Short Courses Privacy Notice

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama is committed to protecting and respecting our short course students’ privacy.

This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about our students, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, and how we keep it secure.

If you have any questions regarding this policy, please email the Director of Engagement & Enterprise or by post to The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, 62-64 Eton Avenue, London NW3 3HY.

You can also contact the School’s Data Protection Officer, for example if you have any general questions about Central’s privacy practices, by email, or by writing to them at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, 62- 64 Eton Avenue, London NW3 3HY.

Who we are

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (Central) is a small and specialist higher education institution that stands at the forefront of training and research in the theatre and performance arts. On our website, you can find out more about the School, including its range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Company and exempt charity information about Central can also be found there.

How we collect information from you

We obtain information about you when you:

• Apply or enquire about a short course at Central
  • (e.g. application or registration form)
• Sign up to the Short Courses Mailing List
• Complete any additional documentation in relation to you registering for one of our short courses
• Voluntarily provide personal information through feedback forms

There interactions may occur online, in person or over the phone.

We do not use any automated processes to make decisions about individuals applying for short courses.

What personal data we hold

We only collect information that’s necessary to carry out our business and the necessary services required. Depending on the short course(s) you are registering for, the personal information we collect may include:

• Basic biographic information (e.g. name, contact details, next of kin)
• Education, training and employment information (e.g. qualifications awarded, places of employment)
• Sensitive personal information (e.g. health and medical conditions like disabilities, criminal conviction information, ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation and gender identifier)

How we use your data and how long we keep it for

When you register for a short course with us, Central will collect some data about you. We ensure that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details.

Student data will be stored in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is used to administer participation in the short course. For research and monitoring purposes only, your anonymous data may appear in our annual Short Courses report, this data helps evaluate the effectiveness of this activity as part of the government policy to widen participation in higher education and to develop future policy. We will not release data to anyone who is unauthorised.

From time to time, we may also contact current or previous short course students to let them know about upcoming short courses that are available. You can removed from this list at any time by emailing short.courses@cssd.ac.uk.

We review our retention periods for personal information on an annual basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as it is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us. Read our Data Protection and Records Retention Policy for more detailed information.

We will retain permanently the basic personal data contained within your educational record (e.g. name, previous name [if applicable], name of programme(s) studied, outcome(s) and year(s) completed).

Who has access to your information

Your information is stored securely and will only be accessed by Central staff who are involved in delivering/administrating the short course to you or are reporting on activity within the Short Courses department.

• We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
• We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
• We may need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.
• We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.

Your rights

The law on data protection gives you certain rights in relation to the data we hold on you. These are:

• the right to be informed. This means that we must tell you how we use your data, and this is the purpose of this privacy notice
• the right of access. You have the right to ask for a copy of the information the School holds about you, known as a Subject Access Request. You can find out how to request this data.
• the right for any inaccuracies to be corrected. If any data that we hold about you is incomplete or inaccurate, you are able to require us to correct it
• the right to have information deleted. If you would like us to stop processing your data, you have the right to ask us to delete it from our systems where you believe there is no reason for us to continue processing it
• the right to restrict the processing of the data. For example, if you believe the data we hold is incorrect, we will stop processing the data (whilst still holding it) until we have ensured that the data is correct
• the right to portability. You may transfer the data that we hold on you for your own purposes
• the right to object to the inclusion of any information. You have the right to object to the way we use your data where we are using it for our legitimate interests

How we keep your personal data safe

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it is treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as your bank details) is encrypted and protected with a secure file transfer portal (SFTP).

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure, although we aim to provide every page on our website as secure https. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Complaints or queries

We take any complaints we receive about the use and security of your personal information very seriously. If you think that our collection or use of your information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate please contact the School’s Data Protection Officer by email or write to them at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, 62- 64 Eton Avenue, London NW3 3HY.

We would also welcome your suggestions for improving our procedures.

Changes to this policy

We keep this policy under regular review. This policy was last updated on 11 March 2022.