PRIVACY NOTICE FOR OUR MEMBERS

 

We are committed to respecting your privacy. This notice is to explain how we may use personal information we collect before, during and after your membership with us. This notice applies to you if you have registered as a student of Lancaster University as in accordance with the 1994 education act you are automatically a member of the Students’ Union. This notice explains how we comply with the law on data protection, what your rights are and for the purposes of data protection we will be the controller of any of your personal information.

 

References to we, our or us in this privacy notice are to Lancaster University Students’ Union.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee our compliance with data protection laws. Contact details are set out in the "Contacting us" section at the end of this privacy notice.

Depending on the type of membership you hold with us, you may initially provide us with or we may obtain personal information about you, such as information about your:

  • personal contact details such as name, email addresses and telephone numbers;
  • age, gender, student ID and address;
  • faculty, department, course and college details;
  • mode of study, attendance status, course end date and location of tuition;
  • records of your interactions with us such as telephone conversations, emails and other correspondence and your instructions to us;
  • any credit/debit card and other payment details you provide so that we can receive payments from you and details of the financial transactions with you;
  • your use of and movements through our online membership system, passwords, personal identification numbers, IP addresses, user names and other IT system identifying information;
  • records of your attendance at any events hosted by us;
  • information obtained through electronic means such as swipecard records, CCTV footage and images in video and/or photographic form;
  • your marketing preferences so that we know whether and how we should contact you.
  •  personal identification documents such as driving licence, passport and identity cards;
  • details of next of kin, family members and emergency contacts;

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information regarding you:

  • information about your race or ethnic origin, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation;
  • information about your religious/philosophical beliefs and political opinions
  • information about your health, including any medical conditions;

In relation to the special category personal data that we do process we do so on the basis that

  • the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, on a lawful basis;
  • it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims;
  • it is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising our or your rights in the field of employment and social security and social protection law; or
  • based on your explicit consent.

We may also collect criminal records information about you. For criminal records history we process it on the basis of legal obligations or based on your explicit consent.

We typically collect personal information about our members in the following ways:

When you become a member

When you register as student at the university on an accredited course you automatically become a member of Lancaster University Students’ Union, unless you have opted out of membership. Lancaster University annually shares student data with us which includes information about you and your course.

When the University gives us the data we become responsible for it and will use this as our central record of your membership of the students’ union.

 

When you give it us directly

You may give us your information when your register an account with us at www.lancastersu.co.uk, when you purchase any services or products we offer, in order to sign up to a student group, you register for a volunteering opportunity, you register for one of our events, undertake research activities, use our advice service, when you make a query and/or complaint or when you correspond with us by phone, email or in some other way.

When you give us this information we take responsibility for looking after it and we may cross reference this data against our central membership records.

If you are providing us with details of referees, next of kin, beneficiaries, family members and emergency contacts they have a right to know and to be aware of how what personal information we hold about them, how we collect it and how we use and may share that information.  Please share this privacy notice with those of them whom you feel are sufficiently mature to understand it.  They also have the same rights as set out in the “Your rights in relation to personal information” section below.

 

When you give it us indirectly

Your information may be shared with us by third party organisations.  These third parties will only do so when you have indicated that you have given consent to share this data with us or there is a lawful basis for the processiing. You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.

 

When you give permission for other organisations to share

We may combine information you provide to us with information available from external sources in order to gain a better understanding of our members to improve our communication methods, products and services.

The information we get from other organisations may depend on your privacy settings or the responses you give, so you should regularly check them.  This information comes from the following sources:

 

Third party organisations

You may have provided permission for a company or other organisation to share your data with third parties such as the Students’ Union. This could be when you buy a product or service, register for an online competition or undertake market research

Social Media
Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, you might give us permission to access information from those accounts or services.

Information available publicly
This may include information found in places such as Companies House and information that has been published in articles/ newspapers.

 

When we collect it as you use our website

Like most websites, we use “cookies” to help us make our site – and the way you use it – better. Cookies mean that a website will remember you. They’re small text files that sites transfer to your computer (or phone or tablet). They make interacting with a website faster and easier – for example by automatically filling your name and address in text fields. There are more details in our Cookies Statement.

In addition, the type of device you’re using to access our website and the settings on that device may provide us with information about your device, including what type of device it is, what specific device you have and what operating system you’re using. Your device manufacturer or operating system provider will have more details about what information your device makes available to us.

 

 

Lancaster University Students’ Union processes personal information for a variety of reasons. The reasons for our processing of your information fall into two categories.

Firstly, we process personal information so that we can effectively administer student memberships of the Students’ Union in order to represent students and provide services, activities and opportunities for involvement and development.

The Students’ Union has a data sharing agreement with Lancaster University. All students who study at Lancaster University automatically become members of the Students' Union and the University shares personal information with us for the purposes of administering the student’s membership of the Students’ Union.  Examples of this activity include:

  • Administration of Full Time, Part-Time and College Officer Elections;
  • Administration of General Meetings and Referendum;
  • Administration of committees, volunteering and representative opportunities;
  • Administration of clubs, societies, student groups and other student opportunities;
  • Managing clubs, societies and student groups memberships, accounts and records;
  • Provision of Advice, Information and Guidance Services;
  • Research and planning;
  • The generation of demographic reports to track student engagement;
  • Managing the verification of ticket sales;
  • To allow email communication between the Students’ Union and its members.

 

Secondly, we use data to let our members, volunteers, partners and customers know about things happening at the Students’ Union that we think will interest them. This could include topics such as:

  • Fundraising
  • Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations
  • Campaigns
  • Events and Activities taking place at the union
  •  Opportunities for students

The law on data protection sets out a number of different reasons for which an organisation may collect and process your personal information, including:

Consent

In specific situations, we can collect and process your information with your consent. For example, when you tick a box to receive email marketing.

 

Contractual Obligations

In certain circumstances, we need your personal information to comply with our contractual obligations. For example, if you order an item or ticket and request home delivery, we’ll collect your address details to deliver your purchase, and pass them to our courier.

 

Legal Compliance

If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data. For example, we can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity affecting the Students’ Union to law enforcement.

 

Legitimate Interest

In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running the Students’ Union and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests. For example, we will use your email address to send you information on Students’ Union elections.

 

Please read our full list of all the reasons for using your personal information. This shows the legal basis that we use for processing your information.

 

Where you have given us your consent to use your personal information in a particular manner, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, which you may do by contacting us as described in the "Contacting us" section below.

 

Please note however that the withdrawal of your consent will not affect any use of the data made before you withdrew your consent and we may still be entitled to hold and process the relevant personal information to the extent that we are entitled to do so on bases other than your consent.  Withdrawing consent may also have the same effects as not providing the information in the first place, for example we may no longer be able to provide certain member benefits to you.

Membership Communications

As a member we believe you have a legitimate interest in hearing from us on matters relating to the administration and entitlements of your membership of the students’ union e.g. what we’re doing to represent you, opportunities members are entitled to and important union functions such as elections, general meetings and democratic procedures. You can then let us know at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing messages via the Contact details are set out in the "Contacting us" section at the end of this privacy notice. You can also unsubscribe from our marketing by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the marketing messages we send to you.

 

Marketing Preferences & Segmentation

Where you have given us explicit consent we use self-preferencing profiling techniques and automated decision making to enable us to undertake segmentation of our communications to ensure they are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our members. We do this because it allows us to better understand the profiles of our members and helps us to deliver appropriate services and information to members who request it.

 

 

Direct Marketing

Occasionally we may contact you by email, post or SMS with information about products and services we believe you may be interested in.

We will only send marketing messages to you in accordance with the marketing preferences you set. You can then let us know at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing messages via the Contact details are set out in the "Contacting us" section at the end of this privacy notice. You can also unsubscribe from our marketing by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the marketing messages we send to you.

We sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties. Here’s the policy we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:

  • We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services.
  • They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them.
  • We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times.
  • If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.

Examples of the third parties we share personal information with are:

  • Any party approved by you;
  • Lancaster University; to allow them to administer the accreditation of student opportunities and the recording of alumni data [with the exception of special category data].
  •  IT companies; who support our membership database, website and other business systems.
  • Operational companies; such as contractors and delivery couriers
  • Governing and national and regional bodies: to allow them to properly administer activity on a local, regional and national level. e.g. sports governing bodies.
  • Our Commercial Partners: for the purposes of providing you with information, opportunities, products and services and other commercial benefits provided by our commercial partners as part of your membership entitlements and where you have given your express permission for us to do so

Police, law enforcement and security services: to assist with the investigation and prevention of crime and the protection of national security.

The personal information we collect, in some limited circumstances, may be transferred to and stored in countries outside of the UK and the European Union. Some of these jurisdictions require different levels of protection in respect of personal information and, in certain instances, the laws in those countries may be less protective than the jurisdiction you are typically resident in. We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is only used in accordance with this privacy notice and applicable data protection laws and is respected and kept secure and where a third party processes your data on our behalf we will put in place appropriate safeguards as required under data protection laws.  By submitting your personal information to us you agree to this transfer, storing or processing at a location outside the EEA.

For further details please contact us by using the details set out in the "Contacting us" section below.

The duration for which we retain your personal information will differ depending on the type of information and the reason why we collected it from you. However, in some cases personal information may be retained on a long-term basis: for example, personal information that we need to retain for legal purposes will normally be retained in accordance with usual commercial practice and regulatory requirements.  Generally, where there is no legal requirement we retain all physical and electronic records for a period of 6 years after your last contact with us or the end of your membership.  Exceptions to this rule are:

  • CCTV records which are held for no more than 90 days unless we need to preserve the records for the purpose of prevention and detection of crime;
  • Information that may be relevant to personal injury or discrimination claims may be retained until the limitation period for those types of claims has expired.  For personal injury or discrimination claims this can be an extended period as the limitation period might not start to run until a long time after the event.

It is important to ensure that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up-to-date, and you should let us know if anything changes, for example if you change your phone number or email address. You may be able to update some of the personal information we hold about you through www.lancastersu.co.uk.  Alternatively, you can contact us by using the details set out in the "Contacting us" section below.

You have the following rights in relation to your personal information:

  • the right to be informed about how your personal information is being used;
  • the right to access the personal information we hold about you;
  • the right to request the correction of inaccurate personal information we hold about you;
  • the right to request the erasure of your personal information in certain limited circumstances;
  • the right to restrict processing of your personal information where certain requirements are met;
  • the right to object to the processing of your personal information;
  • the right to data portability; and
  • the right to object to certain automated decision-making processes using your personal information.

You should note that some of these rights, for example the right to data portability or the right to object to automated decision making, may not apply as they have specific requirements and exemptions which apply to them and they may not apply to personal information recorded and stored by us. However, some have no conditions attached, so your right to withdraw consent or object to processing for direct marketing are absolute rights.

Whilst this privacy notice sets out a general summary of your legal rights in respect of personal information, this is a very complex area of law. More information about your legal rights can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/ .

To exercise any of the above rights, or if you have any questions relating to your rights, please contact us by using the details set out in the "Contacting us" section below.

If you are unhappy with the way we are using your personal information you can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. We are here to help and encourage you to contact us to resolve your complaint first.

We may update this privacy notice from time to time. When we change this notice in a material way, we will update the version date at the bottom of this page. For significant changes to this notice we will try to give you reasonable notice unless we are prevented from doing so. Where required by law we will seek your consent to changes in the way we use your personal information.

In the event of any query or complaint in connection with the information we hold about you, please email our Data Protection Officer at help@lancastersu.co.uk  or write to us at:

Data Protection Officer

Lancaster University Students' Union,
Bowland Main,

Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YT
United Kingdom

 

Version dated May 2018