Data Protection Notice: Students

 

Summary What is this Notice about? This notice explains to students how their personal data, including sensitive personal data collected from them by AiTS may be used, including some examples of how such data is processed. Who is the Notice for? The notice is of primary interest to students whose data is processed by AiTS and will be of general interest to staff and the wider public. How does AiTS check this Notice is read? By asking a sample of people who this notice targets. Who can you contact if you have any queries about this Notice? You may contact the company’s Data Protection Officer, Richard Goddard.

Who is processing your personal and sensitive personal data?
When you enrol on a course at Ai Training Services Ltd (AiTS) you will enrol in one of three ways.  Depending on the way in which you enrol, the way in which we process your data will be different.

If you enrol on a course that is certificated by AiTS, AiTS will control and process your data.  We will not collect sensitive personal data.

If you enrol on a course that is a Higher Education Qualification with our partner De Montfort University, AiTS will control and process much of your data.  We will also share data with the university.  De Montfort University will also control additional data and sensitive personal data (such as nationality and ethnicity) that you supply directly to them during the enrolment process.

If you enrol on a course that is an IMI Award, AiTS will control and process your data and sensitive personal data (specifically nationality and ethnicity) we will share this information with the IMI who will further process your data.

If you have any questions about how we process your data, you can contact our data protection officer at;

The Data Protection Officer, Yasmin Newman  
AiTS
Unit A5 Lakeside Business Park
South Cerney
GL7 5XL
Main switchboard: 01285 864650.
Email: dataprotection@aits.ac.uk

What we use the data for
AiTS processes your personal data, and your sensitive personal data, for a variety of purposes, involving all aspects of the administration of your education and your welfare, associated financial matters and use of our facilities.

AiTS will use your contact details to keep you informed of events relevant to your studies and to notify you of circumstances in cases of emergency.

Decisions on your progress made through the stages of your course, and on the final award you receive from AiTS at the end of your studies, are originally made through automated decision-making processes, but samples of the decisions are checked before they are confirmed. You have the right to have decisions made in relation to yourself checked manually.

It is your responsibility to inform us as soon as possible if any data we hold about you is incorrect or requires updating.  We will provide an annual opportunity for you to check your data each time you re-register, but it remains your responsibility to notify AiTS of any changes to your details throughout the year.

Our legal basis for processing your data
We use your data to provide you with access to online courses at vle.aitsuk.com. Statistical information about usage of the site is also used to improve the site and services provided on the VLE.

It is your responsibility to ensure your personal data is correct.  You can usually correct any errors on your profile page or you can contact us to correct the information for you.

Our legal basis for processing your data
Our legal basis for processing your personal, and sensitive personal, data is that the processing is necessary for the performance of the contract you enter into with us when registering for a course. The data we ask you to provide at registration is required data, and failure to provide this data may cause you not to be registered as a student with AiTS.

Who will have access to your data?

Only those staff within AiTS who administrate your education will have access to the data you provide at registration. This will include staff within the Administration Department, Finance Department and academic staff.

Where your award is an external award such as an IMI Award or a De Montfort University (DMU) Award we will also share your data including results of tests and exams, your sensitive personal data such as ethnicity with that body.  Their privacy statements can be found here;

• De Montfort University

• The Institute of the Motor Industry

Who else may receive your data?
It is not possible to list all the bodies with whom we might have to share your personal data, but the following are examples of when AiTS will release data about you to third parties;

• Where we have a legitimate reason in connection with your time studying with us, or
• Where we are under a legal requirement to do so, such as to a Courts or enforcement authority.
• AiTS has a duty of care to all its students and therefore, if we have a justifiable concern about a student’s welfare, we may pass a student’s contact details and information about the concern over the student to an appropriate third party, e.g. an employer or a mental health team, to safeguard that student.
• Where students are enrolled on courses which are accredited by professional bodies, some identifying data may be passed to the appropriate professional body in order for students to be registered with that professional body.
• Where a student's course is being paid for by their employer,  embassy or country etc., AiTS will share details of your attendance/progress and achievements with them.  This includes breach of the rules or academic offenses committed by you.  Requests for any further data will be considered on a case by case basis and AiTS may contact the student concerned for their consent to this further disclosure.
• AiTS uses the TurnitinUK© anti-plagiarism software which could involve some personal data being released to other HE institutions for comparison purposes.

AiTS will not release data to any third person without there being a legitimate reason to do so or, where you ask us to release such data. This means that we will not release data to banks, friends, relatives, etc., without your prior agreement. If you wish us to provide data in these circumstances you should provide us with written consent to release the data, stating the name and contact details of the individual to whom you wish the data to be sent, and advise the particular data you agree can be released / discussed.

Will your data be stored abroad?
AiTS stores some data in the cloud via Microsoft SharePoint and some data on remote servers, the servers on which the data is stored are EEA based.  The data supplied to IMI may, the IMI informs us, be stored outside the EEA, see the IMI's privacy statement for further details.

If you study via distance learning or are registered with a collaborative partner based outside the EEA, we will send your data to you or the collaborative partner directly. This processing will be carried out as part of the contract between AiTS and either yourself or the collaborative partner.

If your sponsor is based outside the EEA, we will pass data to your sponsor. This processing will be carried out as part of your contract for sponsorship.

For long will we store your data?
We will retain your full student record for six years after you last studied with AiTS so that we can fulfill our function of recording details of the awards we or our Awarding Body partners make, and provide details of your education and references when asked to do so. (After these six years we will retain transcript data only to enable us to confirm details of your award).

Your rights
You are entitled to;

• Request a copy of the data you provide to us in an electronic format so that you may pass that data to another body (this is called a right to data portability).
• Request a copy of the data we hold about you (this is called a Subject Access Request).
• You are also entitled to raise an objection to the processing where the processing of data we hold about you is likely to cause you damage or distress.
• You are entitled to ask us to rectify any incorrect data.
• You may ask us to restrict any further processing of your data or to erase your data (the right to be forgotten). However, whereas you have the right to withdraw your consent for processing your personal data where it been supplied with your consent (this would normally be additional data you voluntarily supplied and we recorded) you cannot withdraw your consent from data you supplied as part of your contract with us as the data is required to carry out the contract. For example, you could not ask us to delete your academic record.

Other documents you should read
If your course involves the use of our virtual learning environment (vle.aitsuk.com) we will store additional information.  Please read our VLE Privacy Notice.


If you require any further information on, or wish to object to any of the uses to which we put your data, you should contact our data protection officer whose contact details appear at the start of this page.

Finally, you have the right to complain about the processing of your data to the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office. For more information about this body and how to make a complaint, please see www.ico.org.uk.

You can download a PDF copy of this Notice here.