Privacy Notices

Gower College Swansea needs to collect, process, keep and use certain types of information about people with whom it deals in order to carry out its day to day functions. These people include current, past and prospective students, customers, staff, partners, Corporation members, suppliers of goods and others. This personal information, whether on paper, on a computer, or recorded on other material, must be used fairly and processed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The data must also not be disclosed to any other person unlawfully.

All staff and students should be aware:

that all personal data collected, held, and processed (including Internet software) whether in manual, digital, electronic or any other format is subject to the GDPR
of the circumstances under which they may or may not legitimately access, process and disclose personal data

Note – individuals, including staff and students, in relation to whom the College holds information are referred to as 'data subjects'.

The College is a corporate body and the Board of Governors is therefore ultimately responsible for compliance with the GDPR. The day to day operation of this policy is undertaken by the Data Protection Officer and their contact email address dpo@gowercollegeswansea.ac.uk

Your rights over your personal information

You have a number of rights over your personal information, which are:

The right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy about the way your personal data is being used – please refer to the ICO’s website for further information about this (https://ico.org.uk/);
The right to ask us what personal information about you we are holding and to have access to a copy of your personal information;
The right to ask us to correct any errors in your personal information;
The right, in certain circumstances such as where our use of your personal information is based on your consent and we have no other legal basis to use your personal information, to ask us to delete your personal information;
The right, in certain circumstances such as where we no longer need your personal information, to request that we restrict the use that we are making of your personal information;
The right, in certain circumstances, to ask us to review and explain our legitimate interests to you; and
The right, where our use of your personal information is carried out for the purposes of an agreement with us and is carried out by automated means, to ask us to provide you with a copy of your personal information in a structured, commonly-used, machine-readable format.

Marketing privacy policy

We value your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This policy explains how we collect, use, and store your information in connection with our marketing activities, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Information we collect

We may collect and process the following personal information when you register for events, subscribe to updates, or engage with our marketing activities:

Name, student ID (enrolled students), email address and phone number
Interests (e.g. courses and campus preferences) to gauge interest in each subject area (if applicable)
How you heard about us
Current school (if applicable)
Information relating to a specific campaign or event
For GCS Training purposes, business addresses and position in organisation may also be collected
Campaign or event-specific information (eg. vehicle registration, accessibility and/or dietary requirements).

This information may be collected via Eventbrite (for event registrations), Brevo (for email marketing and communications), Ede & Ravenscroft (for graduation communications) and through forms on our website and via Microsoft Forms.

How we use your information

We use your data to:

Share information about upcoming events, courses, news and relevant updates
Send you marketing communications where we have your consent or a legitimate interest
Keep you informed about opportunities and resources that may be of interest
Understand and improve our services through analytics and feedback.

We will never sell or share your data with other companies for their own marketing purposes. We may share limited data with trusted service providers who process information on our behalf (e.g. event registration, email delivery, graduation services). These providers are not permitted to use your information for their own purposes and must keep it secure.

Analytics and cookies

We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and website tracking pixels to gather information about visits to our website, including but not limited to: IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit, and number of page views.
This data is aggregated and does not directly identify individuals.

Information is collected through cookies and similar technologies. For more details, please see our cookies page.

Retention of data

Personal data will be retained for up to five years in line with our standard procedures.

Retention may be extended if:

You provide renewed consent (opt-in), or
We can demonstrate a continuing legitimate interest.

Your rights

You have rights in relation to the information you provide to us. These include the right to:

Change how we communicate with you
Update or correct the information we hold about you
Request access to the information we hold about you
Object to certain types of processing
Withdraw your consent at any time
Request deletion of your data.

You can contact us on 01792 284000 or at marketing@gcs.ac.uk to update your preferences, withdraw consent, or request deletion of your data. If you wish to unsubscribe from our emails, you may do so at any time by using the unsubscribe link included in the footer of each email.