George Heriot’s School (the “School“) is operated by George Heriot’s Trust (a Scottish Charity, No SC011463) (“Heriot’s/we“). We are part of the “Heriot’s Group” which comprises George Heriot’s Trust, Heriot Enterprises Limited, The Heriot’s Centre for Sport and Exercise Limited, the George Heriot’s School Parents’ Association, The Heriot Club (the Heriot’s former pupil association) and any other similar /affiliated association for former pupils of George Heriot’s School.
We are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. This privacy notice sets out the basis on which any personal information we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal information and how we will treat it.
For the purpose of the Regulations, the “data controller” is George Heriot’s Trust which is registered with the ICO under number Z6111378.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or if you wish to exercise your data protection rights, initial enquiries should be directed to our Data Protection Administrator as follows:
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
This privacy notice applies to:
This privacy notice does not apply to our employees, workers or other staff. We have separate privacy notices for such purposes.
For the purpose of this privacy notice:
“criminal records data” means personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences or related security measures, including without limitation (a) the alleged commission of offences by the data subject, or (b) proceedings for an offence committed or alleged to have been committed by the data subject or the disposal of such proceedings including sentencing,
“data subject” means the individual to whom the personal information relates.
“Regulations” means all laws that relate to data protection, privacy, the use of information relating to individuals, and or the information rights of individuals including, without limitation, the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679), the Data Protection Act 2018, the Privacy and Electronic Communication (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, and all and any regulations made under those acts or regulations, and all applicable formal or informal guidance, rules, requirements, directions, guidelines, recommendations, advice, codes of practice, policies, measures or publications of the Information Commissioner’s Office, other relevant regulator, and or relevant industry body, all as amended or replaced from time to time.
“personal information” (or “personal data” means information which relates to a living individual who can be identified (directly or indirectly) from that information.
“special categories of personal data” means personal information about an individual’s race, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership (or non-membership), genetics information, biometric information (where used to identify an individual) and information concerning an individual’s health, sex life or sexual orientation.
The following principles, which are set out in the Regulations, will apply in connection with the processing of personal information by us:
We may collect and use different kinds of personal information about you, strictly as required in relation to our relationship with you, including:
*The personal data marked with an asterisk constitute special categories of personal data and will be processed by us in accordance with our Special Categories Policy (which forms part of our GDPR Data Protection Policy – How to Handle Persona/ Data).
We may from time to time obtain or be provided with criminal records data relating to Pupils, Parents, Pupil Contacts, or others (including Trustees or Directors). In the event that we acquire such information for any reason, we will process this in accordance with our Criminal Records Information Policy (Pupils, Parents and others).
We use different methods to collect personal data from and about you including through:
Personal information will be processed by us on the basis that the processing is necessary for 1) the performance of a contract with you (for example for the provision of educational services); or 2) the compliance with a legal obligation to which Heriot’s is subject; or 3) our legitimate interests or those of a third party. Where appropriate (such as in relation to marketing and fundraising) personal information will be processed by us only where you have provided your consent to the processing. In limited circumstances we may process personal information where necessary for the vital interests of the data subject or another individual.
Our legitimate interests include:
We use this personal information for various purposes in connection with the educational and other services we provide, including but not limited to:
We may from time to time process special categories of personal data and criminal records data relating to Parents and Pupils and others. For example, Pupils’ medical records need to be processed for the provision of health care and general welfare purposes. To comply with child safeguarding legislation we may need to process information regarding criminal convictions or alleged offences. Such processing will be undertaken only as and when strictly necessary and with absolute respect to individual confidentiality,
For some of our activities or events, participants (whether Pupils, Parents or others) will be asked to provide medical, health and lifestyle-related information in order to enable an assessment to be made that it is safe for that Pupil or other individual to undertake that activity or participate in an event or in order to accommodate any dietary or other medical requirements.
We may use and share personal information (including special categories of personal data and criminal records data) in relation to assessments and actions we may take for child protection purposes under relevant legislation, for example raising a wellbeing concern with the appropriate child protection authorities and law enforcement agencies.
Where special categories of personal data or criminal records data is processed, we will usually do so on the basis that the processing is necessary (1) for reasons of substantial public interest (in particular the safeguarding of children and individuals at risk, support for individuals with a particular disability or medical condition or preventing or detecting unlawful acts), (2) for the protection of the vital interests of the data subject or another individual where the data subject is physically or legally incapable of giving consent, or (3) for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
In other circumstances we will seek the explicit consent of the data subject concerned to that processing (where explicit consent is the most appropriate bases of processing such special categories of personal data or criminal records data). For example, we process Pupils’ biometric data in connection with catering and other services to the Pupils on the basis of the explicit consent of the relevant individual, and such consent may be refused or withdrawn at any time.
CCTV information and images are collected and used for crime prevention and public, pupil, staff and visitor safety. The areas where CCTV cameras are positioned within school grounds are clearly marked with appropriate notices.
We may use photographs and video images of Pupils and staff for internal educational and recordkeeping purposes. This includes an annual photograph of each pupil (for the School’s administrative records) as well as photographs and videos which are taken as part of the regular curriculum (participation in classes, class projects) or part of extracurricular activities or events (participation in sports, drama, etc), Where we process images for such purposes, we do so on the basis that this is necessary for our legitimate interests in administering the School, ensuring Pupil and staff safety, ensuring educational standards and using available technologies for educational purposes.
We may from time to time publish photographs or video images of Pupils, Parents, Pupil Contacts or staff on our Website, social media and/or in other publications. Items published will never identify Pupils or others by name (unless we have permission to do so), and we will always seek permission first before publishing such images.
From time to time we may contact you, with your prior consent, by letter, telephone, email, text message or other form of electronic communication regarding fundraising activities and events, and commercial activities offered by the Heriot’s Group or being offered by third parties on our premises. You may opt out of receiving such marketing or fundraising communications from us at any time, but please note that Parents cannot opt out from receiving information about current Pupils’ educational progress and welfare.
Please see our Marketing Policy for more information on how we may contact you with regard to our marketing activities (where you have consented to this).
Pupils’ personal information (including special categories of personal data and criminal records data) will be shared with the relevant Pupil’s parent or legal guardian in accordance with the terms of the contract between the Parent and Heriot’s, unless we are legally obliged not to disclose such information or where a Pupil provides such personal information to us in confidence as set out in paragraph 18.
There are also other circumstances in which we may need to share your personal information with certain third parties, usually on a confidential, need-to-know basis. The third parties to whom we may transfer your personal information include:-
We require all third-party service providers to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
Any sharing of your personal data will only take place either where we are legally obliged to do so, where it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, where you have provided your consent, where it is necessary for the purpose of safeguarding children or where it is in our legitimate interests to do so, including as follows:
We are committed to ensuring that your personal information is held and used securely. Your personal information is either stored in a secure database hosted onsite, access to which is controlled by appropriate security measures, or in an external “cloud” based system where suitable data sharing and privacy documentation has been checked, or in paper records in a secure filing system. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure your personal information.
When Pupils are out of school on an organised school activity, essential information regarding the Pupil including emergency medical information will be held securely by the trip organiser.
We generally do not transfer your personal data out of the European Union (EU) and we seek to ensure that any externally hosted personal information is retained in the El-J. However, whenever we are required to transfer your personal data out of the EU (for example where a third party supplier is located outside of the EU), we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to your personal information by ensuring that appropriate safeguards are implemented, including any of the following:
We use our Website as well as social media (in particular Facebook (including Instagram) and Twitter) to provide additional information to Pupils and Parents about the Heriot’s Group, including information about Pupils’ special achievements and participation in sporting and other events and competitions. Our Website (hosted in the UK) and social media posts are generally publicly available both within and out with the EEA.
While both Facebook and Twitter are headquartered in the USA, at present both entities have EU headquarters in Ireland and both entities are registered with Privacy Shield for specified purposes. In each case, use of social media is subject to the relevant terms of use and privacy notices, which can be found on the relevant entity’s website (http://www.facebook.com and http://www.twitter.com).
We do not use automated decision-making (including profiling) to make any decisions which would produce a legal effect or similarly significantly affect a data subject.
When we provide services or information, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services or information are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies, They cannot be used to identify you personally.
We will request your consent to use “cookies” when you access our Website.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to parent needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage. This is to ensure that the service is available when you want it and fast.
For further details on the cookies set by Google Analytics, please refer to the Google Code website.
Personal information will be retained for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we hold such information, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Thereafter, except as set out in this notice, it will be securely destroyed.
Summarised pupil records and other categories of personal information forming the basis of our formal records and our detailed historical archives and may be retained indefinitely for reference, historical and research purposes. Such historical archives are not accessible to the public, except on application to the Data Protection Administrator and any access is subject to appropriate safeguards and supervision to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of any personal data forming part of such historical archives,
Please contact our Data Protection Administrator for further details about our retention policy.
Your personal information is protected by legal rights, which include your rights to:
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details above,
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which regulates the processing of personal data, about how we are processing your personal data.
Data protection rights under the Regulations belong to the individual to whom the personal information relates. A Pupil can exercise any of his or her own data protection rights, provided that, where the Pupil is a minor, they have sufficient maturity (in the reasonable opinion of Heriot’s and having regard to the Pupil’s age, circumstances and understanding) to understand their rights and the implications of exercising any such rights. A Parent may exercise their child is data protection rights on their behalf, but Heriot’s may ask the Parent to provide evidence of the child’s authorisation where the child is an older Pupil.
Where consent is required for the purposes of processing personal information, for example for the purposes of publishing images on our Website, we may seek the consent of the child (with or without consultation with the relevant Parent) as the data subject, depending on the nature of the processing and the Pupil’s age, circumstances and understanding.
Where a Pupil seeks to raise concerns confidentially with a member of staff and expressly withholds their agreement to their personal information being disclosed to their Parents or named Pupil Contact, we will maintain confidentiality unless we have reasonable grounds to believe that the Pupil does not fully understand the consequences of withholding his or her consent, or where we believe disclosure will be in the best interests of the pupil or other pupils for their safety or safeguarding.
Please contact our Data Protection Administrator for further details of how we manage the Pupil/Parent relationship for data protection purposes.
This notice was last reviewed in February 2019. It is published on our Website and intranet and a copy is available on request. We intend to review this privacy notice regularly and will publish any changes on our Website and intranet and in information provided to prospective parents and pupils.
If you would like any further information about this privacy notice or how we collect, use or share your personal information please contact our Data Protection Administrator.