Privacy Notice - Support Services

Liverpool Guild of Students ("the Guild", "we", "our" or "us") promises to respect any personal data you share with us, or that we get from other organisations and keep it safe. We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

Facilitating our legal requirements, organisation policy and services to our clients through using your personal data allows us to make better decisions, communicate more efficiently and ultimately, ensure you receive the services required from the Guild.

Where we collect information about you

We collect information in the following ways:

Advice Service

When you contact the Guild Advice Service for support we keep a record of the information you have provided and our response to you. This can range from one email to detailed interview notes containing information that you disclose about your case as well as our response to you. When you first access the Service you will be asked to complete a casework form, which will contain personal information about you and also inform you that your adviser will make a case file containing details of your case on our confidential case recording system. The Guild has a legitimate interest in processing this data for the purposes of providing accurate advice.

Third Parties

During the course of providing a confidential advice service it may be necessary to record the details of third parties. This will be held securely and in accordance with our Third Parties Privacy Notice.

Nightline Service

Nightline is our confidential and anonymous listening service staffed by student volunteers. The majority of calls to the Nightline service are treated anonymously, however, there may be rare occasions where we record personal details on a caller namely in the following circumstances:

• Where it is in the caller’s vital interest – this describes circumstances where volunteers may seek to take a caller’s name or other identifiable contact details such as a number or address in the event that a volunteer is concerned about an immediate risk of threat or harm to the caller’s life
• Where there is a risk to the welfare of our staff and volunteers  - this describes circumstances such manipulative, abusive or threatening callers, where we may record a phone number, name or any other relevant features that enable our volunteers to identify the caller and manage the call in line with our procedures

What personal data we collect

Advice Service

When you access our Advice Service either via email or in person we will ask you to complete a casework details form, including the following information:

• Name
• Student ID
• Course
• Telephone Number
• Email
• Address (for housing advice)
• Gender
• Date of Birth
• Year of Study
• Level of study
• Mode of study
• Residency status

Alongside this information, your adviser will also keep a record of any other relevant information that you disclose regarding your case on your casefile, which helps to provide you with accurate advice.

Special Category data

Your adviser may also collect special category data as follows;

• Provision of advice- where special category data is pertinent to your case, it will be necessary for your adviser to note this information as part of your casefile for the purpose of keeping a record of the advice given. The lawful basis we use for processing your data in this way is part (d) of Article 9(2).
• Statistical analysis of service- in order to ensure our service is meeting the needs of our members, we carry out statistical analysis of service usage.  This allows us to identify trends in the Service, which can then inform us of any policy work we may need to focus on.
  To enable us to carry out this analysis, we need your specific consent. We therefore ask if you wish us to collect the following special category data, on the casework form.
  • Ethnicity
  • Disability

Nightline Service

When you contact the Nightline Service, the following information is recorded anonymously on our case recording system;

• Topic(s) discussed and any relevant information caller discloses
• If any our policies were implemented and the reason why

In the event that it is in the caller’s vital interest or the wellbeing of our volunteers is at risk the following personal information on the caller may also be recorded;

Name

• Phone Number
• Address
• Student ID
• Course

This information and any other relevant information recorded is dependent on the caller opting to disclose it to the volunteer.

What we use your data for

Advice Service

The information we ask for is used to record details about you and your case to allow us to provide the best possible advice.

We will mainly use your data to:

• Set up a case or enquiry record;
• Communicate with you;
• Provide appropriate advice;
• Make representations on your behalf;
• Fulfil any legal or regulatory requirements;
• Make reasonable adjustments to enable clients to receive appropriate advice and support.

Nightline Service

During the course of a call, volunteers make call notes for the purpose of monitoring the types of call the service is receiving and to inform other volunteers of the nature of calls that the service has been receiving. We also record any information given out or policies implemented by volunteers for quality assurance purposes.

Who has access to data

Advice Service

All electronic contact and notes from face-to-face interviews or meeting are stored on our electronic case recording system called AdvicePro. This system is restricted access to those staff working in the Advice Service namely, the Student Advisers and Advocacy Manager. Any paper documentation including casework forms and paper casefiles are stored securely in locked filing cabinets accessible only by the Student Advisers and Advocacy Manager.

Sharing your data

Your personal information may be shared internally with the following people:

• Staff who work directly within the Advice Service;
• Staff who have responsibility for management and oversight of advice provision
• In the case of a student accessing the Advice Service for an emergency loan, your name will be shared with the Guild Finance Office for the purposes of processing payment and repayment.
• In the case of any confidentiality breach, e.g. if an adviser or volunteer believes there is an immediate threat to a client’s life, your data may be shared with the University, emergency services, local authority or any other appropriate organisation

 Nightline Service

All call records are stored on our call recording system Call Report, provided by the Nightline Association. This system is restricted to the Advocacy Manager and current Nightline volunteers.

Sharing your data

Your personal information may be shared internally with the following people:

• Staff who have responsibility for management and oversight of the Nightline service;
• Nightline volunteers
• Nightline Advisory Group
• In the case of any confidentiality breach, e.g. if an adviser or volunteer believes there is an immediate threat to a client’s life, your data may be shared with the University, emergency services, local authority or any other appropriate organisation

The Guild may also need to share your information with certain external third parties including suppliers who provide case management systems:

• AdvicePro - Advicepro advocates privacy by design and as such annually undertakes external penetration testing. Advicepro is a highly trusted case management system with the advice sector and is fully compliant with the GDPR. See Advicepro factsheet here.
• Call Report – We use this system to log calls for nightline and it is provided to us by the Nightline Association. As explained above, the majority of Nightline calls, are anonymous and call report only contains non-identifiable information on the nature of the call itself.

These systems have strictly controlled access to ensure that unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal information, loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal information does not occur.

We will not share any of the information you provide with any third parties for marketing purposes under any circumstances.

Confidentiality

The majority of data we receive is treated confidentially however in rare cases we may breach your confidentiality or share your information without seeking your permission. Any breaches of confidentiality will be taken according to our confidentiality policies.

You can see the Advice Service confidentiality policy here.
You can see the Nightline Service confidentiality policy here.

Conflict of Interest

The Guild Advice Service routinely supports students where more than one student is involved, e.g. academic offences such as collusion, housemate disputes and complaints. The Guild Advice Service has a legitimate interest in recording the name of the other party, even in the case where the other party has not yet accessed the service. The name of the other party will be recorded so if they were to approach the service the Conflict of Interest could be quickly identified and appropriate action taken in line with our Conflict of Interest policy, which can be viewed here. In the event that the other party does access the service and we are unable to provide advice, it may also be necessary to inform the other party of the reasons for this i.e. to disclose that we are unable to provide advice as the other party is already accessing the service. In these cases, all parties will be informed if we are required to share this information.

Lawful basis, retention and security

When we process your data we will have already carefully assessed the lawful justification for doing so, the parameters in which the data is processed, the length of time the data is held for, the secure storage of your data and undertaken impact assessments to ensure your rights are delivered.

How long we keep your data

We will keep your personal data only for as long as we need for the purpose it was gathered and for a limited time after that to ensure that we comply with our legal obligations and that we have sufficient records to respond to queries (including complaints, legal claims and safeguarding). For advice, we retain casefiles for a period of 7 years after the end of the academic year in which last contact with the client took place.

Understanding the detail of our data security measures

The Guild operates a Data Protection and Information Security Policy; all employees and volunteers handling data are required to undertake general data protection training and third parties handling data are required to provide a contract which meets the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation.

Some of our suppliers may run their operations outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Although they may not be subject to the same data protection laws as companies based in the UK, we will take steps to make sure they provide an adequate level of protection in accordance with UK data protection law. Your data will only be shared if it is necessary or required.

By submitting your personal information to us you agree to this transfer, storing or processing at a location outside the EEA.

Your rights

You have a right to see the information the Guild holds on you and you can request a copy of your casefile at any time from your adviser. You can also request changes to be made to incorrect information.

If you have any queries about this notice or your personal information generally, including questions about accessing your personal information you should contact the Guild Advice team (guildadvice@liverpool.ac.uk or 0151 794 6868) in the first instance.

Alternatively you may complete the Subject Access Request Form with a description of the information you want to see and the required proof of your identity by post to Liverpool Guild of Students, 160 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5TR.

Where information is held on the basis of your consent you have the right to withdraw this at any time.

For further information see the Information Commissioner’s Guidance here.

Changes to this statement

We may change this Privacy Statement from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please let us know by contacting guilddpa@liverpool.ac.uk