Careers and Employability privacy notice

Introduction

The University of Chester is committed to protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals as detailed in relevant Data Protection legislation including looking after any personal data that it collects, uses or hold.  This Data Processing and Privacy Notice describes how and why we collect and use personal information about you.  It is issued under your right to be informed about how the University collects, uses and stores your personal data.

Careers and Employability provides a variety of employability-enhancing experiences through the curriculum, employer contact, tailored group sessions and individual advice and guidance.  Careers and Employability is also responsible for managing and overseeing the University’s responsibilities of the Graduate Outcomes (GO) survey.

Data Protection Principles

We will comply with data protection legislation, which says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

• Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way

• Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes

• Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes

• Accurate and kept up to date

• Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about

• Kept securely

What Personal Data does the University collect?

All University of Chester students automatically have a CareerHub account created on or around enrolment.  CareerHub is the student and graduate online access point to Careers and Employability services.  CareerHub also allows Careers and Employability staff to use it as a content management system through individual administrative logins.  CareerHub provisions student and graduate (of less than two years) information directly from SITS (student record system).  CareerHub uses single sign on to allow students to login to the system.

Personal information provisioned from SITS to CareerHub is; First name; Last name; Student Number; Visa Code; Home/EU/overseas status; Email; Alternative email; Mobile; Phone; Address; Gender; Date of Birth; International student status; Career Registration question responses; education record/course details; CareerHub username.

We may also collect additional information you actively choose to provide us when interacting with Careers and Employability.  Such information includes the following.

• Bank account details when applying for the Employability Fund; The Futures Employability Fund; Santander Entrepreneurship Fund; Santander Excellence in Enterprise, or any other financial support fund administrated through CareerHub.  Bank details are deleted once payment has been processed.

• Eligibility to work documents when applying for UniJob, Workplace Experiences or other work-based experiences arranged by Careers and Employability.

• Details of employment and/or further study as part of the Early Destinations Review (EDR).

• Details of responses to the Graduate Outcomes (GO) survey.   Further information about the GO survey can be found at www.graduateoutcomes.ac.uk.

• As part of the Chester Difference Award (CDA) details of extra-curricular activity involvement such as paid employment, volunteering including the dates, hours and the contact details of someone to verify this activity.

• As part of the CDA answers to interview style questions either in written format through CareerHub or video format through shortlist.me.  If students choose to do it through shortlist.me they register their name, email address and can optionally include a phone number.  The information to shortlist.me is provided directly from the student and does not come from university systems.

• If you interact with Careers and Employability notes may be made in the journal (notes) on CareerHub as a summary of the interaction. This is to aid any future interaction with the service.

• There may be instances as part of a Careers and Employability activity or initiative we ask you to complete an online form, where you are asked for additional information for the purpose of administering that activity or initiative.   

In addition to CareerHub, we may also store some information in documents saved on secure University servers.

We may also ask you to sign documents to fulfil contractual obligations. 

Where sessions are recorded on Microsoft Teams these may contain the names and/or initials of those attending.   Attendees may also appear on screen if they chose to have their camera on.  Comments attendees say during these sessions will also be recorded.  Attendees are informed that sessions will be recorded and to let Careers and Employability know if they have any concerns.

When engaging with Volunteering services, students are directed to join our online volunteer platform. This platform is provided by Membership Solutions LTD. All University of Chester students can automatically sign into the platform after their enrolment at the University using SSO (single sign on). The volunteer platform also allows Volunteering and Mentoring staff to use it as content management through individual administrative log ins.

The volunteer platform provisions student information directly from SITS (student record system).

The personal information which is provisioned from SITS to the MSL platform includes the following: University User ID; First name; Last name; Date of Birth; Email address; University email address; Mobile phone number; Year of study; University status; Course name; Department name/ Department name 2; Study site; Expected end date; Student level.

We also collect other information you choose to provide when actively engaging with Volunteering services. This includes activity application status; volunteer role information; volunteer hours.

In addition to the volunteer platform we also store information on volunteer award progress and on our Volunteering for Wellbeing scheme. This information is stored on a database which is saved on secure University servers.

Any information shared as a referral from other teams within Student Services (Wellbeing and Mental Health and Disability and Inclusion) for the Volunteering for Wellbeing scheme is restricted to the student’s full name and University I.D.

Students who are engaged with our Peer mentoring scheme will be asked to provide information to support the mentor matching process. This information is stored on a database which is saved on secure University servers.

What Special Category Data does the University Collect?

Careers and Employability provision some special category data from SITS into CareerHub.  The special category information we provision is; Disability; POLAR4 grouping and Ethnicity.   This is information already disclosed to the University by the student/graduate.

If during an interaction with Careers and Employability a student/graduate discloses additional information that would be deemed special category, they will be asked whether they wish for this disclosure to be documented.  Where they agree, this will be included in their journal (notes) within CareerHub.  This journal entry would then be shared with the student/graduate through CareerHub.   Journal entries made by Careers and Employability staff are only viewable by Careers and Employability staff (locked to the C&E staff workgroup).

In order to allow Careers and Employability to administer the Inspiring Futures programme, Student Services share information of those in receipt of university bursaries.  Students in receipt of eligible bursaries are flagged in CareerHub.

External reporting tools such as Air Table are used to aid reporting, no identifying information are used in this tool.

The information recorded for the Peer Mentoring scheme matching process may contain special category data (including Disability; Gender; Age) but only where:

1. It is relevant to the mentoring matching process.
2. It is factual and accurate.
3. The student agrees with what has been recorded and always has the ability to amend or delete information.

Special category data is provisioned from SITs retrospectively for the reporting of the Peer Mentoring scheme as part of the statutory agreement with the Office for Students. This data includes: Disability; Ethnicity; Gender; Age and POLAR4 grouping. Any special category data reporting outside of Volunteering and Mentoring is anonymous.

Why does the University need this data and how will the University use this data?

Careers and Employability are processing personal information for the following reasons.

• To provide promotional communications, information, advice and guidance in order to improve the employability of students and graduates.  This is of benefit to both the University and the student/graduate.
• The information allows Careers and Employability to produce anonymised statistical reports.
• To enable the University to perform its responsibilities of the Graduate Outcomes (GO) survey.
• Obtain feedback to improve the services we offer to students and graduates.

Careers and Employability are processing special category data for the following reasons.

• To provide specialist career guidance, for example working hours for non-UK students and issues around disability and disclose and reasonable adjustments.
• Monitor engagement by different groups of students and graduates to ensure services are being provided to and accessed by all students.  
• To support reporting for the Access and Participation Plan for the Office for Students (OfS).
• Any special category reporting outside of Careers and Employability is anonymous.

What is the Legal Basis for processing the data?

Personal data will be processed by Careers and Employability on one or more of the following legal bases.

Contract: Article 6 (1) b “processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract”.  Whereby Careers and Employability provide services to students and graduates as part of the University’s student contract pertaining to teaching and learning.

Public task: Article 6 (1) e “processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller” Providing data to statutory and regulatory agencies including the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and the Office for Students (OfS).   This includes providing contact details of recent graduates to HESA for the purpose of conducting the Graduate Outcomes (GO) survey approximately 15 months after their course end date.

Legitimate interest: Article (1) f ”processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child” Processing data for the purposes of informing students and graduates of various activities which aim to ensure that individual students achieve good outcomes in terms graduate -level employment or further study. This is of benefit to the student/graduate and the University. 

Special category data provisioned from SITS will be processed by Careers and Employability on following legal basis;

Article 9 (2) j “processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) based on Union or Member State law which shall be proportionate to the aim pursued, respect the essence of the right to data protection and provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject.”

Special category data provided by the student/graduate during an interaction with Careers and Employability and where agreement has been obtained to make a record of this disclosure will be processed by Careers and Employability on following legal basis;

Article 9 (2) a “the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes, except where Union or Member State law provide that the prohibition referred to in paragraph 1 may not be lifted by the data subject”

Unsubscribing

Students and graduates can unsubscribe from marketing communications about Careers and Employability services at any time.   There is a link in all marketing emails sent by Careers and Employability.  It is also possible to amend communication settings within CareerHub.  

Unsubscribing from Careers and Employability marketing communications does not unsubscribe from communications about the Graduate Outcomes survey.  This is because contact details for this purpose are being processed on the basis of carrying out a public task and we have a statutory requirement to provide these contact details to HESA and inform students/graduates of the survey.   Communications about Graduate Outcomes also contain an unsubscribe link to unsubscribe from communications from us in the lead up to the survey.  Unsubscribing from communications about Graduate Outcomes does not exclude you from the survey population.  If you wish not be included in Graduate Outcomes, please email graduateoutcomes@chester.ac.uk with your name and student number stating you wish to be excluded.   You can also ask not to be included when contacted asking you to complete the survey.  Unsubscribing from Graduate Outcomes communications also does not unsubscribe you from general Careers and Employability marketing communications.     

Students who register to our volunteering website can unsubscribe from the weekly emails which list new volunteer opportunities at any time. This setting can be amended in the student’s volunteer profile.

For how long will the University keep this Data?

Current students studying at the University access CareerHub through the University’s single sign on system. Shortly after the education end date current student user accounts are switched to ‘Graduate (less than two years)’ accounts. An automated notification is sent from CareerHub to update users of this change.  Graduates at this point can provide updated contact details.  Where new details are provided these are updated in SITS by Careers and Employability.

After two years as a ‘Graduate (less than two years)’ in CareerHub, users are automatically moved in to the ‘Graduate (more than two years)’ account in CareerHub.  

From the point the account becomes a ‘Graduate (more than two years)’ account, automatic provisioning is ended with information from the student record system no longer refreshed within CareerHub.  ‘Graduate (more than two years)’ are able to exercise their ‘right to be forgotten’, which strips their account of all personal details and retains only a skeleton record for reporting.  Graduates wishing to exercise their ‘right to be forgotten’ should email careers@chester.ac.uk.

Careers and Employability run an anonymiser tool on the ‘Graduate (more than two years)’ account in CareerHub once a year.   This will remove any information attached to the account for graduates who have completed their most recent course more than five years ago and have not engaged with Careers and Employability in the previous six months, and do not have an upcoming event or appointment booking.  Engagement includes; logging into CareerHub; submitting a form via CareerHub, booking on a C&E event, booking a C&E appointment.  The anonymiser removes all personal details and retains only a skeleton record for reporting. 

Graduates of more than two years who do not have an account, or where their previous account has been anonymised, are able to create a new account.    Any information provided as part of this account creation will be retained by Careers and Employability until the criteria for account anonymisation is met.   New accounts can be created at careers.chester.ac.uk.   If a graduate becomes a student again and they still have one of the graduate types of account, this account will be become an active student account again.

The above process for anonymiser means we will retain your information for approximatively five years after you complete your course, unless you engage with Careers and Employability and/or your CareerHub account, then the information will be kept until such as time the criteria for account anonymisation is met.

Volunteering: Data will be kept for 4 years after a student has left the University. After this time, the data will be anonymised and retained for 3 years, at this point data records cannot be used to identify an individual and information is kept for reporting purposes only.

Peer Mentoring: records will be kept for 3 years after a student has left the University. Anonymised data will be retained for reporting purposes, this information cannot be used to identify an individual.

Who has access to the data and with whom will the University share this data?

All Careers and Employability staff have access to data within CareerHub.   Other members of staff within the wider University also have certain access rights to CareerHub to allow the management of; financial support applications, Induction events, Wellbeing events and Work Based Learning activities.   Access and the level of access to non-Careers and Employability staff is allocated and accessed on a case-by-case.  Staff from other teams will not have access to journal entries made by Careers and Employability, unless these entries were not locked to the C&E workgroup because it was felt the content of the other entry would be required by other colleagues using CareerHub.

We will share contact information with HESA for the Graduate Outcomes survey. The Graduate Outcomes survey is overseen by HESA and carried out by a third-party survey contractor who works in collaboration with HESA and the University.

Student numbers may be uploaded in to the Jisc Online Surveys (formally BOS) to monitor survey responses for the Early Destination Review (EDR) of employment and further study outcomes. We may also upload additional information relating to your student record in order to prepopulate answers to questions. Responses to the EDR will also be stored in Jisc Online Surveys for the duration of the survey.  Once the survey ends responses are downloaded and saved on the University secure network.    There may also be other surveys run using Online Surveys, including the end of year evaluation of OfS funded Careers and Employability activities.  These are examples of surveys run through Online Surveys, there may be other surveys run through this system or Microsoft Forms. The responses to these will also be deleted after the end of the survey period and stored on the University secure network.

Email addresses may be uploaded in MailChimp where a marketing campaign is being run through that platform.

To be able to effectively administer careers events, activities or projects, Careers and Employability may disclose some information to event organisers or facilitators/co-facilitators, such as name, phone number, address (for certificates) level of study, year of study and academic faculty, school and department and additional notes the student has asked us to share with the event organiser.

Careers and Employability may direct students and graduates to external online platforms.  These platforms may ask for additional details which will be covered by the privacy statements of these online platforms. 

All staff members of Student Success Team (within Careers and Employability) and senior management staff of Careers and Employability will have access to the data recorded on the volunteering website and Peer mentoring database.

How will the University keep this data secure?

Information will be stored securely in line with the University’s information protection polices

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes.

What Rights do you have as a Data Subject?

As a data subject of the University, under the Data Protection legislation, you have a number of rights with regards to your data, dependent upon the legal basis for processing that data. As such you have the right to:

• Withdraw consent - where the University has used consent as the legal basis for processing
• Be informed – about how the University, collects and uses your data
• Access your personal data that the University holds and process
• Rectify or correct any inaccuracies in your personal data that we hold
• Be forgotten by requesting that your details are removed from the University systems
• Restrict the processing of your data whilst it is being verified or corrected
• Port your data in a machine readable and commonly used format
• Object to certain processing by the University including direct marketing, automated decision making, profiling, scientific/historical research and statistics.

The above rights are not absolute and may only apply in some circumstances such as being dependent upon which lawful process has been used or whether an exemption may apply.

The following table details the right that accompany each lawful basis.

You may contact the University’s Data Protection Officer as necessary regarding your rights.

Who is the Data Controller and who is the Data Protection Officer?

The Data Controller is the University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester, CH1 4BJ. The Data Controller’s representative is Mr Adrian Lee, University Secretary, who may be contacted at the University address and on 01244 511000.

The University’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) is Rob Dawson. He may also be contacted at the University’s address and tel number and also by email on dpo@chester.ac.uk.

How to raise questions, comments, concerns, or complaints.

Should you have any questions, comments, concerns or complaints regarding the use of your personal data you should contact the University’s Data Protection Officer as detailed above.

You may also raise any concerns or complaints with the Information Commissioner’s Office who may be contacted as follows:

 

Changes to this Notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.