Alumni and supporter data protection statement

Purpose of this data protection statement

Manchester Met values the relationships with all its alumni and supporters and this statement explains how the development and alumni relations office collect, manages and uses your personal data at the University. The statement also explains how you can change the way that we use your personal data at any time.

Manchester Met is the data controller for the personal data you disclose to the development and alumni relations office via online and print forms, email, phone, and mail.

The University is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner Office (ICO) and is responsible under the Data Protection Act 2018 for the personal data you submit to us. We process your personal data under the terms of our registration notice with the ICO and the University’s data protection policy. Our ICO registration number is Z5710637. Find our general enquiries contact details and address.

Your personal data will be stored securely in the University’s development and alumni relations database. Your personal data will not be disclosed to external organisations other than those acting as agents for the University on alumni projects and fundraising activities, such as mailing houses to send university magazines, publications and mailings, and checking phone numbers with the Telephone Preference Service.

How your personal data are collected

The development and alumni relations office at Manchester Met holds data collected during your relationship and contact with the University as a student, supporter, donor, event attendee and alumnus/a. Student data are transferred to the development and alumni relations office upon the successful completion of a qualification or course in accordance with the Student Data Notice. The University relies upon the legitimate purposes condition to use your personal data to register you as university alumni. The legitimate purpose is to maintain a lifelong relationship with our former students.

Updates to your personal data are made from the information you supply to us via communications, events and forms, and to other departments and staff at the University.

The development and alumni relations office aim to keep your personal data as up-to-date as possible and will ask you to update them through various projects and communications. Some of the data may have been obtained from publicly available sources online and from third party data cleansing companies, through the use of the Credit Reference Information Notice (CRAIN). This information is used for customer management and data quality purposes. Such uses may include: to correct or update data held on the organisation’s records, such as correcting spelling mistakes or adding missing fields.

Examples of online resources

If you provide personal data to a third party such as Eventbrite to book for one of our events or Just Giving to fundraise for the University, your data will be held, processed and shared with the development and alumni relations office  according to that company’s terms and conditions and privacy policy.

What personal data we hold and how we use them

The development and alumni relations office maintain a record of all former students of the University that have successfully completed a course of study with us.

The data we hold may include:

• name, title, gender and date of birth
• contact details (addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and social media links)
• education information
• information about your time at the University and interests
• your employment history
• family and spouse/partner details and your relationships or connections to other alumni, supporters, and friends
• records of donations and Gift Aid status, where applicable as required by HM Revenue & Customs
• records of communications sent to you by the development and alumni relations office and received from you
• media articles
• information on your engagement in university meetings, events, volunteering, groups or networks
• your preferences about how we contact you and for which purposes
• the development and alumni relations office holds your data for alumni relations and fundraising purposes, which include the following:
• university publications and news to keep alumni and supporters in touch
• professional, social and corporate events for alumni and supporters
• fundraising programmes which raise funds for the University
• discounts, benefits and services for alumni, which may include emails about courses and careers support, surveys to improve services for alumni
• alumni volunteering opportunities, such as mentoring students, giving talks to students, providing case studies and quotes for marketing publications in order to inspire students

The University may contact alumni and supporters via the methods below:

• mail
• email
• telephone
• text (the University does not currently contact alumni by text but may do so in the future)

When you complete a development and alumni relations online and/or printed update form, you give your consent to be contacted by us by certain methods and for certain purposes.

Your data may be shared with other university departments (unless you have requested otherwise) in order to send communications, invitations, and information about alumni relations and fundraising activities of potential interest to alumni, donors and supporters.

We value our relationship with you and we use your personal data to ensure we contact you in the most appropriate way, improve our services and to ensure we work efficiently and effectively. On that basis, we may also use your personal data or information from publicly available sources (see examples of online sources above) to carry out research to assess your inclination and capacity to support the University financially through fundraising activity, to send you communications or by volunteering your time. This research may include collecting data relating to you that is in the public domain (such as career history, directorships, your assets, shareholdings, charitable affiliations, and remuneration) as well as data that have been provided by you including your interests and university activity you have previously been involved in. This research is sometimes known as prospect research or wealth profiling. If you prefer that we do not conduct this activity, please contact us.

The University is committed to ensuring that it fundraises in a transparent, ethical, responsible and honest way and is registered with the Fundraising Regulator and committed to the regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice. The University conducts all fundraising according to the Supporter Promise.

Tools may be used to help us improve the effectiveness of the University’s communications with you, including tracking whether the emails we send are opened and which links are clicked within a message. We monitor website visits and use tools such as Google Analytics to improve our website and services.

How we keep your data safe

The development and alumni relations office ensures that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details. For example, the University network is protected and routinely monitored. A limited number of trained staff have access to the development and alumni relations database.

The development and alumni relations office may share your personal data with agents and partners that conduct contractual services on its behalf. These include mailing houses in order to send you the university magazine, direct mail and fundraising mailings; email service providers used by the University to send your emails; and companies that conduct specific tasks, such as checking phone numbers with the Telephone Preference Service so that we do not phone those who do not wish to be contacted by phone. The development and alumni relations office only share data for these purposes after completing a service contract and non-disclosure agreement that ensures a secure data processing arrangement and that your data are held confidentially and securely. These companies are only allowed to use your data in accordance with strict instructions and for the agreed purpose.

The development and alumni relations office never sells your personal data to third parties or external companies.

Although most of the information we store and process stays within the UK, some information may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This may occur if, for example, one of our trusted partner’s servers are located in a country outside the EEA. Where these countries do not have similar data protection laws to the UK, we will take steps to make sure they provide an adequate level of protection in accordance with UK data protection law.

Keeping your data up to date

Where possible we use publicly available sources to keep your records up to date, for example, the Post Office’s National Change of Address database. The development and alumni relations office regularly ask alumni to update details whenever they change via communications.

Your data rights

You can withdraw your consent to any of the above communications at any point by contacting us, or by following opt-out links which can be found in development and alumni communications.

You have a range of rights in relation to your personal data under the Data Protection Act 2018. These rights include being able to request corrections, erasure, and access to your personal data and that the processing of your personal data stops or is restricted for certain purposes.

Further detail about these rights can be found in the University’s data protection policy.

You can also contact the University’s data protection officer about the processing of your personal data, including if you have concerns about the use of your data or wish to discuss the exercise of your rights. The University’s data protection officer can be contacted via legal services: [email protected]. You also have the right to lodge a complaint at any time about the processing of your personal data or the way in which a request to exercise your rights has been handled with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The University hopes that the relationship it has with alumni and supporters will be lifelong and so the development and alumni relations office will hold your details until you inform us that you no longer wish us to hold them and in accordance with the University’s record retention and destruction schedule.

Changes to this statement

This data protection statement may be updated from time to time. If we make significant changes in the way we manage your personal data, we will update this web page and/or inform you directly.