Privacy Notice about how we use your personal information

We are the data controller of personal information about you. We are: Shrewsbury Colleges
Group. Our address is:

Shrewsbury Colleges Group,
Priory Road,
Shrewsbury,
Shropshire.
SY1 1RX

Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Brown, Vice Principal – Quality, Apprenticeships & Information. If you have any questions about this policy or the ways in which we use your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at:

Shrewsbury Colleges Group,
London Road,
Shrewsbury,
Shropshire.
SY2 6PR
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
01743 653000

This privacy notice has been prepared in accordance with the General Data Protection
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (“GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

A Student at the College

As a Student at the College the following privacy information may be of interest to you.

Please note that on occasions we may process “special categories” of information about you. This information may include photographs and videos of you, your ethnic origin, health, or your trade union membership.

Please note; if viewing this document electronically each section expands to give more detail.

The information we collect about you

Admissions

As part of your admission to the College may collect your personal details including: your name, address, date of birth, email address, first and second language, National Insurance Number, work assessment data, dates of attendance, exam/test results, religion, ethnicity, health information, doctor’s details, behaviour record, gender, special needs details, former school, photo, and relevant criminal convictions.

To facilitate the process of interviewing applicants and providing online induction and enrolment events, the College uses online and video conferencing facilities, e.g. Microsoft Teams, which may include digital recording of both audio and video of applicants. If this takes place applicants will be made aware of the record. Applicants may choose not to be recorded by muting their audio and video connections. Recordings are stored and controlled by the College. The College does not share these recordings publicly.

Administration of Learning

As part of the Administration of Learning the College may collect your personal and educational details including: your name, address, email address, date of birth, exam results, attendance, union membership, sports team membership, photo, first and second language, work assessment data, dates of attendance, religion, ethnic origin, health records/conditions (inc. mental health), behaviour record, special needs details, gender data, intended destination, and actual destination.

Funding & Finance

In order to manage the financial affairs of the College we collect and hold the following information about you: funding information, bank details, contactless card information, details of benefits, and sponsor details.

Teaching

As part of the delivery of your programme, our staff will collect (e.g. for marking purposes), the work that you create as well as digital images and scans where appropriate. In addition, when you use the College IT, we will process the data you access and monitor the way you use the system, e.g. browsing history.

To facilitate the delivery of online and blending learning, the College uses online and video conferencing facilities, e.g. Microsoft Teams, which may include digital recording of both audio and video of students. If this takes place students will be made aware of the record. Students may chose not to be recorded by muting their audit and video connections.

Recordings are stored and controlled by the College. The College does not share these recordings publicly.

Alumni

To maintain our Alumni network we collect and hold the following information about you:
name, address, date of birth, and former school.

Marketing

For marketing purposes we collect: names, addresses, dates of birth, email addresses, former school information, year group, achievements, and destination.

The way we use your personal data

Admissions

We will use your information to manage and administer your education. This will include putting together class lists, for sending event invitations, for communicating with you, for dealing with admissions, for putting together reports and registers, to check entrance exam results, to allocate you to the correct classes for assessments, to make arrangements for exams or visits, to consider whether to offer places to students, to consider whether special provision or assistance is required for exams and visits and to be able to tell other colleges your attendance dates if you leave.

To facilitate the process of interviewing applicants and providing online induction and enrolment events, the College uses online and video conferencing facilities, e.g. Microsoft Teams, which may include digital recording of both audio and video of applicants. Online interactions may be recorded and stored. If this takes place applicants will be made aware of the record. Applicants may choose not to be recorded by muting their audio and video connections. Recordings are stored and controlled by the College. The College does not share these recordings publicly.

Administration of Learning

We will use your information to manage and administer your education. This will include information for marking registers, class lists, trip lists, communications, reports, providing cashless vending services, employer information (for example for apprentices and day release students) and to identify pupils who cannot be used for marketing photos.

Funding & Finance

We will use your information to ensure your place is appropriately funded by the Department for Education or by a sponsor. We also use this information to pay you or receive payment from you.

Teaching

We will use your information for the purposes of teaching you and measuring your progress and achievement.

To facilitate the delivery of online and blending learning, the College uses online and video conferencing facilities, e.g. Microsoft Teams, which can include digital recording of both audio and video of students. Online delivery may be recorded, stored, and made available to allow the class of students to review the lesson at a later date. If this takes place students will be made aware that the lesson is being recorded, students may choose not to be recorded by muting their audio and video connections. Recordings are stored and controlled by the College. The College does not share these recordings publicly.

Alumni

We will use your information to manage and administer our Alumni network. This will include: Newsletters, Invitations to Events, and updating you will points of interest regarding the College.

Marketing

We will use your information to: communicate with you regarding events and courses of interest, to measure progression and destinations, to promote the achievements of our students.

Safeguarding

We will use your information to provide safeguarding support to you through our contracted third-party Health Assured. This is to ensure you receive the best possible advice and support out-of-hours as well as during the college day.

The legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information

Generally, the information is processed as part of our public interest task of providing education to you.

Where that information is special category personal information (e.g. criminal convictions, medical information) we will process it because there is a substantial public interest for us to do so.

Alumni information is processed on the basis of consent.

Where you have previously studied at the College or commenced an application process with us before, then we will send you Marketing information about the courses we provide on the basis of our legitimate business interests. In doing so, we will comply with the requirements of the “soft opt in” and offer you an opportunity to refuse marketing when your details are first collected and in subsequent messages (by way of own unsubscribe).

Any other Marketing we carry out will be on the basis of consent.

The legal basis on which we process your safeguarding related information is in your vital interests, under the protocol of ‘Information sharing: advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services’.

How long we keep your personal information

Generally, the College keeps data for 6 academic years, including academic year in which it was created.

There are some exceptions to this approach; these are highlighted below and detailed in the College Data Retention Policy.

Admissions

Details of unsuccessful applications are kept for 4 academic years, including academic year in which it was created.
Information related to criminal convictions is kept until the end of October in the academic year following departure from the College.

Recordings of applicants are stored until the end of the enrolment period, normally 30th September in the relevant academic year.

Administration of Learning

Information about adult students funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) must be kept until 31st December 2030.

Funding & Finance

Information about adult students funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) must be kept until 31st December 2030.

Teaching

Information stored within our teaching support systems, e.g. ProMonitor, is kept for 4 academic years, including academic year in which it was created.

Student assignment submissions/work portfolios are kept for 3 academic years, including academic year in which it was created.

Recordings of live teaching activities including student images or voices are retained for the duration of the course and are available to students throughout.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding information about students will be kept for 6 years plus the academic year in which study is taking place.

How we share your personal information

Admissions/Administration of Learning/Funding & Finance/Teaching

We may share the personal information that you give us with the following organisations (or
types of organisation) for the following purposes.

We may also process your personal information using third parties who provide services to the College.

Alumni

We do not share your personal information with any other organisation.

We do use an emailing solution as a processor; HubSpot. Some large scale communications with the Alumni, e.g. Newsletters, are sent using this service. The only information transferred is your email address.

Marketing

We do not share your personal information with any other organisation.

We do use an emailing solution as a processor; HubSpot and Survey Monkey. Some large scale Marketing communications, e.g. Newsletters, are sent using these services. The only information transferred is your email address.

Safeguarding

How we transfer your personal information outside Europe

We do not store your personal data outside Europe.
We do use some United States based providers as data processors; HubSpot, Survey Monkey, and Purlos. Some large scale communications with the student body, e.g. Newsletters, are sent using this service. The only information transferred is your email
address.

Organisation: HubSpot
Service: Provider of bulk communication services.
Privacy Notice: https://www.hubspot.com/data-privacy/gdpr
Organisation: Survey Monkey
Service: Provider of surveying services.
Privacy Notice: https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/legal/privacy-policy/
Organisation Type: Esendex
Privacy Notice: https://www.esendex.co.uk/information-security-statement
Service: Provider of bulk text services.
Organisation Type: My Digital College Ltd (trading as Purlos)
Privacy Notice: https://www.purlos.com/privacy-policy/
Service: Provider of admissions and enrolment support systems
Organisation: Event Brite
Service: Provider of event administration and bookings
Privacy Notice: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/help/en-gb/articles/460838/eventbrite-privacypolicy/

Automated decisions we take about you

We do not make automated decisions using this information.

WILL WE MONITOR YOUR USE OF THE COLLEGE’S COMPUTERS
We will monitor how you use the College’s equipment and computers and what websites you go on when you are browsing the internet at College. This is because we have legal obligations to protect you, and we also have a legitimate interest in making sure you are
using our computer equipment correctly and that you are not looking at any inappropriate content.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have a number of rights over your personal information, which are:

• the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy about the way your personal data is being used – please refer to the ICO’s website for further information about this (https://ico.org.uk/);
• the right to ask us what personal information about you we are holding and to have access to a copy of your personal information;
• the right to ask us to correct any errors in your personal information;
• the right, in certain circumstances such as where our use of your personal information is based on your consent and we have no other legal basis to use your personal information, to ask us to delete your personal information;
• the right, in certain circumstances such as where we no longer need your personal information, to request that we restrict the use of your personal information;
• the right, in certain circumstances, to ask us to review and explain our legitimate interests to you; and
• the right, where our use of your personal information is carried out for the purposes of an agreement with us and is carried out by automated means, to ask us to provide you with a copy of your personal information in a structured, commonly-used, machine-readable format.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and will update it from time to time to make sure it remains up-to-date and accurate.

Date of last review: 06/01/2025