We are committed to providing a confidential Advice Service, giving you confidence that no other person will know that you have used our service without your consent.
We are dedicated to being clear and transparent about what information we collect and how we will use it. We detail below how we use your data, as well as introducing the rights that you have over the way that we use your information.
1. The information collected about you includes:
- Full name and title
- Email address and phone number
- Course registration details: Course, current year of study, study level, study mode, fee status and expected graduation month and year
- Referral details (how did you hear about the service)
- Mailing list inclusion
- Date and method of first contact
- Type of advice needed (Academic, housing and/or signposting)
- Notes taken from initial consultation/enquiry
- All continuing correspondence between yourself and our service is then placed on your file on our confidential database. This includes: emails, documents, notes on face-to-face/phone/social media conversations and information from other departments if you have given consent to discuss your case with them.
2. What we do with your data:
- We operate independently from the University and keep your data to assist us in providing you with the most appropriate advice as efficiently as possible.
- We see hundreds of students and are a team of advisers, therefore maintaining up-to-date data on you allows us to quickly understand your current situation and next steps needed.
- Your data will not be disclosed to anyone else without your express written consent, unless we have safeguarding concerns (see below).
- Safeguarding:
- We need to abide by the legal safeguarding requirements. For details on our Safeguarding Policy please request this by emailing us at advice@le.ac.uk.
- If there is a safeguarding concern, your data will be shared with the University Heads of Support who will assess the information and provide appropriate support to you.
- Data retention process:
- We keep your data on our confidential database system that is only accessed by the Advice Service Team and Senior Management if required.
- Your data will be retained until 24 months after the expected graduation date you have provided us.
- This is linked to the time limit for your statutory right to appeal to the Office of Independent Adjudicator: www.oiahe.org.uk.
- All our staff and those of our database hosting provider Advice Pro UK, are familiar and comply with the data protection legislation and their personal responsibilities.
- We will keep you updated from time-to-time about key information relating to the areas we advise on, e.g. we will email you to let you know if there has been a change to a University process that could affect you.
3. Your rights:
- You can ask us at any time to provide you with the data we hold on you during the period we have you on file. We can provide this within 28 working days of you requesting this.
- You can withdraw your consent at any time, which means we will delete all data we hold on you. To do this please email us at advice@le.ac.uk.
- You have a right to complain to the ICO www.ico.org.uk if you believe there is a problem with how we’ve handled your data.
4. Your consent:
- If you consent to this statement please complete the form found at this page, and tick yes on the form.
- If you do not consent to this statement please provide an email to advice@le.ac.uk stating ‘I do not agree to the Consent and Confidentiality Statement’.
Please note that if we do not store your data, this may prolong our discussions with you as we’ll need to get background information from you each time we correspond to ensure we fully understand your situation.
Thank you for taking the time to read this statement and for using our service.
If you have any queries for us, regarding this statement or anything else you think we may be able to help you with please do get in touch.