The Annual Disabled Student Survey 

Privacy Policy

Our contact details 

Name: Disabled Students UK

Address: 45 Neasham Road, Darlington, England, DL1 4AG

Phone Number: 07951832320

E-mail: contact@disabledstudents.co.uk 

Company Websites: http://disabledstudents.co.uk, https://accessinsights.co.uk 

What data we collect and why

This survey collects data about your experiences in Higher Education as well as your identity (including disability and racial marginalisation). It does so without any connection to the name or email address of the participant

We collect data via this survey to understand and improve accessibility within UK Higher Education. 

Statistics and anonymous quotes from the survey will be publicly available on www.accessinsights.co.uk to highlight best practice and compare universities. For instance we might display results such as:

  • 50% of students at the university of Longbow felt they have adequate support
  • 47% of students with mobility issues felt that their supervisor is supportive

Prospective students can use this resource to choose a university and universities can use it to improve accessibility. We will also send reports with the results to universities. 

When is your data “personal”

The survey aims to be anonymous and in the vast majority of cases it will be impossible to identify someone from the data. When you are identifiable from your data it qualifies as “Personal data”. When that data is related to medical information (such as your disability) or race it additionally qualifies as “special category data”.

To avoid the risk of identification from someone at your university we will not release the results of groups with fewer than 5 members  either publicly or to our collaborators. For instance if there only two blind student who have filled in the survey from the university of Longbow we will not publish:

  • 100% of blind students at Longbow felt they have adequate support

Your data protection rights

Because your data is likely to be anonymous (and thus not “personal”) it will most often not be possible for us to change or delete the data for you after you have submitted it. However if you can give us enough information to identify which data is yours we would be happy to do so. 

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 in certain circumstances. 

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.

Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, 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.

Please contact Mette Anwar-Westander at contact@disabledstudents.co.uk if you wish to make a request.

Our lawful bases for data processing

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

Article 6:

(f) We have a legitimate interest

We can use legitimate interests as a lawful basis for processing this information because:

  • we have a legitimate interest in seeking this information in order to fulfil our research goals
  • seeking this information is necessary to complete this research – we will not use your data for any other reason than that which you consent to 
  • your legal rights and freedoms will be protected (see ‘Your Data Protection Rights toward the end’).

Article 9:

(j) Archiving, research and statistics

We can rely on this lawful basis for processing your data because:

How we store your data

Your data is securely collected using Jisc Online Surveys and then stored with DSUK. DSUK team members who have access to the data have appropriate security measures in place. In order to aid the Higher Education sector in seeing how the disabled student experience is progressing over time we will retain the data indefinitely.

How to complain

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