Privacy Notice for Student Financial Support
This Privacy Notice explains who we are, what personal data is collected and held about you when providing our student financial support services, how we use that personal information about you, our lawful bases for processing, who we share your personal data with, relevant retention periods, and how you can exercise your privacy rights.
This notice provides information that is in addition to information contained in the University’s main Student Privacy Notice. Please do read this notice to understand our practices and if you have any questions, please contact us using the contact details provided below.
Who we are
Throughout this notice, “University”, “we”, “our” and “us” refer to the Manchester Metropolitan University, an exempt charity under Schedule 2 to the Charities Act 1993 (amended by the Charities Act 2011). The University is the Data Controller in respect of the personal data you provide as part of [activity].
The University is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). We manage personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the University’s Data Protection Policy.
The personal data we process
We collect and process certain data about you, including information of a sensitive nature. The information collected will depend upon your individual circumstances and reasons for financial hardship. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Your tenancy agreement
- Evidence of your income e.g. your Student Loan Letter, benefit statements
- Documents supporting your reason for financial hardship – dependent on your reason for applying.
- Bank statements
- Bank details – retained only so long as to make a financial support payment.
- If you contact us, we may also keep a record of that correspondence.
The purposes of the processing
As part of our Student Financial Support Services, we use your personal data to:
- record and monitor service contacts.
- provide you with student money information and guidance, and keep records of this.
- inform you of student support you may be eligible to receive from our service and partner services.
- assess and administer university support funds and scholarships.
Student Financial Support relies on condition Legitimate Interests under the GDPR as the basis for lawfully processing your personal data. The legitimate interests of requesting data are:
- to gain insight into fund applicants household income and expenditure in order to make informed support fund assessments and awards (you must seek the permission of others to share their data with us).
- to gain insight into specific student money needs to inform the support provided by our service
- to provide appropriate student money support information, guidance and signposting
- to manage and administer support funds in line with fund guidance and priorities
The recipients or categories of recipients of the personal data
Student Financial Support may share your personal data with other service providers in our university and will ensure appropriate arrangements are in place to protect the security of your personal data. Student Financial Support may share anonymised data derived from your personal data with Government Departments, HEFCE, HESA, OfS, National Association of Student Money Advisers & other Universities for the purposes of data analysis & in reliance on common law data sharing powers. Student Financial Support may share your personal data with trusted third parties with your agreement
Opt out of our financial support services
If you wish to withdraw or opt out of this processing, please contact: Student Financial Support using the contact information below.
Data retention
Your personal data will only be retained for as long as it is necessary in accordance with the University’s Retention and Disposal Schedule. As per reference 287 in the Schedule, we will retain information relating to our assessment and payment of hardship support for a period of 6 years following the end of the current academic year.
Your rights in respect of the processing
The GDPR provides data subjects with the following data subject rights:
- The right to be informed – this privacy notice assists with fulfilling these obligations.
- The right of access.
- The right to rectification.
- The right to erasure.
- The right to restrict processing
- The right to data portability
- The right to object
Please note, that these rights apply in certain circumstances, for example according to the lawful basis utilised by the University. The right of access to personal information held about you exists in order to be aware of, and verify, the lawfulness of the processing. Please use the contact information below to exercise these rights.
Contacting us
For questions or concerns about this Privacy Notice, or our use of your personal information, please contact Student Management Office | Manchester Metropolitan University | 6 Great Marlborough Street, Manchester, M1 5AL. | United Kingdom | 0161 247 1045 in the first instance.
Our Data Protection Officer can also be contacted using dataprotection@mmu.ac.uk, by calling 0161 247 3884 or in writing to: Data Protection Officer, Legal Services, All Saints Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M15 6BH.
Right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority
You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as the supervisory authority in respect of the processing of your personal data. We would encourage you to expend our internal complaints procedure through our initial contact and the University Data Protection Officer, prior to contacting the ICO. Please contact: casework@ico.org.uk or telephone: 0303 123 1113. For any further contact information please see: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.
Updates to this privacy notice
We may update this privacy notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our privacy notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make.