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1. What is the HEAT Service and what does it do?

The HEAT Service is a not-for-profit, collaborative organisation  enabling its members to monitor and longitudinally track the progression of individuals who have interacted with a HEAT member organisation. It is hosted by the University of Kent.

We are a research facilitating service that processes personal data and tracks participants for the purpose of monitoring and evaluating equality of opportunity for access and success in higher education. We rely on the following lawful basis as allowed by the UK GDPR for processing your personal data as this is necessary for:

  • The performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority – Article 6(1)(e)

As we also use your special category data, we must identify a further basis for processing that data. The processing is necessary for:

  • Reasons of substantial public interest (as defined within the Data Protection Act 2018) – Article 9(2)(g). Our substantial public interest reason is equality of opportunity or treatment.
  • Archiving in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes with a basis in law – Article 9(2)(j).

If you are reading this information, you are very likely to have been contacted and/or offered the opportunity to participate in an activity delivered by a HEAT member. You may have been asked to provide information about yourself and your circumstances. The purpose of this data collection is to evaluate the impact of member-delivered engagement alongside, specifically but not exclusively, individual information regarding attainment, progression, social mobility, graduate outcomes, and eventual employment.

2. Why is your data stored?

In accordance with UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the HEAT Service is permitted to store and process individual data for research in the public interest. Personal information is used to underpin research that seeks to make improvements to future activities offered by HEAT member organisations as well as ascertaining the effectiveness of that activity by identifying and questioning purpose. For example:

  • Are individuals more likely to progress their educational attainment if they have engaged with a HEAT member organisation?
  • Are individuals participating in an activity more likely to progress than those who do not?
  • Are organisations efficiently working together to deliver equality of opportunity for access and success in higher education to under-represented groups?
  • What can schools, colleges, universities and other organisations do to improve equality of opportunity for access and success in higher education?

3. What data is stored?

The HEAT Service stores and processes information relevant to individuals associated with the provision of activities, including but not limited to, students, student ambassadors, education staff, applicant referees, parents and carers and employees of organisations, and member users. The HEAT member requesting to collect your information may ask and keep one or more of the following information:

  • Name
  • Address, email address and telephone number
  • Date of birth
  • Asylum Seeker/Refugee status
  • Children of Service Personnel
  • Disability
  • Ethnicity
  • Gender identity
  • Local Authority Care
  • Religion
  • Sex
  • Identification number or similar identifier

4. How is your data stored?

The HEAT Service provides a secure, central online repository within which your information is stored. It does so to support and facilitate the evaluation of work around equality of opportunity, and evidence-based student success research. The service produces standardised or personalised data collection and reporting for members. It provides confidential recording tools to facilitate the reporting of information and individual engagement. It includes:

  • Data sharing with researchers
  • Importing and exporting tools to ease data capture and outputs
  • Individual profiling, for example, using a profiler or the HEAT Advance Programming Interface (API) to help share information efficiently for the purpose of research
  • Postcode profiling
  • Sharing of information across partner institutions and organisations
  • Storage of data that individual organisations use for their own purpose
  • Tracking and reporting

5. How is your data processed?

The HEAT Service keeps your data for the purposes described in Section 2. Why is your data stored? The processing of your information is two-fold. Where tracking permission has not been sought/obtained, your personal information is processed to assist with the efficient delivery of engagement. Where tracking permission has been sought/obtained, your personal information is processed to assist with the efficient delivery of engagement and evaluation of the effectiveness of engagement.

This involves the linking of the information you have provided with ‘outcome’ data via administrative datasets. This is achieved by sharing your information with the following bodies:

The purpose of sharing personal information is to explore the relationship between engagement and student success with the aim to improve future outcomes.

Your data will never be used for marketing purposes, shared, sold or seen by anyone other than those permitted for the purposes outlined. The HEAT Service processes data solely for the monitoring and evaluation purposes described herein. Data is not linked to or used for any decision-making process that directly affects individuals. Results presented outside of the HEAT Service are in aggregate form without disclosing specific detail on individuals.

6.How long will your data be kept?

Where tracking permission has been sought/obtained, and if you have:

  • Attended an activity within the last 15 years
  • Supplied your first name, last name, postcode and date of birth
  • Not withdrawn your permission to be included in research into equality of opportunity for access and success in higher education

From the year you are ready to enter Higher Education, your data will be used for 15 years for the purpose of monitoring and evaluation. After this time, your information will be marked as ready for deletion to the HEAT member who collected it for this purpose.

Where tracking permission has not been sought/obtained and/or the personal information stored does not meet the track criteria, your data will be marked as ready for deletion to the collecting organisation within 7 years of being stored.

Once the retention period has expired, your information will be truly anonymised and you will no longer be identifiable.

7. Who to contact about your rights, to make an enquiry or complain if you are unhappy

Under Data Protection law, you have the right to access your personal data, to object to the storing and use of your data and to request to have your data removed from the HEAT system or updated if it is inaccurate. Enquiries about data protection, including Freedom of Information requests, Subject Access Requests, Data Subject Rights, can be made to the HEAT Service in the first instance by contacting HEAT Support . The HEAT Service can signpost you to the member organisation who collected your information.

Alternatively, The University of Kent is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Data Protection Register (Number Z6847902) and can be contacted pertaining to the business of data protection. Enquiries pertaining to the University of Kent can be made by emailing datapro@kent.ac.uk or writing to:

The Data Protection Officer, Information Governance Team, The Registry, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ

For further information about Data Protection; advice and guidance on your right to privacy; or to make a complaint, you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – the regulatory body for UK Data Protection:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Website: www.ico.org.uk
Telephone helpline: 0303 123 1113

8. Further Information

The HEAT Data Protection Policy provides supplementary contextual information to support this Privacy Notice.