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Privacy Policy

The Higher Education Outreach Network (HEON) is a partnership of nine educational partners (University of Surrey; Royal Holloway; University of Creative Arts; NESCOT; Guildford College; Farnborough College of Technology, University of Law, Brooklands College, The Academy of Contemporary Music), and two other partners (Surrey County Council and Surrey Sports Park) working together as part of the Uni Connect programme to support the government’s aims of increasing participation of underrepresented groups in Higher Education.

DATA PROTECTION

The University of Surrey is the lead partner for HEON and is the ‘Data Controller’ of your personal data. The University is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (notification number Z6346945) and is committed to ensuring that the personal data processed is handled in accordance with data protection legislation.

Personal data is data that can directly or indirectly identify you or someone else. For example, it can include your name, address and details of your family. Special category data is a type of personal data that we treat as being more sensitive personal data, such as racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, health and criminal convictions. 

We need to tell you about the different ways we collect and use your personal data and below we provide details about these uses. You may also be given more information about the uses of your personal data when you use certain services offered by HEON.

OUR LEGAL OBLIGATIONS

The legal basis for processing your data is Substantial Public Interest that is for government purposes and to provide equality of opportunity or treatment.  We need the data as we are required by government to target and monitor under-represented groups in higher education. 

Data collected for marketing and event administration purposes, such as contact details and permission to use images, will be collected with your consent and you are free to decide whether or not to provide this data to us.  For students aged under 16 we seek consent from a parent/carer, and for students aged 16 or over the consent is given by the student themselves. 

We need to process data for several purposes and we have set these out in the table below. We only collect what we need to enable us to carry out the work of our partnership.

We collect the data we hold about you and or your parents/carers   through demographic forms and application forms. This might not be a complete list but it does provide a comprehensive overview.

Type of Data Purpose of processing
Basic personal details to identify individuals:

Name
Date of birth
Gender
School/college attended
Year group
Subjects studied
Position (teachers/careers advisors)

Deliver outreach activities to support underrepresented students’ progress to Higher Education

Provide demographic information to analyse trends to improve service delivery.

Evaluate the effectiveness of HEON outreach activity

Assess eligibility to participate in HEON outreach activity

Special category data:

Ethnicity
Disability
Free school meal status

Assess eligibility to participate in HEON activity

Enable HEON to provide support during HEON activity (disability)

Contact data:

Email address

Phone number

Postcode

Home address

 

Promotion of HEON activity

Assess areas of low progression to higher education and for evaluation and monitoring purposes (POLAR – participation of local areas in HE).

Assess indices of multiple deprivation (IMD) for evaluation and monitoring purposes

To have emergency contact information for on-campus activity

Organisation/planning of HEON activity (emailing contacts with info about event)

To send materials to students to support events

Images (photo/video) of students, teachers, parents Promotion of outreach activity/HEON programme – online/print/social media
Opinions about self/higher education

 

Evaluate the effectiveness of HEON activity/programme

Provide appropriate support, information & advice to students

Audio/video recordings (interviews/focus groups) Evaluate the effectiveness of HEON activity/programme

Provide appropriate support, info & advice to students

Student attainment Evaluate outreach activity

Your data will be retained for 2 years after the close of the programme or until 25 years of age (whichever comes first). For adult learners aged 19 or over at the time of data collection, the data will be retained for 2 years after the close of the programme. After this time, your data will be anonymised, which means that you will no longer be able to be identified from the data and your identifiable data will be securely deleted.

Data is used on the HEAT database for 15 years from the year you are ready to enter Higher Education for the purpose of monitoring and evaluation.

Data is protected in accordance with University of Surrey policy surrounding IT security.  This sets out the definition of, commitment to and requirements of information technology and security. It specifies regulations to be implemented to secure information and technology that the University manages and to protect against the consequences of breaches of confidentiality, failures of integrity and interruption of availability.  We have internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by HEON employees in the performance of their duties.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure when you visit our website or submit any of your data through it. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

We process personal data and special category data in line with data protection legislation and our own Data Protection Policy.

You can always contact us at: heon@surrey.ac.uk if you want any more information about how we are keeping your data secure.

Within HEON, personal data, including sensitive personal data may be shared between colleagues who legitimately need the information to carry out their normal duties to support the data subject during our programme of activities.

In addition, personal data is shared to the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) service and database http://heat.ac.uk/.  HEON partners with HEAT to help determine whether our activities are helping participants move on from school into further education, higher education and employment it is important that we collect information about the students who take part in them.  We use the HEAT service and database to record information about our outreach activities and the students who take part in these activities.  HEAT gives us the ability to track the educational journey of our outreach participants into university and beyond into employment. To find out more about how HEAT does this please go to https://heat.ac.uk/data-protection/. HEAT also shares data with the Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA).  To find out more about how HESA processes data in compliance with data protection legislation please visit Data protection | HESA

Who personal data may be shared with? Type of data shared Purpose for sharing
HEON Partners as identified above Basic contact information  or personal data including special category Administering HEON events
Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) Personal data including special category Monitoring & reporting including attainment and progression to HE
Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA) Personal data including special category Monitoring & reporting including attainment and progression to HE
Third party providers Basic personal data Administering HEON events
Office for Students (OfS) HEON staff (internal & external) contact details on OfS monitoring returns Monitoring & reporting

HEON may share personal data, including sensitive personal data, outside of the partnership in certain other exceptional circumstances, for example if it is needed to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another person; or for certain other reasons where it is not possible or appropriate to gain your consent such as disclosures to the police for prevention or detection of crime and apprehension or prosecution of offenders, if it is required by a Court Order, or to obtain legal advice.

You have certain rights in relation to the data we are processing about you.  These are:

  • Withdraw your consent in circumstances where we are processing your personal data on that basis
  • 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. If you would like to submit a subject access request, please email us at heon@surrey.ac.uk in the first instance.
  • 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, for example, where we must keep your data in line with Department of Education guidelines for this project.
  • Restrict the processing of your personal data in certain ways.
  • Obtain your personal data for reuse.
  • Object to certain processing of your personal data.

You can find detailed information about your rights and how to make a request on our webpages at: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/information-governance/make-privacy-request.

If you have any concerns about the way that we have handled your personal data, please email HEON heon@surrey.ac.uk in the first instance as we would like to have the opportunity to resolve your concerns.

If you’re still unhappy, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. Please see their website at: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

We are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. If you choose to submit any information on our website, it will be stored securely on University of Surrey servers, and only used to keep you informed of activities run by HEON and our partners. HEON will not sell or distribute your information to third parties unless you have given permission or there is a legal requirement to do so.

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy notice. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy notice applicable to the website in question.

We use cookies to collect data about you when you visit our website.   A cookie is a small data file which is downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. When you return to a previously visited website – or visit a website that uses the same cookies – that website will recognise these cookies and therefore your device.

Cookies perform essential functions, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently and generally improving your browsing experience. We do not use cookies to store personal information, nor do we use them to identify individuals.  The cookies used on the HEON website are:

Cookie Domain Type Description Duration
_ga .heon.org.uk Analytics This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. 2 years
_gid .heon.org.uk Analytics This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form. 1 day
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary www.heon.org.uk Necessary This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category “Necessary”. 1 year
cookielawinfo-checkbox-non-necessary www.heon.org.uk Necessary This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category “Non-necessary”. 1 year
_gat_gtag_UA_67900887_1 .heon.org.uk Other This cookie is installed by Google Analytics and is used to limit requests (throttle request rate) 1 minute

HEON may change this notice from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This notice is effective from 22/02/2023