Privacy Policy relating to the US-UK Fulbright Commission website

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Privacy Policy relating to the US-UK Fulbright Commission website

This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information when you visit or use our website.

As you browse our website and whenever you communicate with us, we collect information. It deepens our understanding of what works and what doesn’t. We collect and process your data for the purposes of providing information and our services in the public interest.

We take protecting your privacy very seriously and will always take all reasonable steps within our power to make sure your information is safe.

When we collect information about you, what we collect and how we use it

We collect information every time you interact with us. The type and quantity of information we collect and how we use it depends on why you are providing it.

For example, we may collect information when you:

Fill out a survey
Join our mailing lists
Apply for an award or programme
Make an enquiry about our programmes or awards or about studying in the USA
Register to attend one of our events
Donate to us
Volunteer with us

The information we may collect from the above interactions may include, but is not limited to:

Your name, address, telephone number, mobile number and/or email address, along with your preferences as to how we should contact you in the future
Financial and credit card information which you give to us, including your gift aid status
Information you enter onto our website, application forms or surveys
Records of your correspondence with us
Records of your donation history
Images, photographs or video if you take part in an event with us
Details of your visit to the website, including technical information such as the IP address you use to access the website, your browser type and version
Other details relevant to your communications with us

We will mainly use the data we collect to:

Provide you with the services, products or information you asked for – for example, monthly newsletters about studying in the USA
Administer your application and award or place on our programmes
Administer your donation or support your fundraising, including processing gift aid
Keep a record of your relationship with us
Manage your communication preferences, including marketing preferences
Understand how we can improve our services, products or information
Keep you up to date with the Commission’s work and to ask for financial and non-financial support
Support and further our mission (for example we may with your consent use images, photographs or video in marketing or promotional materials)

Visitors to our website – information collected automatically

When someone visits Fulbright.org.uk we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site.

Use of cookies

We use cookies on our website and you can find out more on our cookies page.

How long we keep your data for

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity. If you request that we stop sending you marketing materials we will keep a record of your contact details and the appropriate information to enable us to comply with your request not to be contacted by us. We won’t keep any information that we don’t need.

Sharing your information with other parties

We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We may use your personal information to send you promotional information about third parties which we think you may find interesting if you tell us that you wish this to happen.

We may allow our suppliers to access and use your personal data to allow them to perform services on our behalf (e.g. payment processing). In these circumstances, we will not give these organisations any rights to use your personal information except to provide services to us and in accordance with our instructions.

Signing up to our mailing list/s

If you give us consent, we may collect your information to sign up for our mailing list/s. Our purpose for collecting the information is so we can send you information about our events, advice and programmes. The legal basis we rely on for processing your personal data is your consent under article 6(1)(a) of the UK GDPR.

How to unsubscribe:

You may withdraw your consent to be on our mailing list at any time. There will be a link to unsubscribe at the bottom of any emails you receive through this mailing list. If you have signed up to multiple mailing lists from the US-UK Fulbright Commission, you will need to unsubscribe using this process for each of them. If you wish to unsubscribe by another means, email dpo@fulbright.org.uk. In either case, we’ll update our records immediately to reflect your wishes.

Do we use any data processors?

Yes – we use Mailchimp and WizeHive and Salesforce to deliver different kinds of Commission emails. For more information, please see Mailchimp’s privacy policy.

Children’s Privacy

We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13, nor target our services to children under 13.

Links to other websites

This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Your rights

You have the right to request, free of charge:

access to and correction or deletion of your personal information,
that we cease or limit our processing of your personal data, and
a copy of your personal information held by us in a portable format.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us at the address set out below.

If you have any complaints about the way your data has been handled, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on 0303 123 1113.

Conditions of use

The use of our website is governed by the laws of England. In accessing our website, you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts in all disputes arising out of or relating to the use of the website

Changes to this policy

The US-UK Fulbright Commission may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy was last updated on 6 February 2023.

How to contact us

You can write to us by completing our contact us page or by post to:

US-UK Fulbright Commission,
Unit 302, 3rd Floor Camelford House,
89 Albert Embankment,
London
SE1 7TP

Sutton Trust US Programme privacy notice

The Fulbright Commission takes very seriously the privacy of your personal data. This notice sets out what data we ask you for and how we use your data.

How and why we use your data - Programme application

Information you provide in your application form will be used by the Fulbright Commission to select students for the Sutton Trust US Programme.

We will ask you for information that includes your name, address, date of birth, school details, family members, family financial information and grades and extenuating circumstances.

We will share the information you provide in your application with our programme partner, the Sutton Trust. You can read their privacy notice here.

The legal basis we rely on for processing your personal data is article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR, which relates to processing necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party.

For unsuccessful applicants, we will keep your application for one year after you apply, to allow us to respond to queries. After this, we will delete your Information.

Programme participants

If you are accepted on to the Sutton Trust US Programme, the information from your application and the other information you share with us will be used by the Fulbright Commission to administer the Sutton Trust US Programme. This includes to advise and support students in the programme and the US admissions process, to evaluate the programme, and to monitor the higher education opportunities students choose to pursue.

To administer the programme, we will collect your name and contact information, family information, information about your grades and test scores and that you agree to our student contract.

In addition, we will also ask you to provide information such as a copy of your passport, next of kin details and medical information to enable us to run our residentials both in the UK and the US, including organising flights and insurance for the US weeks. Information about your passport and visa will be destroyed after the return to the UK after the US weeks. Other information, such as next of kin and medical information will be held until we have finished the residential programming. We will ask this under the legal basis of legitimate interests to allow us to run residentials safely and comfortably for each participant.

We will ask you and your parents to provide us with financial information. This includes information such as parental and student income, pensions, investments and assets, information about benefit payments and taxes, as well as household budgets. We will ask your consent each time we collect and process this information and we will use the information you share to provide feedback so that you are ready to apply for US university financial aid.

We will ask for your consent to take photos or video of you to help promote the programme and you can withdraw your consent for this at any time. We will ask you if you consent to be included in press and marketing activity.

We will also ask you to share your university decisions with us to allow us to monitor and evaluate the success of the programme.

All the information you provide will only be used to deliver and evaluate the programme unless you give us explicit consent to use it in another way.

Sharing your data - Delivering the programme

In order to deliver the programme, personal data (such as your name and email address) will be shared with programme partners. These will include CATES, who deliver the US admissions exam prep, so they can create you an account on their test prep system.

Your data, including a copy of your passport and visa, will also be shared with the airline we use to fly to the US weeks as part of the programme, an insurance company for travel insurance purposes, and the universities and accommodation providers which host us during the US week, and the accommodation providers for the UK-based residentials in London. We have processing agreements in place with these organisations to ensure your data is adequately protected.

Should you choose to apply to US universities through the programme, we will share some parts of your personal data (such as your name, hometown and school name) collected during the programme with US universities you have applied to in order to help us advocate for your admission to those universities. We will ask for your consent before this happens.

The Fulbright Commission and the Sutton Trust will share your eligibility and background data with our evaluation partners so they can evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. Our evaluation partners are appointed each year and will vary depending on the programme.

We, or our partners, will ask you to complete surveys and will link these to the data you provide in this application. We may also link the data you provide to additional educational data sets to evaluate your future educational and career outcomes. This will include looking at where you go to university and what jobs you do in future. We do this so that we can measure the impact that our programmes have on participants and ensure the programme is meeting its aims of increasing access to selective universities and careers.

Storing and retaining your data

The Fulbright Commission will retain and process your sensitive personal data (such as copies of passports and medical details) for one year after you complete the programme. We will then delete this information.

The Fulbright Commission will retain your application and data you share with us during the programme (including information you share about your family’s finances) for seven years after you start the Sutton Trust US Programme. This is to enable us to respond to questions that may come up during the course of students’ degrees in the USA, especially in relation to US universities’ financial aid.

After seven years, the Fulbright Commission will delete all identifiable information that we have stored (apart from the information below). The Commission will retain anonymised versions to allow us to measure the impact of the programme.

If you gain a place on our programme, we will retain your name, date of birth, programme attended and educational outcomes. We will ask your consent to continue to contact you.

Your rights

Under data protection law, you have rights we need to make you aware of. The rights available to you depend on our reason for processing your information.

Your right of access

You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. This right always applies. There are some exemptions, which means you may not always receive all the information we process. You can read more about this right here.

Your right to rectification

You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete. This right always applies. You can read more about this right here.

Your right to erasure

You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances. You can read more about this right here.

Your right to restriction of processing

You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances. You can read more about this right here.

Your right to object to processing

You have the right to object to processing if we are able to process your information because the process forms part of our public tasks, or is in our legitimate interests. You can read more about this right here.

Your right to data portability

This only applies to information you have given us. You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us from one organisation to another, or give it to you. The right only applies if we are processing information based on your consent or under, or in talks about entering into a contract and the processing is automated. You can read more about this right here.

If we are processing your information for criminal law enforcement purposes, your rights are slightly different. Please see the relevant section of the notice.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. We have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at dpo@fulbright.org.uk if you would like to discuss these rights.

Your right to complain

We work to high standards when it comes to processing your personal information. If you have queries or concerns, please contact us at dpo@fulbright.org.uk and we’ll respond.If you remain dissatisfied, you can make a complaint about the way we process your personal information to the ICO as the UK supervisory authority. Please follow this link to see how to do that.

Contacting us

If you need further details about how we store and use information about you, please contact us on suttontrust@fulbright.org.uk or The Fulbright Commission, 3^rd Floor, Camelford House, 89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP.

Policy last updated 12 November 2018.

EducationUSA UK at the US-UK Fulbright Commission Events Privacy Policy

The type of personal information we collect

We currently collect and process the following information when you register, or express your interest, in our events:

Your name, address, telephone number, mobile number and/or email address, along with your preferences as to how we should contact you in the future
Information about your plans to study in the United States

How we get the personal information and why we have it

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

To register, or express interest in, registering for an event and to enable you to attend the event.

We may also collect data about your attendance at our events from our event platforms.

We use the information that you have given us in order to administer and deliver the event you have requested to attend, understand how we can improve the services we offer and keep a record of your activity with us.

We may share this information with EducationUSA if you are from outside of the UK. For those outside of the UK, we will only share your personal information with your local EducationUSA team where you have given consent for us to do so.

For those inside the UK, we will only add you to our mailing list where you have given us permission to do so.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:
• Your consent. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting advising@fulbright.org,uk

How we store your personal information

Your information is securely stored in our IT systems and that of our event platforms (Zoom and Hopin).

We keep your personally identifying information for four years. We will then dispose your information by removing personal data from our systems.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing - You have the the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at dpo@fulbright.org.uk if you wish to make a request.

Our contact details

Name: US-UK Fulbright Commission
Address: Unit 302, 3rd Floor Camelford House, 89 Albert Embankment, London, SE1 7TP
Email: advising@fulbright.org.uk

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at dpo@fulbright.org.uk

You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

Job Applicant Privacy Notice

This privacy notice describes how the US-UK Fulbright Commission (the “Data Controller”) will collect and process personal data relating to job applicants. We are committed to being transparent about how we collect and use that data and to meet our data protection obligations.

What information do we collect?

We collect and process a range of information about you.

Your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number;
details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history; including start and end dates, with previous employers;
information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
whether or not you have a disability for which the organisation needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process; and
information about your nationality and entitlement to work in the UK;
information about your criminal record;
equal opportunities monitoring information including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief.

We collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data is collected through CVs or resumes; covering letters; obtained from your passport or other identity documents; or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment.

We may collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers. We will seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made and will inform you that we are doing so.

Data will be stored in a range of different places, including on your application record in the BambooHR platform and in other IT systems (including our email system and Sharepoint).

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

We need to process data to ensure that we are complying with our legal obligations. For example, we are required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

In other cases, we have a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from job applicants allows us to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. We may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

We may need to process data to enter into an employment contract with you if your application is successful.

We process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. Data that we use for these purposes is collected with the express consent of the applicant.

Applicants are entirely free to decide whether or not to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.

We may also collect information about whether or not applicants are disabled to make reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability. We process such information to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

For some roles, the organisation is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where the organisation seeks this information, it does so because it is necessary for it to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

Who has access to the data?

Your information may be shared internally and externally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes the shortlisting and interview panel involved in the recruitment process including external panel members, the Administration Co-ordinator, Director of Operations and the Executive Director.

We will not share your data with third parties such as former employers unless we have your permission and are intending to make you an offer of employment.

The organisation will not transfer your data outside the UK unless we have your consent.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to the organisation during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, the organisation may not be able to process your application properly or at all.

How do we protect data?

We take the security of your data seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees in the proper performance of their duties.

For how long do we keep data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, we will hold your data on file for up to eight months after the end of the recruitment process. At the end of that period, your data is deleted or destroyed.

The special categories of data such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, that we collect for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring are anonymised eight months after the end of the recruitment process and then retained for statistical purposes.

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file and retained during your employment. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
require us to change incorrect or incomplete data;
require us to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing; and
object to the processing of your data where we are relying on our legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Co-ordinator, dpo@fulbright.org.uk.

If you believe that we have not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and they can be contacted on 0303 123 1113.

Policy last updated 29 November 2022.