Who we are
This policy sets out the basis on which any personal information we collect from you, or that you provide to us, through this website or otherwise in relation to our projects, will be processed by us. Please read the policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal information and how we will treat it. By visiting and continuing to use this website you are consenting to the practices described in this policy.
For the purposes of data protection law, the data controller in respect of personal information collected through this website, or that we otherwise collect in relation to our projects, is Student Minds (registered charity 1142783 and registered company 07493445). We may share the information with other persons as described below.
Our website address is: https://hub.studentminds.org.uk.
This website belongs to www.studentminds.org.uk/
The items in this page relate specifically to this website. For a more detailed view on Student Minds Privacy Policies, visit: https://www.studentminds.org.uk/privacystatement.html
Privacy Policy
Student Minds is committed to protecting your privacy and security. This policy explains the types of personal information we collect from you, how and why we use your personal data and who we may disclose it to, to ensure you remain informed and in control of your information.
We may change this policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this privacy policy.
You can decide not to receive communications or change how we contact you at any time. If you wish to do so please contact us by emailing dataprotection@studentminds.org.uk, writing to Student Minds, 17 Springfield Mount, Leeds, LS2 9NG or telephoning 0113 343 8440 (lines open 9am – 5pm, Monday – Friday).
We will never sell your personal data, and will only ever share it with organisations we work with where necessary and if its privacy and security are guaranteed.
What information we collect
Personal data you provide
We collect data you provide to us. This includes information you give when applying to volunteer with us, signing up for our training events, workshops and newsletters, or communicating with us. For example:
- personal details (name, date of birth, email, address, telephone number etc.) when you become a volunteer or sign up for events and training;
- details of your interests and preferences (such as campaigns, or the ways you support us) so that we can contact you with other information relevant to you.
- any equal opportunity data that you provide optionally when you take part in our activities, or physical or mental health information that you give us if you apply to volunteer with Student Minds. This is so we can fully and fairly administer your application.
- photos of you taking part in our events (if consent is provided)
Information created by your involvement with Student Minds
Your activities and involvement with Student Minds will result in personal data being created. This could include details of how you’ve helped us by volunteering or being involved with our campaigns and activities.
Sensitive personal data
We do not normally collect or store sensitive personal data (such as information relating to health, beliefs or political affiliation) about supporters. However there are some situations where this will occur (e.g. if you volunteer with us or if you have an accident at our offices or one of our events). If this does occur, we’ll take extra care to ensure your privacy rights are protected.
Accidents or incidents
If an accident or incident occurs on our property, at one of our events or involving one of our staff (including volunteers) then we’ll keep a record of this (which may include personal data and sensitive personal data).
Volunteer
If you are a volunteer (whether for specifically Student Minds, or if you are helping us for other reasons – for example you work for another organisation which is running an event/campaign with us) then we may collect extra information about you (e.g. references, medical conditions, details of emergency contacts, criminal records checks etc.). This information will be used to help us run the volunteering opportunity, for your own wellbeing and safety, and will be retained for legal reasons, to protect us (including in the event of an insurance or legal claim) and for safeguarding purposes.
Occasionally we may share medical information with our partner universities if necessary to support and keep our volunteers safe, but only if consent is provided. To withdraw consent please email dataprotection@studentminds.org.uk
Workshop attendees
If you sign up to attend one of our Look After Your Mate or Mental Health In Sport workshops delivered by a member of staff at your host institution, your pseudonymised details will be collected by Student Minds when you fill in our Time 1 and Time 2 feedback forms. The responses to the Time 2 form will be shared automatically with the staff member at your host institution. Both Student Minds and your host institution are data controllers, for more information on how your institution protects your personal information please refer to their own privacy policies.
Student Minds will use your pseudonymised data for equality monitoring and impact measurement purposes
Job applicants and new employees
The information we ask for is used to assess your suitability for employment. You don’t have to provide what we ask for but it might affect your application if you don’t. Information that we collect might include:
- Your personal details including name and contact details
- Your previous experience, education, referees and answers to questions relevant to the role you have applied for
- Written tests or interview notes generated at assessment or interview days
- Pre-employment checks (such as proof of your identity and your right to work in the UK)
- A questionnaire about your health. This is to establish your fitness to work and to ensure that we can provide any support or reasonable adjustments required by you
- Bank details – to process salary payments
- Emergency contact details – so we know who to contact in case you have an emergency at work
- We might also contact your referees, using the details you provide in your application, directly to obtain references
Peer support group attendees
For in-person peer support group sessions:
We do not collect identifiable personal information about attendees of our in-person, volunteer-led peer support groups. If you fill in a feedback form the information you provide will be anonymous; a unique code will be created so we can match data provided at one session to data provided at another session.
For online peer support group sessions:
To ensure online group safety and security, we collect some identifiable personal information about attendees. This includes your name, university email address, personal email address and phone number. This information will only be shared with the peer support facilitators running your sessions and Student Minds’ staff.
In the instance we have any concerns about a person’s welfare, or if there is an emergency, then our peer support facilitators may pass your details onto services such as emergency services, your GP surgery or university provided support services.
If you fill in a feedback form the information you provide may not be completely anonymous due to our online peer support sign up process; a unique code will be created so we can match data provided at one session to data provided at another session.
Our internal evaluation is overseen by Dr Nicola Byrom, Lecturer in Psychology at Kings College London. If you would like any more information about this evaluation, please contact Nicola: nicola.byrom@kcl.ac.uk. You can withdraw your data up to one month after completing an impact measurement form. To do this, you’ll need to email dataprotection@studentminds.org.uk
Donations and fundraising
If you directly share your contact details with Student Minds for fundraising or donation purposes, we may contact you to communicate about your event/donation and to thank you for your support. We may also use your information for Gift Aid instructions.
If you have donated to Student Minds or set up a fundraising page through a third party website, we may contact you using the details you have provided to the third party, for our legitimate interest to administer your fundraising. Third party websites we use include Virgin Money Giving, Facebook, JustGiving, Raisely, Charities Aid Foundation and GoFundMe. If you do not provide marketing consent through the third party website, we will be unable to let you know about other initiatives (fundraising or otherwise) that we are running. If you would like to receive such information please sign up to our newsletter or contact fundraising@studentminds.org.uk directly.
How we use your information
We only ever use your personal data with your consent, or where it is necessary in order to:
- enter into, or perform, a contract with you;
- comply with a legal duty;
- protect your vital interests;
- for our own (or a third party’s) legitimate and lawful interests, provided your rights don’t override the these.
In any event, we’ll only use your information for the purpose or purposes it was collected for (or else for closely related purposes):
Marketing
We use personal data to communicate with people, to promote Student Minds and to help with fundraising. This includes keeping you up to date with our news, updates, campaigns and fundraising information.
Marketing does not just mean offering things for sale, but also includes news and information about:
- our charity, campaigns and research work;
- volunteering opportunities and how you can help transform the state of student mental health;
- appeals and fundraising (including donations and also competitions, raffles etc.);
- our events, activities and local groups;
- services and offers (our own (e.g. training), and those of third parties which may interest you); and
- taking part in research.
When you receive a communication, we may collect information about you respond to or interact with that communication, and this may affect how we communicate with you in future.
We use a third party provider, Mailchimp to deliver our newsletters. For more information please see Mailchimp’s privacy notice
Administration
We use personal data for administrative purposes (i.e. to carry out our charity work and research and campaigning activities). This includes:
- receiving donations (e.g. gift-aid instructions);
- maintaining databases of our volunteers, and supporters;
- project administration (e.g. providing ongoing support to our volunteers, trainers and workshop attendees)
- fulfilling orders for services (e.g. training courses you sign up to);
- helping us respect your choices and preferences (e.g. if you ask not to receive marketing material, we’ll keep a record of this);
- auditing, evaluation, data analysis and research to improve your experience with us (e.g. we may use your information to enhance the service that our staff provide). We may share our findings from this research and analysis publicly or with our university partners, and the research may be published in peer-reviewed journals, but only in an anonymised and/or aggregate form, unless consent is specifically provided otherwise.
Equal opportunities data
We collect equal opportunities data (e.g. your gender, your ethnicity, your sexuality and your disabilities) that you provide optionally when you apply to take part in our activities. We use this data in an anonymised form for the following purposes:
- To analyse the demographics of students who engage with us, in order to improve how we market our opportunities and to increase the accessibility of our activities
- In our research and annual reports, to share our progress towards accessibility targets
We will never process this data in a way that allows you to be personally identified.
How we protect data
We employ a variety of physical and technical measures to keep your data safe and to prevent unauthorised access to, or use or disclosure of your personal information.
Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). Our staff also receive data protection training.
Storage
Student Minds’ operations are based in the UK and we store our data within the European Union. Some organisations which provide services to us (particularly IT providers) may transfer personal data outside of the EEA, but we’ll only allow them to do if your data is adequately protected.
For example, some of our systems use Salesforce products. As a US company, it may be that using their products result in personal data being transferred to or accessible from the US. However, we’ll allow this as we are certain personal data will still be adequately protected. The Salesforce privacy notice can be accessed here.
Who might we share your personal data with?
Where necessary, your personal information may be shared with other organisations to deliver, support or evaluate all or part of our projects. This might include our partner universities or student unions (usually as part of a contractual agreement which includes a data sharing agreement), and IT providers.
However, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to enable them to perform their funding, management, delivery or support role and we will not allow them to email you with any unconnected marketing.
You can read more about how our main service providers comply with GDPR through the following links: Mailchimp, Google, Salesforce, Slack.
If you have questions about our partner organisations, please get in touch at dataprotection@studentminds.org.uk
How long we store information
We will only use and store information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. How long information will be stored for depends on the information in question and what it is being used for. For example, if you ask us not to send you marketing emails, we will stop storing your emails for marketing purposes (though we’ll keep a record of your preference not to be emailed). We also would like to keep volunteer information beyond the length of a project so we can keep in touch about our work, continue our relationship together and give volunteers the opportunity to get involved in other ways in the future.
We want to ensure that the personal information we collect from you is used to appropriately support our work together and considers any future dealings that you would like to have with us. For example, many people ask to receive references for their volunteer work. In these cases it is important we have the correct personal information on file. You can contact us at any time to ask us to remove or amend your personal information.
We continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required.
Keeping you in control
We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal data. Part of this is making sure you understand your legal rights, which are as follows:
- the right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal data and, if we do, to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as subject access request);
- the right to have your data erased (though this will not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason);
- the right to have inaccurate data rectified;
- the right to object to your data being used for marketing or profiling; and
- where technically feasible, you have the right to personal data you have provided to us which we process automatically on the basis of your consent or the performance of a contract.
- the right to have the personal information provided to us to be transferred to another organisation
Please keep in mind that there are exceptions to the rights above and, though we will always try to respond to your satisfaction, there may be situations where we are unable to do so.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights please email dataprotection@studentminds.org.uk
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies
Like many websites, we use “cookies”. “Cookies” are small pieces of information sent to and stored on your computer, phone or tablet to allow the website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns to improve the website, but do not identify you as an individual. It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. Turning cookies off may result in loss of certain functions on this website.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
How cookies are used on our site
We use a tool called Google Analytics to collect information about how you use Our Site. We do this to measure performance of Our Site, for example to find out the most visited pages of Our Site, and the most frequently asked questions, but also to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its visitors and to help us.
Google Analytics stores information including but not limited to:
- the pages you visit on our website;
- the link you clicked on (or other way) to come to our website;
- the amount of time you spend on each page of our website; and
- what you click on while you’re visiting the site.
A cookie is logged on your computer the first time you visit Our Site.
Changing your cookie preference
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings.
You can block cookies by activating the settings on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of Our Site.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Who we share your data with
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
Programme enquiry forms are connected to our CRM and processed to manage your enquiry.
HotJar
We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices. This includes a device’s IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymized user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf.
For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of Hotjar’s support site.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where your data is sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Changes to this privacy statement
We reserve the right to change our privacy policy without prior notice however we will endeavour to update this page as regularly as feasibly possible. We therefore urge you to review this statement from time to time to ensure you are up-to-date with how we are using and protecting your information.
How to contact us
If you have a query or concern about this privacy policy or our use of personal information or want to exercise any of the above rights regarding your personal information please contact dataprotection@studentminds.org.uk
You can complain to Student Minds directly by using the contact details set out above. If wish to make a complaint, which does not directly relate to your data protection and privacy rights, you can do so in accordance with our charity’s complaints policy.
If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK. Details of how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk
Last Updated: 11/07/23