Data Protection Policies

Keele University Students’ Union (Keele SU) will be what is known as the ‘Data Controller’ of your personal data processed in relation to the various services and activities performed by Keele SU for students at Keele University. This privacy notice explains how Keele SU will process your personal data.

For our full policies and procedures, please see Our Policies.

In all cases, we will only collect data that we need in order to provide and oversee services that you have requested. We may collect this from you directly, or be provided with data by Keele University under a data-sharing agreement.

We collect basic personal data such as name, student ID, contact details, and programme of study in order to carry out activities such as:

• Administration of Keele SU elections and verification of candidates’ and nominees’ eligibility.
• Administration of Clubs and Societies affiliation, and recording committee officer status for your Higher Education Achievement Report.
• Provision of volunteering opportunities and recording volunteering activity for your Higher Education Achievement Report.
• Administration of the voice rep training programme and verification of attendance at training for the Higher Education Achievement Report.
• Administration of our other services such as Entertainment and Advice.
• Provision of online training modules.

We may also collect equal opportunities monitoring information which includes special category information such as race or disability. This information is collected in such a way that you cannot be identified from it.

The Advice Centre has its own separate privacy notice, which you can view here: Our Policies.

We must have a legal basis for processing all personal data. We have a data-sharing agreement with Keele University.

Our legal basis for processing your data is ‘legitimate interest’ – where we require access to data in order to provide our core services.

All the personal data you submit is processed by staff at Keele University Students’ Union (Keele SU) in the United Kingdom. The web interface for our databases is not accessible from the internet, only from specific pre-approved IP addresses. Furthermore, connections are encrypted. The system that hosts our databases is maintained and secured according to best practices. Remote access to the system is cryptographically authenticated and connections to it are encrypted. Physical access to the system is restricted. We do not sell or otherwise transfer your data to anyone else.

As a general rule, we keep your personal information only for as long as we need it. However, where we have statutory obligations to keep personal information for a longer period or where we may need your information for a longer period in case of a legal claim, the retention period may be longer. After this time, data will be securely deleted.

If you need more information about how long we will keep your data in particular circumstances, please ask us.

You can request access to the information we process about you at any time. If at any point you believe that the information we process relating to you is incorrect, you can request to see this information and may in some instances request to have it restricted, corrected, or erased. You may also have the right to object to the processing of data and the right to data portability.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact su@keele.ac.uk.

You can also contact us to find out what information we hold about you.

If you wish to raise a complaint about how we have handled your personal data, please follow our Feedback & Complaints process.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Like most websites, we collect certain information or data about you when you use our site or sub-sites.

There are two main types of information we collect:

• Non-personally identifying information, such as:
  • Your IP address and details of which version of web browser you used.
  • Other information on how you use the site (such as which website you came from, what pages you viewed and what time you visited), using cookies and website analytics services.
  • Whether you interacted with any adverts.
• Personally identifying information, such as information provided:
  • If you contact us via our contact forms.
  • If you sign up to place a Student Job Hub advert.
  • If you leave a comment on our site (with personally identifying information such as your name or email address).
  • If you complete a survey (with personally identifying information such as your name or email address).

This information helps us to:

• Improve our site by monitoring how it is being used.
• Contact you with information about our services if you want it.

• We store your data on our secure servers in the United Kingdom.
• Some data may also be stored outside of Europe, such as that collected by website analytics, survey services, or social media services, where it could be viewed by our staff or suppliers.

We take appropriate steps to ensure that our site is safe to use. However, by submitting your personal data, you agree that transmitting information over a public network like the internet is not completely secure. Therefore, we can’t guarantee the security of your data and any data you transmit is at your own risk. Once we receive your data, we ensure it is held securely and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

We won’t share your information with third parties unless required to do so by law.

Our site or sub-sites contain links to and from other websites. We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website. This privacy policy only applies to our site or sub-sites, and we are not responsible for websites outside of our control.