Privacy notice for student recruitment, marketing, and applications

How we use your information

This privacy notice sets out how the University of Dundee collects, uses, protects, and shares any information that you give us during the course of our student recruitment and marketing activities, and during the course of submitting an application for study, the subsequent processing and assessment of your application and, if successful in being offered a place, managing the process of your admission.

We may use your personal data to help determine or enhance the effectiveness of our student recruitment and marketing activity. This may include the sharing of your data with the University’s student recruitment partners to determine the outcome of student recruitment and marketing initiatives.

Student recruitment and marketing

The personal data we process is used to send you further information about studying at the University of Dundee, to help you decide whether it’s right for you. This may include sending you a series of emails if you sign up to receive them from one of our advertising campaigns, on our website or at a recruitment event; when you choose to chat to our student ambassadors via The Ambassador Platform; responding to any enquiries you submit to us via email, social messaging, live chat or via our online enquiry form; sending you a printed prospectus if you request one; sending you emails to let you know about relevant events taking place online, on our campuses or further afield, such as webinars, Open Days or Information Events; managing bookings and attendance for webinars, Open Days or Information Events; and/or sending texts to remind you about your event booking. We may also send you links to short online surveys to ask for your feedback regarding your interactions with us.

Should you become an applicant or student of the University, the personal data you provide may form part of your applicant/student record and be subject to the University’s normal terms and conditions. If you do not become an applicant or student of the University, we will anonymise your personal information if you have not interacted or engaged with us within 3 years. At this point the anonymised data will be used for internal monitoring and reporting.

Applications to study

Your personal data is used to:

• consider and evaluate your application for study.
• contact you with any questions we may have, to offer you an interview or correspond with you concerning your application.
• engage with you and send you information on the University, the city and the experience of studying here to help you when making your decision on what and where to study.
• book your attendance at any relevant online or in-person applicant events.
• contact you to request feedback regarding your experience with us as an applicant.

Contact methods include sending you messages by email or SMS or through your social media channels (where you initiate contact with us using them). We will also telephone you where appropriate.

If you are successful in securing a place with the University, your personal data forms the basis of your student record (see separate privacy notice for students). We will use your information to invite you to apply for a place in University accommodation and send you pre-enrolment information from the University. We will also pass your contact information to Dundee University Students’ Association (DUSA) so that they can send you information on the support, facilities and social events available to you from them during your time as a student in Dundee.

If you are unsuccessful in your application, we will retain your data for one full admissions cycle so that if you choose to reapply we can help with that process. We may also retain your data beyond that period, but it is only used for planning and reporting purposes and will not be published or used in a way that identifies or makes decisions about you.

The University makes certain statutory disclosures of information, for example to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and the funding councils. Your data will be used for those purposes.

Your data may be provided by you directly, for example during direct application for study or during clearing; by an agent or referee on your behalf; or through an application agency such as UCAS.

Personal data

Student recruitment and marketing

The personal data we normally process is your first name, surname and email address. If you have requested that we send you a printed prospectus we will also ask you for your postal address. We may also ask for your phone number.

Depending on the nature of your enquiry or request, we may also ask you for which academic year you would be starting your course, which mode and level of study you are interested in, which country and UK local authority you are currently in, which courses or subjects you are interested in, and/or which school/college you are currently attending. We ask for this additional information to help us respond accurately and quickly to any enquiries you have made, to tailor the information we send you about the University to ensure we only send you information which is relevant to you, and/or to measure the success of our recruitment and marketing activities.

Most of the personal data we process will have been obtained directly from you, further to your interest in studying at the University.

In some cases we may have obtained your data from a third-party provider, such as education-related websites like (but not limited to) www.hotcoursesabroad.com and www.findamasters.com, overseas representatives (agents) that we work with, or as part of collaborative recruitment activities with other universities. In these cases you will have indicated your interest in the University of Dundee to them and given your permission for them to share your personal data with us for the purpose of sending you information about studying at the University of Dundee.

Applications to study

The personal data normally required during application is:

• your identification details such as your full name, date of birth, address, telephone numbers and email address. If you choose to contact us using your social media channels we will also use them to communicate with you.
• information concerning your qualifications, previous educational institutions, employment or other life experiences relevant to your application.
• information from your referees.
• anything you include in your personal statement or provide to the University in support of your application.

Sensitive (special categories) of personal data

Student recruitment and marketing

We do not normally hold special categories of personal data for student recruitment and marketing purposes. However, we may have such information if you provide it to us directly, for example so we can make appropriate adjustments for a disability at a University event.

Applications to study

We may have information concerning any disability you disclose during your application so that we can make appropriate adjustments. This is not used when assessing your application.

In limited circumstances, for example, when applying to professional programmes, information concerning PVG checks, or criminal convictions may be required. We will engage with you concerning this data on a case-by-case basis.

Data controller

The data controller for your personal information is the University of Dundee. Your data will be processed by the University’s nominated agents such as software or service providers.

In student recruitment and marketing activities we use several software services and providers to manage these activities and capture and process your data. These systems currently include Gecko Engage (to store the details of your enquiry, prospectus request or event bookings), Microsoft Dynamics and Campaign Monitor (to store the details of and respond to your enquiry, prospectus requests, event bookings, sign-up details from advertising and recruitment activities, and send you regular emails), and Janet txt (to send you an SMS reminder for any events you have booked).

The University’s student management system is SITS:Vision. Our University accommodation booking software is Room Service®. These are hosted on the University’s servers. SITS:Vision is used throughout the management of applications.

For some email communications with applicants we may use Campaign Monitor or Microsoft Dynamics. The emails we send will include information related to studying at the University of Dundee, to assist you in making a final decision about where to study. We also use Gecko Engage to manage event bookings for some applicant events which we may invite you to attend. Janet txt is used along with SITS:Vision to send you SMS messages to alert you to important email communications related to your application. You may also choose to chat to our student ambassadors via The Ambassador Platform.

We have Data Processing Agreements with each of these providers. You can view their Privacy Policies at the links below.

• Gecko Engage
• Microsoft Dynamics
• The Ambassador Platform
• Janet txt (PageOne)
• Campaign Monitor

In addition, the University uses Microsoft Office 365 as its main productivity and communications software. This is a cloud-based system and the provider has adopted binding corporate rules to safeguard your data.

Additionally, according to our Cookie Policy, if you accept our recommended cookie settings, we will store anonymous data about your visits to our website. We will use this information to deliver website content that you are more likely to be interested in. You can update your cookie settings at any time.

Lawful processing

The lawful grounds for processing personal data for these purposes are normally:

• the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes;
• 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;
• processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject;
• 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.

The lawful grounds for processing special categories of personal data for these purposes are normally:

• the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes.
• processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject in the field of employment and social security and social protection law.
• processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity.

Your rights

The University respects your rights and preferences in relation to your data. If you wish to update, access, erase, or limit the use of your information, please let us know by emailing. The University will respect your right to prevent your information being used for marketing. You can also unsubscribe from our emails using the unsubscribe link in any of our marketing emails.

Where you wish to restrict the use of your personal data for the purposes outlined above, we may need to retain some limited data to facilitate this request.

If you wish to complain about the use of your information please email [email protected]. You may also wish to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.