Privacy Notice General

In accordance with Data Protection Law and specifically with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), tailored subsequently by the Data Protection Act 2018, we will only collect and use personal data you have given to us for the purposes we tell you about.

The college processes your personal data both directly and on behalf of the Department for Education. In both cases, the college only processes your data where there is a lawful purpose for doing so.

In line with the UK GDPR guidance the lawful bases we rely on for processing your information are:

• For the majority of our learners the education we provide is either funded by the government or through an Adult Loan so we must collect it as part of a Public Interest task placed on us by the government. This means we collect your information on behalf of the government to draw down funding or to process your achievements. Although some of the information we collect is classified as ‘special’ category (ethnicity, health information or criminal convictions) we only collect this because of necessity, either to provide a safe environment for staff and learners, or it is required by the government.
• The processing is necessary for a Contract the college has with you, or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract. For example, when you enrol on a non-funded or higher education course at the college, you provide us with information in order that we can provide you with the course you have requested and support services to allow you to succeed.
• The processing is necessary for the college’s Legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, or because you provide free ‘consent’ for us to collect this information. For example, we might contact you in relation to other opportunities that you may be interested in or we may keep in touch with you after you leave to see how you are getting on and if your course had been helpful to you.

If you would like to read more about the EPNE Data Protection policy it can be found here Information Governance - Education Partnership North East (educationpartnershipne.ac.uk).

The College Data Protection Officer (DPO) is Vikke Morton, she can be contacted on 0191 5116000. If you want to make a data protection request or report a potential breach you can do this by contacting the DPO at foi@educationpartnershipne.ac.uk.

For more information about how the Department for Education (DfE) use the data we collect click on this link to their privacy notice DfE privacy notice - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Why do we collect your Personal Data?

We will use your information for purposes related to education and learning support marketing with appropriate consents, training, employment, general advice services, wellbeing, safeguarding and research. This will include using your data to process applications, enrolments and contracts, for the college’s internal records so that it can provide a high quality education, to customise services, to contact individuals about services and disruption of services, to contact individuals for research purposes with the aim of enhancing education
or services, for the purposes of measuring you and your achievement, for putting together reports and registers, to check exam results, and to inform schools, other colleges or employers of your attendance dates should you leave and for protecting your wellbeing and safety.

The information we collect includes personal information including name, contact details, date of birth, guardian or emergency contact, ethnicity, learning difficulties and disabilities, health information, criminal convictions, your photo and employment status. We may also collect payment details if you are paying for your course or if you are in receipt of a bursary.

CCTV is used in some parts of the college for the purpose of safeguarding and crime prevention. Digital images are securely stored with access restricted to specific staff.

How long do we keep your personal information for?

All data collected and processed on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE) and the Office for Students (OfS) will be held as long as we are legally required to do so, currently this is 2033. Other data, including CCTV footage, will be held only as long as is necessary to fulfil our duty as a college.

As part of the public task placed on us by the government if you have received funding for your course, we are expected to keep your enrolment records for at least 7 years for eligibility checks, and up to 15 years if your course had been funded through the European Social Fund. We may also retain other information relating to health and safety incidents, information relating to the childcare legislation but we will not keep these for any longer than
we are legally required to.

Any files or emails you’ve saved on the College network or email system will be deleted 90 days after the end of the academic year when you finish your course, or when you leave the College — whichever comes first. Curriculum work may be kept for up to 3 years.

If you make an enquiry or application about our courses but choose not to enrol in the next 2 years, we will remove your personal data from our systems. If you don’t want us to keep your data you can request this information is deleted earlier by contacting info@educationpartnershipne.ac.uk.

How do we protect your personal data and keep it secure?

The security of your personal data is of paramount importance to the college. At all times the college ensures that measures are in place to protect against unauthorised or unlawful processing of your data and to protect against its accidental loss, destruction or damage.

To ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of College information, a number of technical and administrative controls are in place; these include the use of software and hardware to monitor network activity to identify unauthorised attempts to gain access to V5 – Updated March 2026 systems, modify information or cause damage and ensuring that information is encrypted following industry best practices.

Unauthorised attempts to modify College services and information are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law.

Who do we share your personal onformation with and why do we need to share it?

We will share your data with specific other organisations such as the Department for Education (DfE) and the Office for Students (OfS) that fund the majority of our education delivery. We provide them with data to enable you to access additional grants and free meals, and we use your unique learner number (ULN) to share data with the Learning Records Service (LRS) regarding your qualifications.

We also share data with partners such as Exam Awarding Organisations, or our subcontracted partners but only for the purposes of the delivery of your learning.

The College records and shares information regarding any safeguarding concerns relating to children, young people or vulnerable adults. This is in line with legislative and statutory responsibilities for safeguarding.

If you are 16-19 (or 19-24 with EHCP Plan) we will also share some of your information with the Local Authority as they have a statutory obligation under the Education Act 1996 and the Education & Skills Act 2008 to undertake follow up of all young people after leaving school, in order to ensure that they have the opportunity to progress into appropriate education, training or employment. We will share data with other organisations, such as your previous school, Connexions service in order that they are able to fulfil their statutory duties e.g. following up the destination of school leavers, confirming eligibility for Council Tax Benefit.

Emergency contact details collected at enrolment for all students are only to be used in an emergency situation which risks the health or wellbeing of students. If you are 16-18 we ask you to provide 2 parental/guardian/care giver contact details including name, address, phone number and email, this is for emergency purposes as well as in relation to your progress and attendance.
All our Higher Education students will be asked to participate in two external surveys: the National Student Survey (https://www.thestudentsurvey.com/) and the Graduate Outcomes Survey (https://www.hesa.ac.uk/innovation/outcomes/students). The National Student Survey collects the opinions from our final year students about their time in higher education.

The Graduate Outcomes survey collects data 18 months after the end of your course and is designed to capture the activities and perspectives of graduates after higher education. You can object to HESA contacting you for the Graduate Outcomes survey by emailing info@graduateoutcomes.ac.uk.
The progress and attendance of apprentices is shared with employers as set out in the Commitment Statement that Apprentices, employers and the college sign together at the outset of training.

For marketing activities related to your enquiry or application EPNE use “Gecko” as an engagement platform to allow us to send targeted and relevant communications. This will allow you to receive information to allow you to effectively make decisions about your course and college of choice. This will be done within relevant consent preferences or within legitimate interest when related to your application.

When we share data with a partner or 3rd party organisation, a Data Sharing Agreement is in place. This specifies the nature of the data and the purpose of sharing the data. We only V5 – Updated March 2026 share data where there is a lawful reason to do so. Sharing of data is controlled by strict security protocols which are specified in the Data Sharing Agreement.

What data rights do you have?

The information we have given you so far constitutes your Right to be Informed.

• The Right to Rectification - means you can ask us to correct any errors in your personal information
• The Right to Erasure - means you can ask us to delete your personal information. If we can't delete the data for funding purposes, we will let you know
• The Right to Restrict Processing - means you can ask us to stop processing or using your data in certain ways
• The Right to Object - means you can ask us to stop using your data (this may only apply to marketing data that you have given freely by consent)
• The Right to Data Portability - means you can ask us to move your information. You can receive a copy of your data or request that it is transferred to another organisation on your behalf

If you are unhappy with how your data is being used please let us know, however if you are unhappy with our responses you always have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office via https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/.

It is important you know that you have the Right to Access the personal information the college holds about you at any time. In order for our DPO to respond promptly we would ask for you to send an email to foi@educationpartnershipne.ac.uk giving as much information about your request as possible.