This privacy notice provides detailed information about how we process personal data. Please read it carefully and, if you have questions regarding your personal data or its use, please contact the data protection officer by email on [email protected]
What personal information does the College collect?
We collect the following personal data under GDPR Article 6b (Performance of a contract), GDPR Article 6c (Legal Obligation), and 6e (Public Task) in order to meet our legal obligations with the ESFA. This collection is also necessary in order for us to carry out our public task to provide education and training.
- Details about yourself including your name, date of birth and gender;
- Your image for identity management purposes only.
- Contact details – including address, telephone number and email address,
- Details of your previous qualifications, employment and educational history,
- Information about your nationality and residency, and previous address if applicable
- Household information (Adult Learners only, this is collected only for ESFA and are not used by the College)
- Employment status, National Insurance number and benefits (Adult Learners only)
- Emergency contacts GDPR Article 6d (Vital Interests).
- Parent/carer details at the start of the academic year for students under 18 on the day that they apply to us, under GDPR Article 6e (Public Task) in order to support our duty to support the education and learning as fully as possible.
Examination scripts and marks; - Passport details for student taking part in overseas trips.
- Bank Details, proof of income and benefits (Bursary Student Only)
- National Asylum Seeker number where applicable.
Sensitive personal data that we may collect about you includes:
- Information about medical or health conditions, including whether or not you have a learning disability or difficulty
- Information about your racial or ethnic origin; religion or similar beliefs; and sexual orientation.
- Criminal convictions.
- Biometric data for the purposes of our attendance monitoring.
How is this collected?
- Most of the information above is collected from the information you provide to us when you interact with us before joining, for example when you express your interest in studying at Aquinas College, via an application and/or enrolment form.
- When you communicate with us by telephone, email or via our website, for example in order to make an enquiries or raise concerns. (Name and Email only).
- In various other ways as you interact with us during your time as a student of Aquinas College.
- Some information such as educational history, special needs or, looked after status may be collected from other organisations such as the DfE, the Local Education Authority, or your previous school.
Why do we collect personal information?
The College collects and processes personal data (including sensitive personal data), relating to its learners to effectively manage your learning and to meet our statutory obligations as an Sixth Form College. Aquinas College is committed to being transparent about the data it collects and uses of that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.
Further reasons why we may use personal data (including sensitive personal data) we collect during a student’s association with us include:
academic matters, including:
- the provision of our core teaching and learning services (e.g. registration, assessment, attendance, managing progress, academic misconduct investigations, certification)
- maintaining student records;
- providing library, IT and information services;
non-academic matters in support of our core services, including:
- providing student support services
- monitoring equal opportunities;
- safeguarding and promoting the welfare of students;
- ensuring students’ safety and security;
- managing the use of social media;
- managing car parking on site;
- administering finance (e.g. Bursary and Free College Meals);
other administrative purposes, including:
- carrying out research and statistical analysis;
- carrying out audits (e.g. to ensure compliance with our regulatory and legal obligations);
- promoting our services (e.g. providing information about courses on offer, events happening on and off College grounds, trips and visit opportunities);
- preventing and detecting crime;
- dealing with grievances and disciplinary actions;
- dealing with complaints and enquiries.
Where do we store data?
Data is stored in a range of different places, including the student information management systems, on paper in stored secure places, or on electronic documents within a secure network.
Why does the organisation need to process personal data?
College needs to process data so we can provide you with the highest standards of education and training we are able to give, and to meet the legal obligations from government organisations including the DfE.
Data regarding employment status and benefits is required to assess your eligibility for fee remission or support.
Where the organisation processes other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, disability or health, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring and monitoring our service provision to improve our services to specific groups. We also use the data so we can personalise the provision to each learner to provide him or her with the best possible opportunities to succeed. Any information that has been supplied under the lawful basis of consent, consent can be withdrawn at any time, by contacting the data protection officer.
Contact details will not be used for marketing or survey purposes without your consent, which can be withdrawn at any time. However the college will use the contact information to contact you in order to carry out our duties to you, for example to notify you of a change of course date, and also to obtain data where legally required, such as destination surveys.
Sharing information with others
Your information may be shared internally, including with any Aquinas staff who need the data to provide services to the learner. This will include special categories of data where appropriate.
For the purposes referred to in this privacy notice and relying on the basis for processing as set out above, we may share your personal data with certain third parties. You are given the opportunity to opt out of some of these data sharing arrangements, for example when you apply to us, but you should carefully consider the possible impact of doing this.
Where we engage non-statutory third parties to process personal data on our behalf, we require them to do so on the basis of written instructions, they are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.
We may disclose limited personal data to a variety of recipients including:
- agents where there is a legitimate reason for them receiving the information, including:
- third parties who work with us to provide student educational services (e.g progress monitoring).
- third parties who work with us to provide student support services (e.g. counselling);
- internal and external auditors.We share your data with third parties where there is a legal obligation, including ESFA, DfE Learner Records Service (LRS) and the Local Authority for learners aged 16-18 at the time of enrolment.
- Crime prevention or detection agencies (e.g. the police)
- Parents, guardians, and next-of-kin (where they are listed as a contact);
- A limited number of college approved third parties conducting surveys, (e.g. Education and Skill Funding Agency)
International data transfers
We will not transfer your data to countries outside the European Economic Area.
How we keep data secure
The organisation takes the security of your data seriously. The organisation has internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties. The Data Protection policy is available to view on our website, or can be obtained in a paper version by contacting our reception.
How long your information is kept
All data collected and processed on behalf of the ESFA will be held for as long as we are legally required to do so. Other data will be held as long as is necessary to fulfil our duty as a college. Any data provided by consent may be deleted on request.
What rights do you have?
Under the GDPR you have the following rights:
- to obtain access to, and copies of, the personal data that we hold about you;
- to require that we cease processing your personal data if the processing is causing you damage or distress ,
- to require us not to send you marketing communications.
- to require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect;
- to require us to erase your personal data;
- to require us to restrict our data processing activities (and, where our processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent);
- to receive from us the personal data we hold about you which you have provided to us;
- to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to any of our particular processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on your rights.
Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply or where there is a legitimate interest in continuing this processing.
If you have given your consent, where that is the legal basis of our processing, and you wish to withdraw it, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the contact details set out below. Please note that where our processing of your personal data relies on your consent and where you then withdraw that consent, we may not be able to provide all or some aspects of our services to you and/or it may affect the provision of those services.
Contact us
If you have any queries about this privacy notice or how we process your personal data, or to request access to the personal data that we hold about you, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by email: [email protected]; by telephone:0161 483 3237; or by post: Data Protection Officer, Aquinas College Nangreave Road Stockport SK2 6TH
If you are not satisfied with how we are processing your personal data, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner.
You can find out more about your rights under data protection legislation from the Information Commissioner’s Office website available at: www.ico.org.uk.
What if I do not provide personal data?
Failure to provide data required to meet legal obligations will result in us not being able to enrol you as a student. Failure to provide other information (except that requiring consent), for example learning difficulty or disability information, may result in the college being unable to provide the standard of service we would wish to provide.
Does College use automated decision-making?
The College uses an automated process to send absence notifications.