Cranfield University is a specialist postgraduate institution with a worldwide reputation for excellence and expertise in aerospace, defence and security, environment and agrifood, energy and power, management, manufacturing, transport systems, and water.
To find out more about Cranfield University, its commercial operations and how it will use personal information collected, please see below. Cranfield University is committed to the privacy of every individual who interacts with us. To that end, the University has established this Privacy Notice. It explains what and how we collect, store, use and protect the information gathered from you.
This Notice also instructs you on what to do if you do not want your personal information collected or shared when you visit our websites. By using and visiting the website, you agree to this Notice and the uses made of personal information as set forth herein or amended hereafter.
This notice was updated in May 2018 as part of the University’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance programme and is reviewed annually. From time to time, we may update this Privacy Notice. We encourage you to review this Privacy Notice regularly to stay informed.
Cranfield University includes a number of wholly owned subsidiaries.
Cranfield Aerospace Solutions Limited
Cranfield Conference Centre Limited
Cranfield Engineering Innovations Limited
Cranfield Innovative Manufacturing
Cranfield Management Development Ltd
Cranfield Quality Services Ltd
Cranfield Regatta Limited
CIT Holdings Limited
Cranfield Airport Operations Limited
We welcome comments and suggestions regarding the Cranfield University Privacy Notice. Please send these to GDPR@Cranfield.ac.uk.
If you believe your personal information has been misused, or handled in such a manner contrary to the notice stated above, please send these to GDPR@Cranfield.ac.uk.
When you are using Cranfield University websites, Cranfield University is the data controller. Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted on GDPR@Cranfield.ac.uk or at the address below:
Data Protection Officer
Cranfield University
College Road
Bedford
MK43 0AL
When you visit our website, work or study with us, we may collect the following types of information:
Information you voluntarily provide to us, such as your name, user name, address, phone number, email address and other contact information.
When you enter into a contract with us to study or work we may collect financial, profile and preference information that you provide.
The University does not hold or process electronic card payments; these transactions, including all personal data, are transferred to external web payment services and are governed by their privacy notices.
We may also collect information including, but not limited to, browser type, pages visited, device type and time and date of visit. We may use cookies or similar technology to collect such information. Information gathered by cookies or similar technologies may be used for our business purposes such as analytics, research, digital advertising and operation purposes. You may set your browser to notify you when a cookie is sent or refuse cookies altogether but certain features of this site may not work without cookies. Find out more about the use of cookies on our website.
The University also collects data from publically available sources.
Cranfield School of Management uses HubSpot to facilitate and assist website visitors with any enquiries that they may have.
In summary, we process personal information to enable us to:
All information is processed under a legal basis to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. Information on these legal bases is given below.
Legal bases
Contractual obligations
In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations.
For example, if you study with us, we will process the information necessary for fulfilling the contract to provide a course of education in accordance with the agreed terms.
Failure to provide information requested under contract may result in you not being able to be considered to work or study with us.
Legal compliance
If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data.
For example, to fulfil our legal obligations in relation to tax.
Vital interest
Occasionally processing may be necessary in order to protect your vital interests.
For example, should you decide to work or study with us, in the case of a medical emergency we will share your data with the emergency services.
Public task
As a University, we are required to process information to carry out our duties as a public authority.
For example, we may be required to share your details with Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Office for Students (OfS).
Legitimate interest
In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.
For example, we may use your address details to send you direct marketing information by post, telling you about products and services that we think might interest you.
We also have a legitimate interest to visually identify and record people on campus for the purpose of security.
Consent
In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent.
For example, when you tick a box to receive email newsletters.
We also process special category and sensitive classes of information that may include:
When collecting your personal data, our intention is to be clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service.
We may use your personal information for marketing or research purposes. For instance, this could allow us to personalise information and increase its relevancy if we contact you, or to invite you to help us develop new products through your feedback. If you would prefer us not to contact you using the personal details you have supplied, please contact GDPR@cranfield.ac.uk
We process information about many different types of data subjects, which include staff, contractors, students, clients and the general public. Further details on the types of data subjects we process information about can be found in our registration with the ICO.
For those data subjects, we process a wide variety of categories - depending upon the purpose for the processing. Some examples are given below and full information can be found in our registration with the ICO.
We process information about data subjects – in relation to the reasons/purposes above - including:
Where required, we share your information across the University and with our commercial subsidiaries.
The University will not sell, license or trade your personal information without your consent. We will not share your personal information with others unless they are acting under our instructions or we are required to do so by law (for example, to government bodies and law enforcement agencies, examining bodies, regulatory and investigatory authorities.)
We also sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties. Here’s the notice we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:
Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:
For full information on sharing of your data, please email: GDPR@cranfield.ac.uk
Cranfield University is currently in the process of revising our procedures regarding the retention of data. For the most part, data will be kept for a standard retention period of seven years in line with statute of limitations.
There will be some exceptions to this, and data may be kept for a shorter or longer period than seven years.
For example, employment applicant data will be kept for less time, while the categories of student name and qualification will be kept for the lifetime of the University. Some further data will be kept for more than seven years where there is a legal obligation to do so (eg pension information).
Under the GDPR, you have the following rights:
Rights
The right of access – you have the right to request the personal data we hold about you, free of charge in most cases.
The right to be forgotten – you have the right to request that we delete your data.
The right to data portability – you have the right to request that we supply a copy of your data in a commonly-used and machine-readable format for you to transfer your data to another service provider.
The right to be informed - you have the right to be informed about our processing of your data.
The right of rectification – you have the right to request the correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete.
The right to restrict processing – you can request that your data is not used for processing. Your record can remain in place, but not be used
The right to object – you have the right to stop the processing of your data for direct marketing.
Email newsletters/communications (electronic communications)
Cranfield University offers visitors to our website the opportunity to subscribe (opt in) to a number of electronic communications. You have the possibility at all times to tell us you no longer wish to subscribe to our electronic communication service (opt out). All e-communications you receive from us will provide clear instructions on how to unsubscribe from each service.
You also have the right to object to the processing of your data where you believe a decision has been made about you by fully automated means, which has adversely affected you.
The right to be notified – you have the right to be notified if there has been a data breach which compromises your personal data, within 72 hours of Cranfield University having become aware of the breach.
Right to complain to the supervisory authority – You have the right to complain to the supervisory authority; in the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) see https://ico.org.uk/concerns/
Please note that the rights described above do not apply in every circumstance. If you require further clarification, please contact GDPR@Cranfield.ac.uk
Your personally identifiable information will normally be processed in our own databases located in the United Kingdom, but some data may be processed elsewhere through specific contractual agreements. Cranfield University is committed to keeping secure the data you provide us and will take reasonable precautions to protect your personally identifiable information from loss, misuse or alteration.
Some transfers of personal information to third-party recipients have been explained above. Data is kept in European Economic Area (“EEA”) and, if not, there are contractual clauses in place.
Cranfield University has made substantial investments in security technology and security management processes. These technologies are deployed to guarantee maximum security of the information you provide us with.
This notice is limited to the information that Cranfield University (and our associated websites) collects from our website users about themselves and others via our websites. Our sites contain links to other sites. The links are provided as a courtesy, to be used or not at the discretion of the individual user. If users decide to follow these links, Cranfield University cannot be responsible for the Privacy Policies and content of those sites. Users should contact the co-ordinator of the particular site with any questions about those sites.
Please note that any information supplied via this website may be stored on our computer system for the provision of information, marketing and analysis. We may also share this information with other third parties in line with our registration with the ICO.
We are registered with the Information Commissioners’ Office and our registration number is Z4690919. Our other associated companies are also registered for data protection.
Wealth Screening
Philanthropy plays a crucial part in helping Cranfield University deliver world-leading education and research. In order to focus our conversations with potential supporters in the most effective way, we may therefore collect and analyse data on our alumni and friends to learn more about potential areas of interest and capacity to support the University philanthropically – a process known as wealth screening.
To do this effectively, we gather information that is held in the public domain – such as Companies House, the Electoral Register and the media, as well as information provided by you - and occasionally use trusted and reputable third-party sources to help sort through the data more efficiently to predict potential capacity and propensity to give. Any data used by a third party is held securely and confidentially.
We do this because we believe it is the most effective way of engaging with our alumni and raising support – by understanding a person’s interests and background, we can better tailor our communications and ensure that they are as relevant and appropriate as possible to each individual.
If you would like to opt out of being included in this process, please contact us by email at alumni@cranfield.ac.uk or by phone at +44(0)1234 754456. If you would like to update your details or change your communications preferences, please visit the Alumni Portal at https://alumni.cranfield.ac.uk/
Users can choose to electronically forward a variety of articles, abstracts, research papers and course details to someone else. Users must provide their email address as well as that of the recipient. The information is only used in the case of transmission errors and to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.
Cranfield University is a postgraduate institution and therefore will only process children’s personal data under very specific circumstances. For example, events supporting science-based projects in schools, attendees at the on-site pre-school and ‘Bring Your Child to Work Day’.
Where there is a need to collect information from a person under 13, then the University will need consent from a parent or guardian in order to process any data. In these circumstances, an email or postal address of this person will be needed so that we can write to them to collect this.
Our job applicant privacy notice explains how we will collect and use the personal data relating to our job applicants.
