ARU recognises that parents/guardians, relatives and friends (“Supporters”) may feel concerned for a student’s wellbeing at university, and would like to have information about how the Student is settling-in, engaging with student life, progressing academically, and getting access to any relevant support that they need.
The University’s relationship is legally with the Student when they are over 18 years old, and therefore we must manage students’ personal data in line with the Data Protection Act (DPA).
The DPA protects an individual’s rights to privacy and the University must comply with the Student’s data sharing wishes according to the law.
In most cases the University can therefore only disclose information about the Student (irrespective of family relationship or funding support) where the Student has consented to this.
Please see our Privacy Policy and data protection pages for more information about our compliance with the law.
Where we provide our services to under 18s, universities have a defined responsibility to involve Supporters where concerns are identified. In some cases this applies also the over 18s with an Education, Health & Care Plan (ECHP).
Where an under 18 student presents us with objections to such sharing, we are required to take their views into account. Our Further Education Safeguarding services would manage notification about our concerns to Supporters.
The University is able to freely discuss general information, for example: University academic processes, how we monitor student engagement, academic results, support available to students etc., all of which should be accessible on our webpages. We cannot go into detail with information about a specific student, unless the Student has consented to this.
Consent must be freely given, and clearly and accurately capture the Student’s specific wishes. We cannot assume that the Student would consent to sharing their information simply based on family or other stated relationships.
The University does not ask for this consent at the outset of our relationship with a student as this cannot always be relied upon to remain current with a student’s evolving circumstances over the course of their time with us.
Without consent being in place, the University cannot provide information about attendance, residence, academic progress, wellbeing etc, nor confirm that the individual is actually studying with us.
We need to be confident that any consent is from the Student and reflects their wishes. We therefore reserve the right to require additional identity proof to support a request to share personal data.
We cannot accept verbal consent as this risks being ambiguous, and we cannot then evidence the instruction.
We reserve the right to not accept consent if we have reasonable suspicion that it may have been provided under duress or is supplied by someone posing as the Student.
The Student may amend or remove the consent at any time.
In cases where a student would like the University to regularly share their personal data with someone, or would like someone to discuss their studies or wellbeing on the Student’s behalf, the Student can provide us with their consent to do so. This consent must clearly explain the scope of the data sharing to us and we can then consider how best to support the request. For more information and to provide consent for sharing, please see our Representative Consent Form (Word doc).
In cases where a student may be incapacitated and not able to provide their consent, a representative may request their data and/or ask to act on their behalf, for example over taking a break from study (intermitting) or withdrawing while they focus on their wellbeing.
Again, a student can amend or stop such an arrangement at any time.
The University can pass on messages where a Supporter is having trouble getting in touch with the Student and wants us to request that the Student contact them. We will use their ARU email address for this purpose.
We cannot provide the ARU email address or any other personal contact details to a requestor without the Student’s consent.
We can confirm that we will pass on a message “if the individual is a student with us”.
We can’t confirm that a message has been sent, or cannot be sent, as this would be disclosing their student status.
We won’t confirm that we have had a response to such a message, unless the Student has consented to this.
Where a requestor provides personal data of an individual who is not a student with us, this personal data will be deleted once we have confirmed they do not study with us. The requestor should not be informed that the contact details supplied by them do not match a known student.
Where there is concern to the welfare of a student, the University can investigate through its Counselling & Wellbeing service.
This will involve trying to contact the Student using any contact details held, engaging with course tutors to understand any issues that they are aware of, and passing on a message that a requestor has concerns and would like the Student to contact them.
If that process is exhausted without engagement from the Student, the University can consider using the ‘Trusted Contact’ details that they have provided to us. The named Supporter will be contacted at that point.
In situations where there is evidence that the Student is at risk of harm, the University is able to disclose information without the Student’s consent, for example, to the emergency services, next of kin or an emergency Trusted Contact provided to us by the Student where we believe it is in the Student’s ‘Vital Interests’.
This must be decided through our Cause for Concern process, reviewing the specific context and circumstances of an individual case and having considered data protection implications. The decision will be documented so we can explain our actions to the Student if they are dissatisfied with us having taken this action without their consent.