Privacy policy

This privacy notice explains how the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE Bristol) collects, manages, and uses your personal data. ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (the data subject).

This privacy notice adheres to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) principle of transparency. This means it gives information about:

• How and why your data will be used;
• What your rights are under GDPR; and
• How to contact UWE Bristol in relation to questions, concerns or exercising your rights regarding the use of your personal data.

As a data controller we are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (or any successor legislation) and any other legislation directly relating to privacy laws that apply (together “the Data Protection Legislation”). General information on Data Protection law is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Why are we processing your personal data?

As you use this website or other digital services, you may be asked to provide personal information by entering it on a web page and submitting it to the University by clicking a button or link (this includes enquiry or feedback forms and discussion boards).

If you have consented to receive marketing, we will use your data to provide you with relevant information about the University, to respond to your enquiries, for quality assurance and market research and to find others who may be interested in receiving information about the University.

How do we use your personal data?

We will only process your personal data when the law allows us to. In addition, we will always comply with UWE Bristol’s policies and procedures in processing your personal data. Our lawful basis for using your personal data includes:

• Where you have freely given your informed consent for your information to be processed for specified purposes. If you wish to withdraw consent at any time, please contact us at marketing@uwe.ac.uk.
• Where it is necessary to enter into and perform a contract with you, including the operation and delivery of any services you have requested.
• When it is necessary to carry out tasks in the public interest (for example the provision of teaching and research).
• In pursuance of our legitimate interests where those interests do not override your individual rights and freedoms (for example maintaining the security of our digital services).

You can find out more information about lawful bases on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

We will always tell you about the information we wish to collect from you and how we will use it. We will not use your personal data for automated decision making about you or for profiling purposes.

What data do we collect?

As you use this website or other digital services, you may be asked to provide personal information when completing one of our online forms and submitting it to the University by clicking a button or link. Typically, we collect this information when you request a prospectus, send an enquiry or book to attend an open day. Data we collect includes your name, title, date of birth, address, email address, phone number, subject of interest, academic year you wish to start).

When you access our website or app, certain information you provide will automatically be recorded by the University through the use of cookies. Please refer to our cookies policy for further information regarding our use of cookies.

Information collected through cookies and session recordings is stored and used for aggregated and statistical reporting with the purpose of improving our services.

Information collected will include your IP address, browser type, and information relating to the page(s) you visited such as mouse events, key presses and text typed on web forms.

In some instances, we will receive similar information from third parties whose web services you have used (including UCAS, WhatUni, The Student Room).

Service providers

We will share personal information with third party organisations (such as software providers), who provide services such as event booking. Where this is the case, we will always ensure appropriate security and contractual data processing agreements are in place.

Marketing and advertising partners

With your consent, we may share information with third parties for marketing and advertising purposes. This may include:

• Google Analytics advertising features: We use these features to create remarketing audiences based on specific behaviour, demographic, and interest data, create segments, and use Google Enhanced Conversions.
• Social media platforms: We may create customer audiences via platforms such as Meta, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok, and Snapchat.

First-party data usage

We use first-party data, which includes data you provide directly to us when, for example, completing a form on our website (signing up to an open day, requesting a prospectus, etc) and data we collect through your interactions with our website and services, to enhance our advertising efforts. This first-party data allows us to:

• Personalise advertising: Serve you or similar audiences with more relevant messages across various platforms.
• Improve targeting: Use demographic information, location, interests, and past browsing behaviour to deliver targeted marketing content.
• Measure effectiveness: Analyse the success of our advertising campaigns to better understand their impact and improve future initiatives.

We use this data in compliance with all relevant data protection legislation and ensure that your data is handled securely. Your personally identifiable information is not used by any remarketing service other than to present you with specific communications from us. You can opt-out of Google Analytics advertising features using their opt-out tool or the Network Initiatives consumer opt-out. You can also set your ad preferences in Meta and other social media platforms by accessing your privacy settings.

Law enforcement purposes

International transfers

Your personal information may be transferred by us or our third-party data processors out of the European Economic Area (EEA). We will always ensure that such transfers will be safeguarded by appropriate transfer mechanisms.

Any queries regarding specific transfers should be addressed to dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk.

Web metrics

To maintain and improve the quality of our website and app we use the web metrics services listed below:

• Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google LLC. ("Google") which records how visitors use the website using cookies.
• If you visit our website by following a Google Adwords link, Google will set a cookie to confirm that you have used their service. The UWE Bristol website will support confirmation that the Adword has been used.
• Hotjar is an analysis tool that records the behaviour of website visitors. Please see the Hotjar privacy policy for more information about how this service collects information.

You may receive targeted marketing using information gathered through your online activity on our website, app or on third party websites based on a range of criteria including demographic information, location, interests and past browsing behaviour.

We use a remarketing service to advertise to previous visitors of this website on third party websites. Information gathered could include browsing behaviour, demographics or interests. This is shared with Google and in some instances social media channels such as META, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, X (formerly Twitter) and Snapchat. Remarketing activity could be in the form of an advertisement on a search results page, or on a third-party website that is part of the Google Display Network (or other network). See our cookie policy for details about managing your cookie preferences.

Social media

UWE Bristol maintains a presence on a number of social media. When entering your personal information on these channels you understand and acknowledge that your data will also be subject to the privacy policies of the third-party providers as well as this Privacy Policy.

Blackboard is a web-based learning environment used by staff and students at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). It requires users to "log in" by entering a user ID and password when they wish to access its resources. The following special provisions of our Privacy Policy apply to its use.

User tracking in Blackboard

If you are enrolled in a module which uses Blackboard your use of that site may be logged. Your module leader and system administrators can access such information as the number of times you logged onto the site, the pages you visited, and the dates and times that you visited them. Where your tutor intends to use the tracking, information created by Blackboard for the purposes of assessment he/she must advise you in advance. You may wish to seek the advice of your tutor if in doubt.

Please note that for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation as applied, enacted, and amended in UK law by logging on to Blackboard you acknowledge and understand that the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) holds and processes information relating to your use of that system. This processing takes effect subject to this Privacy Policy. This statement should be read in conjunction with the University's IT Monitoring Statement (under section 7 of the Information Security Policy (PDF)).

Blackboard and email

Participation in a Blackboard course or organisation may require you to send and receive email. Your tutor may correspond with you through email and may in addition require you to communicate with fellow students through email. Your email address will also be published if you post to a discussion board within Blackboard. By participating in a Blackboard course or organisation, you acknowledge and understand that we publish your email address within the Blackboard system. UWE Bristol students must not publish another student's email address without their express informed consent.

You should not use the email facility within Blackboard to email en masse to your fellow students, unless this has been expressly authorised by the tutor.

The following relates to emails that link to this page at their base. Using the information that you provided on registration, UWE Bristol may from time to time contact you by email.

UWE Bristol uses Dotdigital to send such emails. Dotdigital uses unique identifiers in those emails to perform tracking functions. We use the tracking data they collect to ensure our emails are both relevant to your interests and to ensure we do not email you needlessly. Information on how to disable this can be found online or in your email program instructions. You may choose to opt out of emails sent by UWE Bristol using the link provided on the email.

UWE Bristol does not send unsolicited email. If you appear to have received unsolicited emails from us, please use the unsubscribe link on the email or contact us and we will remove you from our lists.

How do we keep your data secure?

We take a robust approach to protecting your information with secure electronic and physical storage areas for data with controlled access. Access to your personal data is strictly controlled on a need-to-know basis and data is stored and transmitted securely using methods such as encryption and access controls for physical records where appropriate.

Alongside these technical measures there are comprehensive and effective policies and processes in place to ensure that those who process your personal information are aware of their obligations and responsibilities for the data they have access to.

By default, people are only granted access to the information they require to perform their duties. Mandatory data protection and information security training is provided to staff and expert advice available if needed.

How long do we keep your data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as we need it to carry out the purposes in this notice.

Please see our University Records Management Policy and Records Retention Schedules for more detailed information. These are available by contacting our Data Protection Office at dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk.

Children

We may need the consent of your parent or guardian if you are under 16 years of age and wish to access our services by entering your personal information into this website or any of our digital services. Parents or guardians should first email dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk for further guidance.

Under the Data Protection legislation, you have the following qualified rights:

• The right to access your personal data held by or on behalf of the University;
• The right to rectification if the information is inaccurate or incomplete;
• The right to restrict processing and/or erasure of your personal data;
• The right to data portability;
• The right to object to processing;
• The right to object to automated decision making and profiling;
• The right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, we will verify your identity before giving effect to your rights. To exercise any of your rights please contact the Data Protection Officer.

For overall guidance on current data protection legislation, see UWE Bristol's GDPR summary.

If you are a UWE Bristol student, applicant, staff or alumni see UWE Bristol's privacy notices for further guidance.

If you are registering for events via our website, your personal data will also be processed in line with our Student recruitment events privacy notice.

For further details on data subject rights, see UWE Bristol's data subject rights statement (PDF). 

We will always respond to concerns or queries you may have. If you wish to exercise your rights or have any other general data protection queries, please contact UWE Bristol’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk.

For further information relation to Marketing and advertising contact:

University of the West of England (UWE Bristol)
Frenchay Campus
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1QY

Email: marketing@uwe.ac.uk

Phone: +44 (0)117 965 6261