Once you enrol, we use information about you for a variety of purposes. The main purposes are set out below. Depending on the nature of your course or use of University facilities, there may be additional reasons why we use your information which are specific to your course, school or service we offer. You will be informed about these locally as appropriate.

If you are enrolled on the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship programme, your employer will also use your personal data for the purposes set out below when they are jointly delivering your programme with the University.

For the administration of your studies

We use your information to deliver and administer all aspects of your education (including any placements with external providers), including for identity verification and visa/immigration checks; teaching, assessment and quality assurance purposes; considering and approving academic progression and managing academic appeals; managing resits; considering any applications for mitigating circumstances; and determining and confirming awards. Where relevant, we monitor, evaluate and support your research activity. We also maintain records of your studies and academic achievements. To provide an enhanced student experience, we use software to analyse the information we hold about you within a number of different systems to create a profile of your engagement and academic achievements throughout your course. This profile helps us to identify if you may benefit from additional support. In any such instances, staff supporting your studies may contact you to discuss any additional support we can offer.

Financial administration

We will use your information, as provided by you or your employer, to administer all financial aspects of your relationship with us. This includes managing and collecting payments for course fees from your employer and the ESFA (Education and Skills Funding Agency), and payments for car parking, fines, bursaries and other support allowances. We will also use your information for debt recovery purposes in the event money is owed to the University and may use external debt collection agencies for this purpose.

Operation of the University’s regulations, procedures and codes of practice

We will use information about you if you make, or are the subject of, a complaint or allegation involving another apprentice or student, member of staff or external party under any of the University’s rules, regulations, procedures or codes of practice. We may also use information about you that is publicly available, such as information posted to social media and other public forums, where this is relevant in a particular case e.g. complaints about inappropriate posts on social media. Information will be used to investigate complaints or allegations, manage the outcomes and put in place any remedies, including additional support or disciplinary measures. This includes investigating cases where academic misconduct is suspected (which includes suspected plagiarism, cheating or collusion), fitness to study and fitness to practise cases (where this is relevant to your course). The investigations mentioned here may also involve using information about any criminal convictions you receive during the time you are enrolled, in order to determine whether or not you are able to continue on your course (for example, where a particular type of conviction may prevent you from undertaking mandatory placements) or to determine any steps that should be taken in the context of helping to provide a safe community in which staff and students can teach and learn, and in which we can safeguard children (those under 18 years old) and vulnerable adults.

We will also use information about you to monitor your attendance and engagement at physical and online teaching sessions for the purposes of complying with the University’s Academic Regulations, ESFA rules and, where relevant, the requirements of your visa. Information is generated from systems you use to scan in at face-to-face teaching sessions, and systems such as Microsoft Teams which are used to deliver online teaching sessions. We may also use Microsoft apps such as Insights, which allows your lecturer to see your learning activity within a specific Teams space.

Security and crime prevention

The University operates a CCTV system for security and crime prevention purposes, which includes the use of body worn video devices. The CCTV system covers University buildings (inside and outside) and public areas across our campuses. Your images are likely to be captured by the CCTV system while you are on, in, or near University premises. CCTV footage will be used to maintain the security of the University community, enhance public safety, prevent and detect crime and apprehend and prosecute offenders. CCTV footage may be used, where there is a lawful basis, in the investigation of complaints and allegations made under the University’s rules, regulations, procedures and codes of practice. Further information is available in our CCTV Privacy Notice.

The University will also use your information to carry out welfare checks, maintain a safe environment around the University campus and University accommodation and investigate complaints or concerns.

We make available the SafeZone app to all students and, if you choose to use the app, will use information (including location data) collected via your use of the app to help ensure the safety of you and others on and around campus (or anywhere else in the world, if you use the app elsewhere), and manage and monitor check-ins and alerts. We will also use SafeZone to send emergency text alerts (and push notifications, if you have downloaded the app) in the event of a serious incident, campus closure, significant IT issue, etc. that we need to notify lots of students about at the same time. The SafeZone app is provided on our behalf by CriticalArc, a third party under contract to the University.

All University buildings have security access controls and require you to scan your student card to enter and exit. The door entry system collects information each time your card is used to show the date and time you enter and leave a particular building. This information is used to ensure that only authorised individuals can access our buildings; it is also used to check building occupancy for safety and security purposes, and for research purposes to establish patterns of use of buildings and services across our estate.

Delivery of facilities and services

We will use your information to provide you with services and facilities such as an IT service (which involves using your information to help keep our IT network and systems secure, including the requirement to use multi-factor authentication to access our IT services), library, accommodation, parking permits, sports centre, clubs and societies (via the Students’ Union) and a careers service. All apprentices and graduates are automatically eligible to receive ongoing support from the Careers Service. The Careers Service uses your information to provide specialist careers advice, mentoring, help with CV preparation and advertising and informing you of job vacancies. Further information is available in the Careers Service Privacy Notice.

Provision of a student wellbeing service

The University offers a variety of support to apprentices via its Student Services team. Student Services uses your information to provide wellbeing support, including counselling and mental health support. It also provides a disability support service. If you declare a disability during the enrolment process or at any other time, the information will be passed to the Inclusive Support Team who will contact you to discuss your support needs and any reasonable adjustments which may need to be put in place. The team will discuss with you how we might need to share your information to put reasonable adjustments in place and you will be given the option to say that you want information about your disability to remain confidential. If you are referred for Functional Skills assessments and training and require reasonable adjustments to be put in place, we will need to disclose information about your disability to Training 2000 Limited (T2000), which delivers Functional Skills on our behalf under contract. T2000 is a company wholly owned by the University. Your course team will discuss this with you if it applies to you.

Communicating with you

We will use your information to communicate effectively with you via email, post, telephone, text (SMS), social media or other methods, as appropriate. We will send you messages about a variety of things such as the administration of your course, timetable changes and events and activities happening at the University. We will also keep you informed of important updates using newsletters, circulars or other methods. We may also send you messages about University services and facilities. You can opt out of receiving communications which are considered to be marketing by contacting the Academic Registry: AskAcademicRegistry@uclan.ac.uk. Only some of the communications we send are marketing.

Research, reporting and statistics

We will use and analyse your information to obtain and act upon your feedback during your time as an apprentice (such as via our Unitu platform, for which all apprentices are given an account upon enrolment), to compile statistics and to undertake surveys and market research to help with corporate planning, reporting and University administration. We will use external agencies to carry out market research on our behalf. We will also use your information to participate in surveys run by external agencies, such as the National Student Survey (NSS) and Graduate Outcomes. Participation in these surveys will involve us sharing your information with those running the surveys.

We will also use your information for statutory reporting purposes to external agencies, where required, such as the information we disclose about all students to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), as well as for purposes associated with our ongoing registration with the Office for Students. We also collect information about you to populate the Individualised Learner Record (ILR) on behalf of the ESFA and Department for Education (DfE). Information within the ILR is given to the ESFA, which gives it to the DfE so it can be used to help to ensure that public money distributed through the ESFA is being spent in line with government targets. It is also used for education, training, employment and wellbeing purposes, including research. Further information about how the ESFA and DfE will process your personal data can be found in the ESFA privacy notice.

Your information will also be used for research purposes, including research by UCLan staff for planning and development purposes, and UCLan researchers for the purposes of academic research. We may also use your information to participate in research carried out by third parties including those unrelated to UCLan, such as research that would benefit current and future UCLan students or the student population generally, or research that would help formulate government policy. Your information will only be used in this way where the law allows us to and we consider it appropriate under the circumstances.

Monitoring and compliance

We will use your information to ensure and monitor our compliance with legislation including laws relating to equality, health and safety and immigration. We will also use your information to monitor our compliance with regulatory and contractual requirements set by external agencies such as the ESFA

Providing an alumni service

When you complete and pass your course, you automatically become a member of the University of Central Lancashire Alumni Network and will be provided with information about its services. We will use information about you from your student record to populate our alumni system and offer you an alumni service, which includes keeping you informed of University news, publications and events, career opportunities, academic and professional development opportunities and much more. Further information is available in the Alumni Privacy Notice. You can opt out of receiving communications from the alumni service at any time by contacting the Alumni team.

Privacy notices