Privacy Policy

Thanks for following our link to find out more about what we are doing to look after your personal information.
1. Who we are

National Union of Students (United Kingdom), Company number 08015198
NUS Students’ Union Charitable Services, Company number 07509468
Our registered office address is Ian King House, Snape Road, Macclesfield SK10 2NZ

We operate the following websites:
NUS UK: nus.org.uk; nus-scotland.org.uk; nus-wales.org.uk and nus-usi.org
NUS Charity: nusconnect.org.uk

NUS campaigns nationally to improve the lives of students and deliver tangible impact for the student movement.

NUS Charity develops and champions strong students’ unions through advice, guidance and crisis support, connecting members and curating services. For members who trade, we also help students’ unions to make the most of their commercial enterprise income.

2. The personal information we collect

We will collect personal information about you, including your personal details, your course details, tastes and preferences. We do this by capturing the information you give us, by analysis of traffic on the website, and through the use of cookies.

3. 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 the following reasons:

a. You wish to sign up for updates from NUS and NUS Students’ Union Charitable Services

b. You wish to participate in a campaign that NUS or NUS Charity is running.

4. Use of Cookies

NUS does not use cookies to obtain any personally identifiable information about you when you visit one of its sites. The cookies used by NUS are required for site functionality. You can block or restrict the cookies set by a NUS website from within your browser settings, however doing so may affect the site functionality although you may still use most of the features of the website.

Visit our cookie page to find out more about the cookies used on NUS websites; if you wish to find out further information about cookies you can obtain additional details from www.aboutcookies.org. This site offers a comprehensive guide on cookies and how to remove them from your computer.

5. Analytics

We have already mentioned that we use analytics tools to understand how people use our websites. When visitors use our websites, we use Google Analytics to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns.

Google allows us to understand things like the number of visitors we are getting and which parts of the site they are visiting. At no time will we identify you personally whilst travelling through the site. If you would like to know more about these demographic and interest reports from Google you can discover more about them here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409?hl=en }

This analytical information is processed in a way which does not identify anyone, and we promise we will never share your identity with any third parties, including Google.

Hotjar allows us to examine how users interact and engage with our site and we use this information to constantly improve the user experience and gain feedback from users. You can opt out of being tracked by this software by enabling the ‘Do Not Track’ feature in your web browser. For more information, please see the Hotjar Privacy Policy and Opt out pages.

From time to time and only where appropriate, we may provide anonymous aggregate statistical information about our services, competitions, clients, traffic patterns and other site information to third parties, but again we would stress that these statistics will not include any information that could identify you personally.

On our website search terms are captured anonymously for analysis purposes.

6. We use the information that you have given us in order to:

a. keep you updated on the work of NUS and NUS Students’ Union Charitable Services if you have selected to receive information
b. keep you updated on the campaign(s) that you have signed up to
c. showing public support for an issue (if you asked to be anonymised you will not be named in any petition published)
c. develop the design and layout of the website to ensure that it is as useful and enjoyable as possible (use of cookies).

7. Lawful basis

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:
a. Your consent. You can remove your consent at any time. To do this please email dpo@nus.org.uk at any time.
b. We feel we have a legitimate interest to use your data and feel that this use is of benefit to you and is something you would expect. You can remove your consent at any time. To do this please email dpo@nus.org.uk at any time.

8. Data retention

When you entrust your personal information to us, we take as much care of it as if it were our own. NUS spend a lot of time, money and resources on ensuring that the personal details you entrust to us are protected from loss, misuse and abuse. We constantly monitor our infrastructure for vulnerabilities and ensure that all IT systems, patches and anti-virus software are up-to-date.

Your information is stored on secure servers based within the EU. We also take regular encrypted backups.

The safety of your data is very important to us and we train all our staff annually in Data Protection to ensure that they both understand, and comply, with their obligations under the Act. We carefully control who has access to your information and ensure that it is only used in the way you would expect.

9. Data deletion

Your data will be deleted: 

a. upon your request – please email dpo@nus.org.uk
b. if we email you and receive a bounce back as the email is no longer in use
c. if you have signed up to a petition and not requested further information. Your data will be deleted after 1 year.

10. Your 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.

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 right to object to the processing of your personal information 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.

To learn more about your rights and personal data, see the ICO’s website ’Your Data Matters‘.

Please contact us at dpo@nus.org.uk or write to us at NUS, Ian King House, Snape Road, Macclesfield, SK10 2NZ if you wish to make a request.

11. Sharing of your information

The data collected from petitions will only be used for:

a. showing public support for an issue
b. keeping you informed about a campaign if you selected this opt in
c. Keeping the work of NUS more widely if you selected this opt in.

12. Complaints

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at  DPO@nus.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