Mental Health and Wellbeing Team
This privacy notice explains how Birmingham City University (‘BCU’) protects and processes your personal data and provides information about your rights in relation to the personal data we hold about you. BCU is the data controller for your personal data and is subject to UK data protection laws.
This privacy notice specifically relates to the processing of personal data by the University’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Team.
1. How we collect your personal data and what types of personal data are collected.
We collect most personal information directly from you when you contact or register with the University’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Team for support or assistance including online, by phone, email, or in person.
We may also receive personal information from other services involved in your support such as the Disability Team, Academic Tutors, Accommodation Services etc. where information needs to be shared internally to assist in the provision of support for you. This may include referral to the Team in advance of support or service being provided, such as in advance of your joining the University or where a referral to our service is provided by another area of the University.
We may collect the following types of personal data about you:
- Personal details such as your name, address, date of birth, phone number, BCU student ID number
- Information about your personal circumstances and the support or assistance you have been provided
- Details of the interactions you have had with the Team and other areas of the University, where relevant
We may also process the following "special categories" or more sensitive personal data about you:
- Information about your health, including any disability and/or medical condition
- Ethnicity
- Sexual Orientation
- Gender at registration
- Criminal convictions or related allegation.
This information is collected and held to support our services to you and to ensure we are safeguarding you, other students and colleagues working with you appropriately. Details will also be used to monitor the use of our services, any demographic information shared about service usage will be anonymised before being shared outside the Team.
The University are required to offer a support service to meet our commitments to you as set out in the student contract and processing is necessary to meet the contractual obligation.
Maintaining records of the sessions are necessary to ensure the University is providing the appropriate support and will be subject to either a legal obligation on the University or an activity in the public interest.
In rare circumstances the University may need to release information to protect your interests or the interests of others, e.g. in a medical emergency (vital interests).
Special category data is processed due to substantial public interest in assuring equality of opportunity or treatment under the Equality Act 2010 and in support of the University’s responsibilities under the Health and Safety as Work Act 1974.
Where applicable the University may request your consent to process your data, further details will be provided directly if consent is required.
2. How will the personal data be used and how long is it kept?
We will use your personal data to administer your support, deliver services and meet statutory obligations placed upon the University.
We will hold your personal information within a secure dedicated database and case record system in line with the University’s data retention schedule. When this time has been reached, it is securely destroyed.
3. Who can access my personal data and will they share my personal data with anyone?
Your personal data will only be accessible to relevant staff. We will not share your personal information with anyone outside of the relevant departments, services and faculties within BCU that are supporting you unless we have your explicit consent, we believe someone’s life is in danger or we believe we are compelled to by law. When sharing we will only share the minimum amount necessary to complete the relevant activity.
4. How we keep your data safe
BCU is committed to safeguarding your personal data. Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information, including the DPA 2018 and GDPR. All our records are held within a dedicated and secure database hosted on a secure network with access limited on a need to know basis. A range of administrative, technical and physical security controls are used to ensure a robust approach to protecting data held on University IT systems, and when approved transfers between third parties are undertaken. For more information a copy of BCU’s overarching Data Protection Policy is available on the policies page of the BCU website.
5. What rights do I have regarding my personal data?
You have the right to correct or update your personal data at any time. If you are a BCU student, your main contact for this is the Student Support Centre. If you are a BCU staff member please use ERP or log a ticket on the HR Helpdesk. If you are neither, please contact your main contact at BCU. If you cannot do that, you can contact informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk. You may have the right to have your data deleted, the right to restrict processing, the right to object and / or the right to data portability and you have the right to know about and challenge automated decision making and profiling. Follow the links to find out whether those rights apply in these circumstances. To do any of those things or if you have followed the links but would like clarification, please email informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk.
You have the right to request to see the personal data we hold about you. You can submit a Subject Access Request (SAR) in accordance with the Subject Access Requests (SAR) Procedure.
6. How to ask questions or raise concerns?
If you have read this privacy notice and would like further information, you’re welcome to contact our Data Protection Officer by emailing informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk or by post to: Data Protection Officer, Information Management Team, Legal Services, Birmingham City University, Floor 1, Joseph Priestley Building, 6 Cardigan Street, Birmingham, B4 7BD, or by phoning 0121 202 4597.
If you are not content with how we handle your information, please follow our Data Protection Complaints Procedure. If you have used that procedure and are unsatisfied with the response you have received, you then have the right to complain directly to the Information Commission (IC). You can find out more about this on the IC’s complaints website.