Data Protection (Privacy) Notice

The SHSK Society exists to nurture and strengthen the relationship between St Helen and St Katharine and its community of alumnae, as well as former staff and former parents.

This Data Protection (Privacy) Notice describes how the Alumnae Office processes (collects, stores and uses) data related to the SHSK Society and related to fundraising. To read the School's Data Protection (Privacy) Notice, please click here.

We may change this notice from time to time. If we make any significant changes we will advertise this on the website or contact you directly with the information. Please check this page occasionally to make sure you are happy with any changes.

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. If you have any questions about this notice or concerning your personal information, please contact the Head of Philanthropy and Alumnae Relations at alumnae@shsk.org.uk.

For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and any subsequent UK legislation covering data protection, the Data Controller is The School of St Helen and St Katharine Trust.

How we use your data

The SHSK Society maintains a database of alumnae, former staff and former parents to keep those members of the School community updated about the activities of the School, alumnae news, reunion events, and opportunities to get involved with the School such as in the careers programme or to support our fundraising initiatives.

The database also includes those members of the School community, including current parents, who have booked an event run by the SHSK Society or made a donation towards the School's bursary fund.

Fundraising

In order to make the most appropriate requests for gifts from our School community, it helps us to understand the background and preferences of our community, including, where appropriate, their gift capacity.

To this end, we may use biographical information that is already in the public domain (information that has been published in print or online) to identify individual alumna or parents who may be interested in supporting the School with a major gift. These public domain sources of information include Companies House, the electoral register, the Charity Commission’s Register of Charities, Who’s Who, LinkedIn, company annual reports, ‘rich lists’ and articles in newspapers and magazines. We do not use publicly available sources which we consider would be intrusive for this purpose, such as private Facebook accounts.

We have previously used experienced and trusted external companies to identify high net worth individuals from amongst our alumnae and parent community and may do so again in the future.

Under data protection legislation, you have the right to object to your data being processed in this way. If you would prefer us not to use your data in this way, please contact data@shsk.org.uk.

In order to comply with our legal obligations under charity legislation, anti-money laundering legislation and the prevention of fraud, we may also undertake due diligence research to assess the source of funds of donations and to ensure that we are robustly considering ethical and reputational risks to the School.

Updating your consent preferences

If you have an online profile on this website you can update your consent options by logging-in and clicking on the arrow next to your name in the top right-hand corner of the home page. The drop-down menu has “My Settings” and if you click on this it opens the Settings which includes ‘Consent options’. You can edit these using the Edit button.

Via ‘My Settings’ you can also choose to hide your profile from Google, limit access to your profile so that it is only viewable to your connections and adjust some of the automatic notifications that you receive from this website. Please note that your name (but not full profile) may appear in various places around the community website, such as a list of attendees to an event, a ‘Recent Joiners’ box and in ‘Search’ results, irrespective of the privacy settings you have selected.

If we are using consent as our legal basis for processing your data, we must have an explicit “opt-in” from you for this specific type of processing.

If we are using legitimate interests as our legal basis for processing your data, we will process your data responsibly in a way that you would reasonably expect, and you can opt-out at any stage.

If you click ‘unsubscribe’ at the bottom of one of our emails sent you will be automatically opted-out of these types of email communications in the future.

If you want to ask about your consent preferences please contact the Head of Philanthropy and Alumnae Relations.

How we keep your information safe

We understand the importance of keeping your personal information secure and take appropriate steps to safeguard it.

Your data is stored on a dedicated, secure cloud server hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the EU and managed by our website provider, ToucanTech. Industry standard firewalls, anti-virus, encryption and back-up methods are in place, as well as strict data handling protocols.

We always ensure only authorised persons have access to your information, which means only our approved employees and contractors, and that everyone who has access is appropriately trained in data management.

If you have an online profile for this website you are responsible for keeping your login details (email and password) confidential and we ask that you do not share your password with anyone.

No data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. So, whilst we strive to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you provide online and you do this at your own risk.

What type of personal information we collect

The information we have about you depends on where we collect it, but may include:

First name
Last name
Email
Address
Photographs
Gender
Date of birth
Family relationships
Years at St Helen and St Katharine
Higher education and work details
Other biographical information
Participation in our events, emails, competitions, surveys and other activities
Donations made to St Helen and St Katharine
Your intention to leave a legacy to St Helen and St Katharine
Geo-location data (your geographical location based on your IP address)
Log-ins and activity on the website
A record of payments made via the website (but we do not store your credit/ debit card details as these are processed securely externally by a third-party payment provider) which could include event tickets or online donations
Consent options and communication preferences
Content (such as announcements, stories, photos, documents, comments, events, jobs) that you post on this website or provide to us by other means

Where we collect information from

We collect personal information:

When you visit this website
If you create or update your online profile
If you post content on to this website or other websites and social media sites managed by St Helen and St Katharine
When you take part in an event
If you attend a meeting with us and provide us with information
When you contact us in any way including online, email, phone, SMS, social media or post
When you leave St Helen and St Katharine and we transfer some basic details about you from the main School database to our alumnae database (name, joining and leaving years, mailing address), and add any other information that you have given us on your Leavers’ Form (email address and Facebook name)
From publicly available sources a listed above

How we use your information

We use your personal information in a number of ways, always with a legal basis for processing your data. This may include:

providing you with the information or updates that you have asked for
sending you communications (with your consent if required) that may be of interest, including invitations to events, newsletters and fundraising campaigns
delivering our obligations under any contract between us
seeking your views on the services or activities we carry out, so that we can make improvements
updating our database records and ensuring we know how you prefer to be contacted
analysing your engagement with our website and other content to help us improve our services for you
organising reunion events, professional networking events, Kate Scheme mentoring programme and careers events.
for fundraising purposes

Our legal basis for processing your information

The use of your information for the purposes set out above is lawful because one or more of the following applies:

you have given us your consent for the information to be used
it is necessary for us to hold and use your information to carry out our obligations under a contract entered into with you
it is necessary for our legitimate interests to hold and use your information and we are not impacting your privacy by doing so

Who has access to your information?

Third parties who provide services for us, for example the mailing house which distributes the Old Girls’ Magazine. We select our third-party service providers with care. We provide these third parties with the information that is necessary to provide the service and we will have an agreement in place that requires them to operate with the same care over data protection as we do
Third parties if we run an event in conjunction with them. We will let you know how your data is used when you register for any event
Web hosting, email hosting, analytics and search engine providers that enable us to run our community database and improve our website and its use
Third parties in connection with restructuring or reorganisation of our operations, for example if we merge with another business. In such event, we will take steps to ensure your privacy rights will be protected by the third party

Other than this, we will not share your information with other organisations without your consent.

Keeping your information up to date

Please would you let us know if your contact details change. Online members can update your details directly by logging-in to the website and clicking on ‘My Settings’ under your profile. You can also update your details by contacting us at alumnae@shsk.org.uk .

How long we keep your information for

We will hold your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the relevant activity.

Where we rely on your consent to contact you by email for direct marketing purposes, we will treat your consent as lasting only for as long as it is reasonable to do so.

If you ask us to stop contacting you, we will keep a record of your contact details and limited information needed to ensure we comply with your request. If you ask us to remove your personal data from our database we will delete all the information we hold out apart from your name and the dates that you attended St Helen and St Katharine and archive your record in our database.

Your rights

You have the right to request details of how we use your personal information through making a subject access request. Such requests have to be made in writing by contacting data@shsk.org.uk .

You also have the following rights:

to request rectification of information that is inaccurate or out of date;
to erasure of your information (the “right to be forgotten”);
to restrict the way in which we are dealing with and using your information;
to request that your information be provided to you in a format that is secure and suitable for re-use (the “right to portability”);
in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

All of these rights are subject to certain safeguards and limits or exemptions. To exercise any of these rights, you should contact data@shsk.org.uk at the above address.

If an individual believes that the School has not complied with this notice or acted otherwise than in accordance with Data Protection Law, they should utilise the School complaints or grievance procedure and should also notify the Compliance Administrator. The School can also make a referral to, or lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), although the ICO recommends that steps are taken to resolve the matter with the School before involving the regulator.

This Data Protection (Privacy) Notice was last reviewed in August 2024.