Alumni privacy notice

This statement explains how the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) collects, manages and uses your personal information. It also describes how you can change the ways in which we use your personal information at any time.

UWE Bristol values the lifelong relationships it holds with its alumni and supporters. How we use your personal information reflects the importance of this relationship to us. We will use your data to help us:

• ensure we contact you in the most appropriate way
• improve our services
• ensure we work efficiently and effectively.

UWE Bristol will ensure your information is kept safe, accurate, up-to-date and that the information we hold is reasonable.

UWE Bristol is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner Office (ICO) and is responsible under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act, 2018 for the personal data we hold.

We process your personal data under the terms of our registration notice with the ICO and the University’s Data Protection Policy. Our Data Protection Public Register number is Z6686621.

Information on former students is initially transferred to us from our student record database. Most of the personal information we store and process has been given to us by you, but we may also occasionally obtain some information from other public sources, university colleagues, web or email user journey data (see ‘How we collect information’ below). This may include:

• name, title, gender, date of birth
• contact details (addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, social media links)
• education information
• information about your time at the University and your interests, including if you were a prize or scholarship recipient
• your employment history
• family and spouse/partner details and your relationships/connections to other alumni, supporters and friends
• records of donations and Gift Aid status, where applicable (as required by HMRC)
• records of your engagement with our communications
• records of communication received by the University from you
• media articles
• information on your engagement in University meetings, events, volunteering, groups or networks
• information on your engagement with Alumni Connect
• images
• your preferences concerning how we contact you and for which purposes.

We communicate with you and process your information in order to:

• share University publications and news to keep you up-to-date
• facilitate academic, social and networking events and reunions
• fundraise for activities at the University
• promote alumni discounts, benefits and services
• inform you about careers support, postgraduate study and professional development
• provide access to our career service tools, such as psychometric tests
• facilitate business development, engagement and networking opportunities
• conduct surveys to improve University and alumni services
• promote volunteering opportunities, such as mentoring students and giving talks to students
• collect case studies and quotes for marketing publications in order to inspire students and alumni
• provide you with access to services that require alumni status verification, such as Alumni Connect.

 We do this in pursuit of our legitimate interests, which do not override your interests, rights or freedoms. In addition, we supply alumni information to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) for the government regulated UK Statistics Authority (a legal obligation in the public interest) for specific purposes, such as the Graduate Outcomes survey.

We may communicate with you by:

• mail
• email
• social media and digital media advertising
• telephone
• SMS.

We seek to communicate with our alumni and supporters in the most relevant way for each individual. We want to better understand what type of communication is most appropriate for you. With this in mind, we may supplement the information we’ve collected from you or your student record with personal information from:

• other colleges and services at UWE Bristol
• website journeys (see website privacy notice and cookie policy)
• email interactions
• public sources such as Companies House, the Electoral Register, company websites, biographies on professional networking sites and reputable newspaper articles
• graduate outcomes survey data
• geographic and demographic data based on your postcode.

We may ask a trusted third party partner to automate part of this work only. We also use publicly available information to carry out due diligence on donors in line with the University’s Donations and Sponsorship Policy and to meet money laundering regulations. UWE Bristol is committed to fundraising 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 Fundraising Promise.

You can opt out of any of the above if you prefer. More information on how you can manage your preferences can be found in the section ‘Your rights and choices’ below.

Your records are stored on a secure database and access is restricted to those who need the information in order to carry out their duties at UWE Bristol. We may occasionally share your information with other University departments in order to tell you about activities we think will interest you (such as reunions).

Any information transferred in the pursuit of our legitimate interests and/or legal obligations listed above, internally or externally, is done so in accordance with the most current data protection legislation to ensure your personal data remains protected. UWE Bristol assumes full responsibility for the protection of your data and will not disclose it to third parties other than those acting as agents for the University. UWE Bristol will not trade your data with any other organisations.

You can contact us for further information about our security arrangements.

We see being a member of the University and part of the alumni community as a lifelong relationship. This means that generally we aim to retain University alumni personal information until you ask us to remove it from our records. We will periodically review and remove redundant data (for example where there has been no interaction with you for an extended period).

If you decide that you no longer wish to receive communications from the University please be aware that we still need to retain a minimal amount of personal information so that we can keep a record that you have asked us not to contact you. If you are not a member of the University alumni community, any personal information held will be deleted should you not respond to our attempts to contact you, or should you state that you have no interest in forming a relationship with the University.

If we lose contact with you, we may seek new contact details to ensure that we can keep you informed about activities and opportunities with the University. We do this through trusted third parties. This information is sourced from publicly available information (electoral register, national deceased register, Companies House and so on). You can email us to opt-out of this service at any time.

Emails are one of the most convenient ways for us to maintain our lifelong relationship with you – our alumni and supporters.

As an alum of the University, you may receive emails containing news, events, careers support, surveys, postgraduate study and professional development information. You’ll also hear about opportunities to get involved with volunteering.

The legal basis that we rely on for this activity is ‘legitimate interest’. That means we believe that keeping you updated in this way does not infringe your rights, freedoms or interests.

With your explicit consent we may also contact you to ask for philanthropic support for University charitable projects, as well as letting you know about third party offers and discounts. This includes communicating through email, digital advertising, and via social media. You can withdraw your consent at any time.

You can choose to unsubscribe from all emails. To inform us, please contact the Alumni Team using the details below.

If you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) but provide us with a telephone number, we will assume that we have your consent to call you on that number.

We will always respect a request to stop contacting you by any or all methods of communication or for any specific purpose listed above. You can request this by emailing alumni@uwe.ac.uk at any time. Alternatively, you can unsubscribe from our emails through the “unsubscribe” option provided at the bottom of our outgoing emails. We will record this to ensure you are no longer contacted by the mean(s) specified by you.

In relation to your personal data we hold, you have the qualified rights to:

• access it
• receive it in a structured machine readable format
• rectify it, if it is not accurate or complete
• erase it
• restrict its processing
• withdraw any consent provided or otherwise object to its processing
• complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

If you wish to exercise these rights, please contact the University’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk. If you are unhappy with the way in which your personal data has been processed you may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, further information can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Any breach of the Data Protection Act or the General Data Protection Regulation by the Alumni team will be reported to the University’s Data Protection Officer in accordance with UWE Bristol’s Data Protection Policy.

From time to time, we may use your information for purposes not currently described in this privacy notice. If our data processes change in the future, we will publish those changes here.

This privacy notice was approved by the University’s Governance and Policy Team and updated in July 2022.

Alumni Team
Strategic Communications and Engagement
Frenchay Campus
UWE Bristol
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1QY

Email: alumni@uwe.ac.uk