Privacy Notice

The School of Informatics (the School) is committed to protecting your privacy and keeping you informed of how your information is used.

The School will only record your personal details in the manner and for the purposes set out in this privacy notice. Data will be kept secure from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. We will not sell, rent, trade or otherwise knowingly share or provide your personal information to any third party, except insofar as legally obliged to do so or as specified below.

Information we collect can include:

  • Your contact information; such as your name, organisation, role, postal address, telephone and email address in response to or as part of any contact with the School via electronic means;
  • Your responses to surveys which we ask you to complete for research and service improvement purposes;
  • Information required to provide support services for potential new students, including your age, country of domicile, future level of study (undergraduate or postgraduate taught) and Informatics Discipline of interest;
  • Information required for research subject participation, although this may be subject to a separate consent process or privacy notice;
  • Information required to promote School activities, including details of the work, affiliations and achievements of our students, alumni and staff, which may also be subject to a separate consent process or privacy notice;
  • Information required to assess your eligibility for School managed and School funded opportunities e.g. your nationality, date of birth, photo ID, a curriculum vitae, covering letter or completed application;
  • How you use our websites, unless you have opted out of cookie consent; and
  • Any other information you post, email or otherwise send to us.

The School will process the personal data of academics, researchers, students, graduates, visitors, staff and other individuals in order to:

  • Deliver and improve the opportunities and services we provide in a personalised manner;
  • Ensure you receive relevant information; and
  • Meet our statutory, contractual and legitimate business requirements in the most efficient and effective way.

We do not use profiling or exclusively automated decision-making processes. A human decision maker will always be involved before any decision is reached in relation to you.

Information about you will only be used:

  • If you have provided us with your consent;
  • If processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party (e.g. as a student or member of staff) or in order to take the steps at your request to entering into a contract (e.g. as an applicant);
  • If it is in the legitimate interest of the School to process information about you as you are part of the University of Edinburgh community; in order to stay in touch with you and keep you informed of our events, news and services; and
  • For Human Resource recruitment and selection purposes.

With your consent we may:

  • Keep you up to date via electronic, postal and telephone communications with news, events, activities, programmes, services, funding and progress of interest to you with regards to the School;
  • Process information about you, including photographs, in our printed publications and digital channels, including websites and social media;
  • Process information about you to administer your conference attendance at the School, after which we may send you presentations and surveys; and
  • Send you University and School marketing information.

To meet our contractual obligations to you we will:

  • Process contracts for research agreements, funding award applications, placements, licensing agreements and research programme activity;
  • Track financial information for reporting;
  • Monitor University of Edinburgh staff and student entries into training, awards, programmes and competitions;
  • Process recipients of grants, funding and awards won for audit purposes; and
  • Capture external, past and current researcher and academic publications and research outcomes.

On the basis of our legitimate business interests to you we will:

  • Supply you with the products, services and information that you request from us and to allow us to respond to your enquiry accordingly;
  • Analyse the information we collect so that we can administer, support, improve and develop our websites, documentation, teaching and research, events and to ensure continuous improvement of all of our services;
  • Inform you of opportunities that may be of interest;
  • Monitor the progress of the School and its stakeholders and inform them of appropriate opportunities and services;
  • Assist you with visa application processes;
  • Notify you about changes to our services; and
  • Send you University and School marketing information if you are a professional contact.

For more information on our use of cookies and details of how the University of Edinburgh is committed to preserving your privacy, please visit the University of Edinburgh Website and Cookies information page.

Link to privacy and cookies webpage


Whenever we collect or process your personal data, we’ll only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected and, in some cases, so we can comply with our legitimate and contractual obligations.

In the case of services that you opt in to, such as mailing lists, we will hold the personal data you provided us for one year. After this period, we will send communication to you querying whether you wish to remain on our mailing list. Alternatively, you can opt out of the mailing list at any time.

At the end of a retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.


Once we have received your information, we employ security measures to protect your information from access by unauthorised persons and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage.

The School makes every effort to ensure that your information is securely transmitted via our website. However, transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Although we will use strict procedures and security features to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to the website or via email. Any transmission is at your own risk.


Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of the website or information systems and services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.


All payment transactions will be encrypted. Areas of the site that process online transactions make use of – and transfer data to – third-party software and service providers. All third-party software and service providers that we use are compliant with the relevant Payment Card Industry standards.

Link to Payment Cards Industry Security Standards Council website


Authorised personnel within the School will be able to access the information you provide to us. Unless required to do so by law, we will not share, sell or distribute any of the information you provide to us without your consent. To comply with statutory requirements, we are required to share your personal information with external agencies, particularly for the purposes of detection or prevention of crime or fraud. We may also disclose your personal information to the University of Edinburgh or any other subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh, for the purposes disclosed in this privacy notice.


Information that you share with us may be processed by the following third parties:

  • Other departments and services within the University of Edinburgh;
  • On certain courses and programmes of study we will share information with other participating academic institutions and industry partners;
  • Diversity Travel for the purposes of making travel and accommodation arrangements;
  • Co-hosts of events and conferences; and
  • Research funding partners.

In some instances, the University of Edinburgh uses third-party companies to enhance the quality, service and functionality of certain web services available to visitors.  We use:

You will be informed if this applies to your data.


The University of Edinburgh School of Informatics's privacy notice is supported by the University's wider privacy policies and guidelines.

Link to University of Edinburgh's continued privacy notice

 


You have the right to ask for a copy of the information held by us in our records. If you would like a copy of this information, please contact us using the details below. We want to make sure that your information is accurate and up to date. You may also ask us to correct or remove any information you think is inaccurate.

The School will provide you with a copy of all information maintained about you upon written request to:

Eddie Wilkinson School of Informatics The University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB

Or by email:

Email Eddie Wilkinson

We will correct any inaccuracies in such information as soon as practicable after being notified in writing. Any user may also require that this information be removed from our records by writing, emailing or unsubscribing.


If you change your mind about being contacted in the future by any of these means, you can withdraw your consent and opt-out from further communications at any point by unsubscribing via the unsubscribe link at the bottom of email communications you receive from us. Alternatively, you can contact us directly at e.wilkinson@ed.ac.uk  or at the address above.

Applicants, staff and students receive some communications as a result of their relationship with the University, so may not be able to opt out.


We keep this privacy notice under regular review and may amend this notice from time to time. If we make any substantial changes we will notify you by posting a prominent notice on the website.


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