us to improve our data processes e.g. the consultants providing support and training for data visualisation software such as PowerBI.
• Where we send a short biography to University event organisers and/or University employees working at that event
• Third parties who provide out of hours IT support
• Internal & external auditors
• Third parties who conduct surveys, for example the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

2. Government departments and agencies where we have a statutory obligation to provide information, for example:

• the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)

International data transfers

Some of the personal information we process about you may in rare circumstances be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the UK for example where it is processed by staff operating outside the UK who work for us or for one of our suppliers, or where the personal data is processed by one of our suppliers who is based outside the UK or uses a storage facilities outside of the UK. Any international data transfers will comply with UK GDPR requirements.

Your choices regarding your data

It is always your choice as to whether you want to receive information about the University, how we raise funds and the ways you can be involved.  If you do not want us to use your personal information in these ways or to contact you by email, phone and/or post please let us know.  You can indicate your preferences by completing this Communication Preferences Form. Alternatively you can email us at any time at alumni@salford.ac.uk specifying your requirements or use the unsubscribe link at the end of every email we send to you.

If you do not want us to continue to hold your personal information please contact us at alumni@salford.ac.uk. Please note that we will still need to retain skeleton information on you (name, year/s of study, course title and home address) to help ensure that we do not contact you again.

Any choices you make will overwrite any previous preferences you have informed us about.

Updating your contact details

The accuracy of your personal information is important to us.  You can let us know about any changes in contact information at any time by filling in this Update Your Details form or emailing alumni@salford.ac.uk.

How can you find out what Information we hold on you?

You have certain rights in respect of the personal information the University holds about you. Visit our data protection, privacy and cookies page for more information about individual rights under GDPR and how you exercise them.

This statement

From time to time we may make changes to this statement because the way we are processing your personal information changes. All alterations will be posted on this page and will apply from the time we post them. Where we have a valid email address for you we will periodically email you to inform you what changes have been made and to send you a link to our current privacy statement.

This statement was last updated on 2 August 2021.

Special category data is defined by the UK GDPR as:

• personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin
• personal data revealing political opinions
• personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs
• personal data revealing trade union membership
• genetic data
• biometric data (where used for identification purposes)
• data concerning health
• data concerning a person’s sex life
• data concerning a person’s sexual orientation