Information we collect and hold, and where this comes from

The University holds the personal data of alumni, current and potential supporters, other individuals and stakeholders.

For alumni

Some of the personal data the University holds about you is transferred from your student record to the Development and Alumni database.

We primarily collect personal data from your student record when you complete your studies. This will include:

your name, title, gender, nationality, domicile on entry, date of birth;
your matriculation number;
your home or parental address, email address and telephone numbers;
your education record, including course, award, school, college, start, end and completion dates, reason for leaving, type and classification of award, thesis title, mode of study (full-time, part-time, distance learning);
whether you are a member of the General Council or not.

For alumni who studied at Moray House School of Education before the merger with the University in 1998, we manually create records upon your request after verifying your details.

For alumni who studied at Edinburgh College of Art before the merger with the University in 2011, we may need to manually create records upon your request after verifying your details.

We collect and append additional information to your alumni record that will allow us to communicate with you more effectively. This may include:

a list of your student sports club memberships;
whether you received a prize, scholarship or an award;
any student volunteering activities you undertook;
whether you are a member of the Graduates’ Association;
whether you are a current student at the University;
information you provided in an alumni census or survey, such as interests;
membership of alumni clubs or societies;
a list from the University’s HR database of current staff who self-identify as University alumni.

Current and potential supporters (both alumni and non-alumni)

As well as your contact details, we may collect additional personal data depending on your relationship with the University.

This data is collected when you enquire about, or register for, our activities or services, update your details in writing, by telephone or electronically, or otherwise provide us with personal data.

Up-to-date contact details, such as address, telephone number and email address may also be collected from other sources, such as a returned piece of mail where the occupier has provided your new contact details, from a parent or other individual, from Royal Mail's redirection service, or from The Phone Book from BT.

Contact details and personal data may also be collected from company and charity registers, company and personal websites, the press or social media - such as LinkedIn. Please see the below "Information available publicly and from social media" section for further information.

You can object to us processing your data for these purposes at any time.

Personal data may also include:

a record of communications sent to or received from you by post, electronically or telephone;
your preferred methods of contact;
information about your other educational achievements;
details of any volunteering by you, or committee memberships, past and present;
your attendance at University events, including dietary and venue accessibility requirements if provided by you;
your interests, activities and any personal updates you provide;
information about your employment history, professional activities and financial information, including salary range;
details and notes from meetings with University staff concerning your fundraising and/or other opportunities to get involved in supporting the University;
details and notes about visits to the University;
notes from conversations with student callers who may have called you on our behalf;
a record of bulk communications, such as our e-newsletter, when you opened them and if you clicked on links to articles within the emails;
relationships and connections to other alumni, donors and supporters;
family and spouse/partner details, such as name, interests, employment, attendance at University;
philanthropic interests and gifts to other charitable organisations;
information about your use of services provided by, or on behalf of, the University;
photographs from events or profile photographs for editorials.

We may also hold information that has been created by us from other personal data that we already hold about you, which may include:

internal classification of your relationship with the University as a donor or potential donor, and information on your philanthropic interests, your wealth and ability to make a philanthropic gift;
internal classifications and ratings about your level of engagement with the University.

For donors and fundraisers (both alumni and non-alumni)

We collect information about you if you make a donation to the University or the University of Edinburgh Development Trust, or fundraise in aid of us.

The information we collect includes:

donation records, including bank account details for processing Direct Debits, where applicable, which, along with all other personal data we collect and hold, is held securely on the University’s Development and Alumni database as described in the ‘How we store and protect your information’ section of this notice;
your contact details and details of fundraising events you participate in on behalf of the University, as well as details of any JustGiving pages created by you in support of the University;
whether you are a UK taxpayer and Gift Aid Declaration details, where applicable, for HMRC;
donor agreements with the University or the University of Edinburgh Development Trust;
information about planned giving, such as bequests, to the University or the University of Edinburgh Development Trust;
if you donate in the USA, a record of any gifts you have made to the University of Edinburgh USA Development Trust.

Development and Alumni does not process bank card details for online donations on the University’s network. These are processed by our accredited payment service provider in compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS). If you provide your bank card details to us on a paper form or over the phone we will use them to process your payment securely and then immediately shred the card number in line with PCI-DSS regulations and never store your bank card number.

Other individuals

We also collect information about other individuals connected to the work of Development and Alumni.

Information we collect about other individuals are detailed below and come from the following sources:

For staff or students who apply for a Student Experience Grant, applicants are required to submit some personal data as part of the application process including your University UUN, email address, postal address, telephone number and matriculation number;
For non-graduate members of the General Council, we receive a list from the University’s HR database of staff who are members of the General Council and of Court Members from the University’s Court Services;
For student callers employed by us, you are notified as part of the recruitment process about what personal data we collect. We append this information to your alumni record on completion of your studies;
For student beneficiaries of scholarships, you may provide photographs and testimonials for appeals and publications (both digital and print) that will be published with your consent. Any of your personal data that is shared with the funder will be based on performance of a contract as described in the student privacy notice;
For individuals at organisations with whom we already have, or are building a relationship with, we will hold your contact details in relation to your position and the work we are doing with that organisation;
For individuals with whom we are in touch about the University being an executory beneficiary, we hold your contact details in relation to administering the estate of the deceased person.
For family members who sign up to receive updates about the university, as well as for the purposes and data described in this privacy notice, we hold the name and course of the student to which you are related in order that you can receive occasional communications about University news, activities in Edinburgh, and events in your region.

Information available publicly and from social media

We use other publicly available sources of information, and information from social media.

We recommend that you check your settings for social media and the privacy policies of independent third party organisations to whom you provide personal data, such as LinkedIn and JustGiving, so you fully understand how they will process your personal data.

Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for these organisations, you may make information from those accounts or services publicly available.

Other information available publicly may include information published in articles, newspapers or websites. This includes, but not limited to, Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Charity Commission, Companies House, LinkedIn, Who’s Who, Queen's Honours Lists and the Electoral Open Register.

We also use subscription-based research sources that aggregate publicly available information and news articles to make best use of our time. These sources include, but are not limited to, Dow Jones’ Factiva for press articles, Bureau van Dijk’s Fame and Orbis for worldwide company and director information, iWave PRO for information on United States and Canada based supporters, Dow Jones’ RiskCentre for conducting due diligence, Factary Phi for records of donations made to other organisations, ZoomInfo for obtaining individuals' business contact information, and S&P Capital IQ for worldwide listed company, director and shareholder information.

You can object to us processing your data for these purposes at any time.

Next section: Who we share information with

This article was published on 24 Mar, 2022