Skip to content

Alumni and Development Privacy Notice

Our alumni and supporters are important to us. We are committed to protecting your privacy, keeping your data safe and not doing anything with it that you wouldn’t reasonably expect. This privacy notice describes how we collect, store, manage, protect and use your personal information.

The Alumni and Development function focuses on engaging with you as an alumnus/alumna or supporter. We do this by offering a range of networking events, access to library resources and employment and skills advice to recent graduates (up to 5 years of graduating). We also fundraise to support the University’s educational charitable mission, for example, to support students through scholarships, flagship research and capital development projects. To do this we have a database that contains personal data collected by the University during the course of our relationship with you as a student, alumni, donor or supporter. We adhere to the relevant data protection legislation, and the personal information we obtain is stored, used, transferred and processed in accordance with the law.

Where does the University get your personal data from?

Before you graduate, we create an outline record for you from the University of Bradford (UoB) Student database with name, department, preferred gender, date of birth, “UoB Person ID”, Student Number, postal address and your UoB email address. When you leave the UoB, we add the rest of your personal contact details, that you have provided us with including personal email address, the course you studied and years of study.

We encourage alumni and supporters to keep their record up to date - mainly with employment activity and contact details, so we can make sure you receive relevant communications and are invited to appropriate activities. We do this through the Bradford Connect Portal 

If you support us, for example by making a donation, volunteering or signing up for an event, we will store all the data you submit on the donation or event booking form, apart from your credit card details when you complete a form. Only the information that is necessary to process your request will be mandatory. Every time you get in touch with us, we get in touch with you, or you take part in any UoB activity, we record this communication activity on your record.

 

Other ways we collect your information

When you give it to us indirectly

Your information may be shared with us by independent event organisers, for example, fundraising sites like Just Giving or Virgin Money Giving. These independent third parties will only do so when you have indicated your consent. You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.

When you give permission to other organisations to share or it is available publicly

We combine the information you provide to us with information available from external sources. This is known as data-appending and enables us to contact you in the event that you change your address, job or phone number, or didn’t provide it to us. We also use this information to gain a better understanding of our supporters to improve our fundraising methods, products and services and make sure we contact you in the most relevant and appropriate way. Places we get information from include:

  • Companies - You may have provided permission for a company to share your data with third parties, including charities. This could be when you buy a product or service, register for an online competition or sign up with a comparison site.
  • Information available publicly - This may include information found in places such as Companies House or published in articles/ newspapers.
  • When someone you know refers you to us - On occasion, someone you know, for example, friends, family or a business associate, may give us your name and contact details as someone who is likely to be keen to be approached to support or reconnect with the University. We will contact you as soon as is practicable to let you know we are processing your data in this way.

When we collect it as you use our websites or Apps

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages users as a whole find useful and which they do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. Cookies are completely safe and secure and will never contain any sensitive information.

Accept or Decline Cookies
You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website. For further information about deleting and controlling cookies see AboutCookies.org

For information about how we use cookies on the University of Bradford website, please refer to the University of Bradford Website Privacy and Cookie Policy.

Social Media

We use social media to provide updates and promote events. On occasion, we may reply to comments or questions you make to us on social media platforms. We also use social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter to build profiles of your professional activity.

Third Parties

The University sometimes uses third-party organisations to assist us. Information may be transferred to these third parties under contractual arrangements which guarantee that they will process personal information with the same rigorous standards as the University, and in accordance with relevant data protection legislation. These third-party organisations may collect information that you have made available online or from other public sources to augment our records if useful information is missing.

 

How we use your data

We use your data to:

  • provide you with the services, products or information you asked for
  • send you information about activities we believe are most relevant to you, including fundraising; university publications; invitations to alumni events; promotion of discounts or services for alumni; promotion of mentoring services, promotion of volunteering opportunities
  • administer your donation or support your fundraising
  • keep a record of your relationship with us
  • verify your status as a student or graduate of the University
  • understand how we can improve our services or information

Examples of the type of data we may hold include:

  • your title, name (including former name or alias), gender, date of birth
  • your education record (i.e. year of study and degree details) but we do not retain transcripts. Qualifications from other universities may also be held. Transcripts are held elsewhere in the University - more information about transcripts
  • your contact information (address, telephone, email, social media)
  • your business details including positions, organisation, professional memberships, and qualifications
  • your career highlights and other lifetime achievements
  • your outside interests and membership of groups
  • socio-economic information including income
  • information from articles in the media about you
  • your family details, including spouse or partner, and relationships with other alumni, supporters and potential supporters
  • events you have been invited to and whether or not you have responded or attended
  • your donations of time, expertise or money
  • we will keep a record of interactions with you for future reference and to help tailor further communications with you; as part of this, some emails sent by the University may record whether the email has been opened and whether any links have been clicked on
  • information on you as a scholar and information scholars are required to complete e.g. progress reports

Wealth screening, data analysis and updating your contact details

Philanthropy plays an important role in supporting the University of Bradford. As we are a fundraising institution, we may gather information about you from publicly available sources – for example, Companies House, the Electoral Register and the media – to help us to understand more about you as an individual and your ability to support the University, including financially. We may carry out wealth screening, a process which uses trusted third-party partners to automate some of this work. You will always have the right to opt out of this processing. We may use information gathered from public sources or other departments, schools or faculties within the University alongside the information you provide to undertake analysis of who might support the University and to understand the preferences of our alumni about events, communication and services. By doing this, we can focus conversations we have with you about fundraising and volunteering in the most effective way and ensure that we provide you with an experience that is appropriate for you. We also use publicly available sources to carry out due diligence on donors in line with the University of Bradford Gift Acceptance Policy and to meet money laundering regulations, which is done in the public interest.

We may carry out projects to find new contact details for alumni with whom we are not in contact to ensure the University can remain in touch with as many of our alumni as possible.

Many of our alumni choose to manage their preferences and update their own details by using the Bradford Connect Portal

If you provide us with contact details for a particular method of communication we will assume that you have given us your consent for us to update your record and communicate with you using this information, unless you have told us otherwise. Contact details provided directly by you will update any previous preferences in relation to this channel unless you inform us otherwise. If you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) but provide us with a telephone number we will assume that we have your consent to call you on this number.

Fundraising is a key part of the Alumni and Development function’s work, and we are committed to working in a transparent, ethical, responsible and honest way. To reflect this commitment, we are a member of the Fundraising Regulator and committed to the Regulator’s Code of Practice.

Alumni and Supporter Communications and Direct Marketing

We will contact you to let you know about the progress we are making as a University and to ask for donations or other support, this includes relevant newsletters and event invites. We make it easy for you to tell us how you want us to communicate, in a way that suits you. We include information on how to opt out when we send you marketing. If you don’t want to hear from us, that’s fine. Just click unsubscribe, let us know by emailing [email protected], or by updating your preferences on the Bradford Connect Portal

How do we keep your data safe and who has access to it?

We are committed to keeping your data secure. Your data is held on our customer relationship management system called Access Charity CRM which is hosted on the cloud. Access is restricted to individuals who need to see the data to carry out their duties in the University. Your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff.

We take appropriate measures to ensure that the personal information disclosed to us is kept secure, accurate and up to date. As alumni, your information will be kept permanently as part of our commitment to the lifelong relationship between alumni and their alma mater and for historical purposes.

Who else do we pass this information on to?

We may need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors where there is a legal requirement or an overriding public interest to do so.

Other than this the University would normally only share your personal data with contractors we use to support the work of the Alumni and Development function. These organisations are contractually required to process your information in accordance with our instructions and in accordance with all relevant data protection laws. We never sell or trade your personal data.

Do we transfer the information overseas?

We may on occasion transfer your personal information to countries or jurisdictions outside the UK if necessary for the above purposes. These countries may not always provide the same level of data protection as the UK. When we do make such a transfer, we use controls such as Privacy Shield or model contract clauses to ensure your information is protected. For example, we use MailChimp as a tool to send communications to you and therefore transfer your data to them to do this. MailChimp aimed to be compliant with the rules of GDPR by May 2018, and will have put measures in place to keep your data secure.

Fundraising Regulator

The University is a voluntary member of the Fundraising Regulator and we continually review our practises to respect the privacy of our alumni and supporters.

 

Why we can collect your information and how you can tell us to stop

The legal basis for processing your personal data is your consent, where you have provided this, and otherwise our legitimate interests. In the case of our legitimate interests to process your personal data, we are required to ensure that our interests are balanced against any detriment you may face from our processing. We know that people who remain in contact with the University find the relationship beneficial and are prepared to consider providing support in terms of their time, expertise and even financially.

You can ask us to stop processing your personal data and if it’s not necessary for the purpose you provided it to us for (e.g. processing your donation or registering you for an event) we will do so. You also have the right to withdraw your consent in cases where you have provided this. Contact the Alumni and Development team on +44 (0) 1274 233086 or [email protected].

 

Right of access

If you are a graduate of the University and have created an account on the Bradford Connect Portal you can sign into your account to access and update most of your information and preferences.

You have a right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies in your information corrected. If you want to access your information, send a description of the information you want to see and proof of your identity to [email protected].

If you have any questions please send these to [email protected] and for further information see the Information Commissioner’s guidance (link is external).

What are your other rights as a data subject?

As a person whose personal data we are processing, you have certain rights in respect of that personal data. In addition to the above, you have the right to:

  • rectify inaccuracies in personal data that we hold about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete
  • request the deletion or removal of your personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing
  • restrict the processing of your personal data in certain ways
  • obtain your personal data for reuse
  • object certain processing of your personal data;
  • complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the way in which we process your personal data.

 

Keeping your data up-to-date

We really appreciate it if you let us know if your contact details change. Please use the Bradford Connect portal to update your details and manage your communication preferences.

Our information practices change occasionally, please check for updates on this page.

This statement was published in May 2018 and reviewed in May 2023.

Contact us

The University of Bradford, Richmond Road, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD7 1DP.
Tel: +44 (0)1274 233086
Email: [email protected]

To contact the University’s Data Protection Officer, please call +44 (0) 1274 233021 email: [email protected]