Alumni and supporter privacy notice
Wonderful things continue to happen at the University of Surrey - many of which happen because our friends and alumni support students and research at Surrey through their engagement, volunteering and philanthropic giving.
To ensure that wonderful things continue to happen at Surrey, Advancement enables and cultivates a culture of continuity and engagement, keeping in touch with all Surrey alumni and friends and focusing on relationships with potential and existing donors.
The University of Surrey is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (our notification number is Z6346945), and we are committed to ensuring that the data we process is handled in accordance with data protection legislation.
We have a Data Protection Officer who can be contacted via dataprotection@surrey.ac.uk.
One of our responsibilities is to tell you about the different ways we collect and use your personal data. This statement provides details about these uses. In addition to this statement, you may be given further information about the uses of your personal data when you use certain services offered by the University of Surrey.
The following data is transferred from your student record to the University Advancement Database:
- Name
- Address
- Telephone numbers
- Date of birth
- Degree
- Subject
- Dates started and completed with final class of degree
- If you were a prize winner or scholarship recipient, we may also include this information.
The following data, which will also be held within the Advancement Database may have been provided by you during interactions (e.g. when registering for an event, filling out a survey, volunteering and when making a donation to Surrey) with us:
- Updated contact details
- Details about your job (position and organisation details)
- Thoughts and attitudes towards fundraising
- Support for, and interest in, projects at Surrey
- Dietary and mobility requirements
- Options that you have selected to be of interest to you (whether you wish to volunteer, donate, support in some way)
- Bank name.
Further information, which may also be stored within the Advancement Database might be gathered from social media (e.g. LinkedIn or Facebook) or other publicly available sources.
The information you provide and we acquire from other sources is used by the University to communicate with you for its marketing, promotional and fundraising purposes. These may include:
- Providing you with the services and information you have requested
- Processing your donation including Gift Aid
- Keeping a record of your relationship with Surrey
- Ensuring we know how you prefer to be contacted
- Promoting the benefits and services available to alumni and friends
- Informing you if you are the recipient of a prize from a prize draw
- Inviting you to Surrey events and reunions
- Keeping you up to date with university news (e.g. alumni magazines, newsletters, annual reports)
- Asking you to support a fundraising initiative by email, direct mail, telephone and in meetings with you
- Asking you to support in a non-financial capacity (e.g. offering professional training year placements, submit profiles, careers advice, help with student recruitment).
Direct marketing
Unless you have asked us not to do so, we will contact you to let you know about the progress we are making and to ask for donations or other support. If you don’t want to hear from us, that’s fine. Just let us know when you provide your data or contact us on +44 (0)1483 683143 or alumni@surrey.ac.uk.
We do not sell or share personal details to third parties for the purposes of marketing or any other purpose.
Sharing your story
Some people choose to tell us about their time at Surrey and their life since graduating as this helps current and prospective students understand what other Surrey graduates have gone onto achieve after their studies here.
Alumni and friends may take on a role as an ambassador or volunteer and take part in various activities asked of them, including sharing their profile which are words submitted by them or written by us and approved by the individual. We may use this information, which may include details related to their family life in addition to their biographical and contact information in university communications.
Building profiles of supporters and targeting communications
Advancement uses profiling and screening techniques to ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our audience. Profiling also allows us to target our resources effectively, which donors consistently tell us is a key priority for them. It enhances our understanding of the background of people who support Surrey and helps us to make appropriate requests to supporters. Importantly, it enables us to engage the right people with the right activity to raise more funds sooner in the most cost-effective way.
When building a profile we may analyse geographic, demographic and other information relating to you in order to better understand your interests and preferences in order to contact you with the most relevant communications. In doing this, we may use additional information from third-party sources when it is available. Such information is compiled using publicly available data about you; for example addresses, listed directorships or typical earnings in a given area.
We will also contact you by post and on the phone to engage you with some of our fundraising activities. Should you not wish to receive this sort of communication, please just let us know on +44 (0)1483 683143 or alumni@surrey.ac.uk.
These data gathering and processing purposes are not part of the University’s public functions but are necessary to advance the legitimate interests of the institution.
We use external companies to collect or process personal data on our behalf (e.g. mailing houses and events venues) however we will only share personal data that is relevant and proportionate. We do comprehensive checks on these companies before we work with them, and put a contract in place that sets out our expectations and requirements, especially regarding how they manage the personal data they have access to or collect.
We may need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisers. The University is required to disclose some personal data of graduates to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) for the purpose of a survey of new graduates.
We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.
Third parties
The University of Surrey will sometimes choose to work with third parties to enable us to provide an enhanced service to our audience. In all cases, the University will ensure that the third party will collect, hold and treat data in line with the University policy.
Advancement database - hosted by Blackbaud
Blackbaud is a global software supplier, and we use its database platforms to manage relationships with our alumni and the wider community. The data is hosted securely by Blackbaud in the EU or in the cloud.
SurreyConnects - facilitated by Headhunter Systems Ltd, trading as Graduway
When you register for a user account on SurreyConnects, the personal data you submit will be held by a third party data controller (Headhunter Systems, t/a Graduway) on behalf of the University of Surrey. Headhunter Systems Ltd work on behalf of the University to provide and facilitate the SurreyConnects web platform. Your data will be held by Headhunter Systems Ltd for as long as your account is active and for 30 days following a request to close your account.
The information you provide when you register for a SurreyConnects account will be checked against the Advancement database to verify your alumni status and eligibility to use the platform. At this stage, we will also ensure that we hold the most up to date contact details, employment details and volunteering interests for you on the Advancement database. We export monthly reports from the platform to monitor mentoring between alumni and students. This volunteering activity is also updated on the Advancement database.
You have a right to ask us to delete your account from the SurreyConnects platform. To completely unsubscribe by removing your member account from the platform, please either contact us on +44 (0)1483 683143 or alumni@surrey.ac.uk. You can also delete your own profile by logging into SurreyConnects, selecting 'settings' from the drop-down menu in the top right corner, and clicking 'Delete Account' at the bottom of the settings page.
Philanthropically funded scholarships and bursaries
If you are a prospective student and are applying for a philanthropically-funded scholarship or bursary via an application form, the information you submit will be collated by the University.
Your information will be accessed by those involved in determining the outcome of the application process. For some scholarships and bursaries, this may mean that the donor or representatives of the donor may have access to the information you provide on your application form and the University’s assessment of whether your application is eligible based on the set criteria.
Surrey Sports Park
When you request alumni membership at Surrey Sports Park, we will forward this request with confirmation of your alumni status to Surrey Sports Park, so that they can set up the membership. They will contact you directly to liaise about this. Your data will be held by Surrey Sports Park for as long as your account is active. More details can be found in the Surrey Sports Park privacy policy.
The information you provide when you apply will be checked against the Advancement database to verify your alumni status and eligibility to access discounted membership of Surrey Sports Park. At this stage, we will also ensure that we hold the most up to date contact details for you on the Advancement database.
You have a right to ask Surrey Sports Park to delete your account from their database. To completely be removed from the database, please contact Surrey Sports Park.
Perks at Work
When you register for a user account at Perks at Work, the personal data you submit will be held by a third party data processor (Next Jump Inc, Next Jump Limited (UK subsidiary)) on behalf of the University of Surrey. Next Jump work on behalf of the University to provide a benefits package for alumni. Your data will be held by Next Jump for as long as your account is active.
The information you provide when you apply for retail discounts through Perks at Work will be checked against the Advancement database to verify your alumni status and eligibility to access Perks at Work. At this stage, we will also ensure that we hold the most up to date contact details for you on the Advancement database.
If you would like your personal information, including email address, to be completely removed from the Next Jump database, you should visit the Perks at Work Contact Us page. Next Jump will respond to your request within thirty (30) business days. More details can be found in the Next Jump privacy policy.
Stageclip Ltd
When you register for a graduation ceremony, your name, student ID number, academic award and event footage will be shared with our third-party data processor (Stageclip Ltd) to provide you with personalised film clips of your graduation moment, which will be made available for purchase during and after your graduation week. To view their Privacy Policy, please see https://stageclip.com/privacy-policy/
Details of your purchase will be shared with the University of Surrey Alumni Team and your payment will be recorded on the alumni database of the University of Surrey as a philanthropic gift. By purchasing your Stageclip film you are making a donation to the Forever Surrey Fund. You will be contributing to the 2020/2021 Class Gift and you will be recognised and thanked as a donor.
Personal data of alumni and friends are held in the Advancement Database. We ensure that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details both when they are stored and when you update them. For example our online forms are always encrypted and our network is protected and routinely monitored.
We undertake regular reviews of who has access to information that we hold to ensure that your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers and contractors, all of whom will have contractual responsibility to maintain confidentiality.
Details on university-wide measures surrounding data security can be found in Our Data Policy Statement (PDF) (incorporating Information Security Policy).
Where possible we use publicly available sources to keep your records up to date; for example, we update information from:
- Royal Mail address files
- BT phone directories
- Reviewing job information that you have made available on LinkedIn
- Newspaper articles
- Company websites
- Other publically available sources.
Surrey considers the relationship with our alumni and friends to be lifelong. This means that we will maintain a stakeholder record for you until such time you tell us that you no longer wish us to keep in touch. In this instance we will delete the majority of your personal data but maintain basic personal data to ensure we do not inadvertently create a new record in the future.
We really appreciate it if you let us know when your contact details change, or if you no longer wish to be contacted:
- +44 (0)1483 683143
- alumni@surrey.ac.uk.
As an individual whose data we process (a data subject), you have certain rights in relation to the processing. Find detailed information about your rights as a data subject.
You have the right to:
- Withdraw your consent for us to process your personal data where we have relied on that consent as our basis for processing your data.
- Ask us to confirm that your personal data is being processed and to access (i.e. have a copy) of that data as well as to be provided with supplemental information about the processing.
- Request that we rectify any inaccuracies where the data we hold on you is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Have your data erased by us, although in certain circumstances we may not be able to do this. The circumstances where this applies can be found in the guide to data subject rights information.
- Restrict the processing of your personal data in certain ways.
- Obtain your personal data for reuse.
- Object to certain processing of your personal data.
Please note: When you opt out of all future communications or exercise your right to erasure, we will continue to maintain a core set of personal data to ensure we do not contact you inadvertently in the future, while still maintaining our record of your academic achievements:
- Name
- Subject(s)
- Matriculation and graduation details
- Unique university identification number
- Date of birth
- We may also need to retain some financial records about you for statutory purposes (e.g. Gift Aid, anti-fraud and accounting matters).
If you would like to exercise any of your rights please visit our make a privacy request section.
Make a complaint
If you have any concerns about the way that we have handled your personal data please email the Data Protection team as we would like to have the opportunity to resolve your concerns.
If you’re still unhappy, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (an independent body set up to advise on information rights for the UK) about the way in which we process your personal data.