Success for All Privacy Policy

'Success for All' refers to the University of Exeter’s ambition to build a diverse, welcoming and inclusive learning community where everyone is supported to realise their potential. Our ambition is not only to attract applicants from a diversity of backgrounds to Exeter, but to enable all who come to Exeter to succeed within an inclusive international community where everyone feels welcome. As such, the University engages with individuals who are considering applying to university or who are at earlier stages of their education, as well as current University of Exeter students and alumni. The University is committed to an evidence-based approach, using data and evaluation to continuously improve our provision to those who engage with us at various stages of their learning journey.

For us to positively support all students with their education , it is essential that the University processes your personal data. Personal data refers to any information that can directly or indirectly identify a person e.g. name, age, contact details etc. Some types of data, such as ethnicity or disability status are considered ‘Special Category’ data as they are sensitive and require additional protection. In processing your data, we refer to anything that we do to your data, including collecting, storing, altering, organising, sharing, or destroying your data.

This notice tells you what data we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, for what purpose and for how long we keep it.

This notice supplements other University of Exeter privacy notices.

What Personal Data do we collect?

The personal data that we hold about you includes (but not exhaustive):

Name
Contact details
Information you will have provided about your social and economic background through application and/or engagement with the University.
‘Special Category’ data that you will have provided through your application or engagement with the University. Special category data is information about an individual that is especially sensitive, for example an individual’s health, ethnicity, Nationality
If you are a student at the University of Exeter, data collected through your student journey will be used in conjunction with the data listed above. To see more about the data we process see the University of Exeter Student Privacy Notice.

Legal Basis

Supporting the success of all students, and striving for equality are not only core principles of the University of Exeter, but they are also responding to specific tasks set out in UK law and therefore the University has a number of Lawful Obligations to process your data in the manner described; Namely the Equality Act 2010 and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. The Government regulator of Higher Education, the Office for Students also requires universities to set and meet targets related to equal outcomes for students. To this end, we rely on Public Interest, Legal Obligations as the legal basis for processing personal data about you. We process special category data, for example, data related to your ethnicity or health. As special category data includes especially sensitive information, organisations require at least one additional condition for processing it. The additional lawful basis that we rely on for processing special category data is the substantial public interest condition, specifically the condition of equality of opportunity or treatment.

As we monitor and evaluate the activities, services and resources we provide, you may be asked to participate in surveys or other types of evaluation. In this instance we would seek additional informed consent from you.

We use the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) to monitor engagement with our outreach activities. The HEAT tracker also enables us to see how many beneficiaries of outreach enter higher education. The legal basis for this is Public Interest.

How do we use your data?

The University of Exeter collects, uses, stores and transfers personal data about you in order to deliver programmes that support the access, success and progression of students, this includes:

Identifying and contacting individuals who might benefit from our services.
Organising and administering programmes.
Recording attendance and engagement with outreach programmes (via HEAT)
Providing support or special arrangements
Monitoring equal opportunities
Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of widening participation, outreach and student success programmes.

Monitoring and Evaluation

We are required to monitor and evaluate how well our programmes work so that we can continuously improve our provision and help more people from diverse and underrepresented groups to access higher education, and succeed once they get there. We are also obliged to report on how well we are doing to the regulator for higher education, the Office for Students. We use our evaluations to contribute to the sector’s evidence base in order to help all higher education providers to support underrepresented groups as effectively as possible. This means that we will use your data:

If you have participated in one of our outreach events, we use the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) service to record your attendance in a secure database. The HEAT service will receive data about individuals from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) to create statistical reports, which inform us of participants who have gone on to enter Higher Education. These reports are used by us to evaluate the effectiveness of our outreach activity, however individuals will not be identifiable from the reports. The HESA data policy is here.
If you engage with one of our services you may be asked to complete a feedback form. There is no obligation for you to do so.
You may be invited to participate in evaluation activities such as focus groups, but these will always be voluntary and would require your explicit consent for us to collect and process the data given from such activities.
We will use your data to prepare anonymised and aggregated reports. These reports may be shared widely, to University staff, or the regulator for example, however individuals will not be identifiable and will not be impacted individually by the reporting.

Who do we share your data with?

It is often necessary for us to share your data with partners with whom we collaborate to deliver our services. This includes University of Exeter services, Colleges and Departments as well as third party partners, funders and the UK Government regulator for higher education, the Office for Students. We may share anonymised aggregated data publicly for research and evaluation purposes. Data may be shared with:

Third party organisations who collaborate with us to deliver support to students, such as the University of Exeter Students Guild, according to conditions set out in our data sharing agreements. We do not sell data to third parties or release data to anyone who is unauthorised.
The HEAT service.
National Education databases, such as UCAS (University and College Admissions System), HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency), and government/regulatory bodies such as the Department for Education and the Office for Students (OfS).
Anonymised, aggregate reports may be shared internally and publicly for evaluation purposes. However, these will not identify you as an individual or have any effect on you as an individual.
Schools/Colleges that you have attended

How do we store and delete your data?

The University takes it’s obligation in relation to data privacy/security and storage seriously and continually reviews and updates accordingly. Data is stored in line with the University’s retention schedule policy. After this time, your data will either be deleted or fully anonymised.

Your Rights

Follow this link to learn about your rights and how to exercise them.

You can contact the University Data Protection Officer (DPO) if you have any concerns about your data being processed.