This Privacy Notice provides information on how the Chartered Association of Business Schools collects and processes your personal data when you become a member of the Help to Grow: Management Alumni Network (“the Alumni Network”) and/or use the Alumni Network Hub at helptogrowalumni.org. 

This Privacy Notice further provides you with information regarding your rights and our obligations. If you were a participant in the Help to Grow: Management Course, you can find out how we process your personal data for the purposes of that Course in our separate privacy notice here.  

We process data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018. This Privacy Notice is made in accordance with Article 13 of the UK GDPR. 

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is funding the Alumni Network and the Alumni Network Hub. The Chartered Association of Business Schools is delivering the Alumni Network and the Alumni Network Hub, and processing your data, on DBT’s behalf. We will share your data with DBT: please see below. DBT is the data controller, and the Chartered Association of Business Schools is the data processor in relation to your data. We are providing this Privacy Notice on DBT’s behalf. DBT also has its own privacy policy, which can be accessed here. 

When we mention “we”, “us” or “our” in this Privacy Notice, we are referring to the Chartered Association of Business Schools. 

We will share your data with the evaluation and monitoring partners and with other third parties who help us to deliver and promote the Alumni Network, as detailed below. 

Updates to this notice 

If this Privacy Notice changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this website page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we will share it with other parties. Last updated July 2025. 

Who is collecting the data? 

The Chartered Association of Business Schools is committed to safeguarding and respecting your privacy. 

We collect and process your personal information on behalf of DBT to administer the Alumni Network, as further detailed below. We do so in accordance with this Privacy Notice, and in compliance with the UK GDPR and the DPA 2018. 

The business school where you enrolled may use your personal data to run its own alumni programme, in which case the business school will act as an independent data controller when it does so. Please see the relevant business school’s privacy policy for further information, which you can find on its website, or contact your business school directly. 

DBT is a department of the UK Government, whose general contact address is: Old Admiralty Building, Admiralty Pl, London SW1A 2DY. 

The Chartered Association of Business Schools is a registered company (company number: RC000880) and a registered charity in England and Wales (charity number: 1162854). Our address is: 3rd Floor, 40 Queen Street, London, EC4R 1DD. 

Why do we process your personal data and what is our legal basis for processing it? 

If you are alumni of the Help to Grow: Management Course, we collect and use your information to manage your membership of the Alumni Network, give you access to the Alumni Network Hub, promote our events and webinars, and register you for them at your request; and evaluate and monitor  engagement with the Alumni Network and the Alumni Network Hub.  

The legal basis for processing your personal data in connection with the Alumni Network is that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, by us on behalf of DBT. 

The legal basis for processing your personal data in connection with the Alumni Network Hub, our events, webinars and newsletter is with your consent, so we can send information about events, webinars, and newsletters that you have expressed an interest in, or registered for. 

If you work for one of our partners, we collect and use your information to enable you to access the Alumni Network Hub. 

The legal basis for processing your Special Category personal data (see below) is with your explicit consent. 

How do we collect personal data about you? 

The Chartered Association of Business Schools may collect data about you in the following ways: 

• When you create an account to access the Alumni Network Hub. 

• If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence. If you send us personal information via email, letter or phone, we may keep that information and your contact details. 

• Our Alumni Network Hub uses cookies (text files placed on your computer) which, if you agree, will collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. This information is used to track visitor use of the site and to analyse site activity. Please see our cookie policy for further details. 

• If you engage with any of the Alumni Network social media pages. 

What personal data do we collect from you? 

When you create an account to access the Alumni Network Hub, we may collect, use, store and transfer the following kinds of personal data about you: 

• Identity Data includes, but is not limited to, first name, last name, title, job title, employer, the unique identifier assigned to you on registration for the Help to Grow: Management Course (if applicable) and the password you use for the Alumni Network Hub, and (optionally) age and gender. 

• Contact Data includes your email address. 

• Transaction Data includes details about your registration. 

• Technical Data includes, but is not limited to, traffic data, browser data, internet protocol (IP) address, weblogs, platform used and other communication data. 

• Profile Data includes feedback and survey responses, information you provide regarding your role at your business, information regarding your interactions with our email communications and attendance at our events. 

• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website. 

If you opt-in to receiving our newsletter, event invitations and offers from our Alumni Network partners, we collect, use, store and process the following contact information about you: your name, address (preferably your business address), company, telephone numbers and email address. We also record that you have opted-in (or unsubscribed, where applicable). 

If you were a participant on the Help to Grow: Management Course, we retain on our customer relationship management system some of your personal data that you provided when you joined the Course. Please see our separate privacy notice here. 

Special category personal data 

If you choose to disclose information regarding any disability you may have and/or your accessibility and/or dietary requirements for an event, we may use this information to make reasonable adjustments to provide the event and/or refreshments to you and share it with the venue provider and/or caterer. 

What do we use your personal data for? 

We will use data collected to: 

• Manage your membership of the Alumni Network. 

• Give you access to the Alumni Network Hub. 

• Maintain email, telephone and offline contact with you, preferably at your place of business, in relation to the Alumni Network. 

• If you opt in, send you event and webinar invitations, newsletters and partner offers related to the Alumni Network. 

• If you register for an event or webinar, contact you about that event and give your name to the venue provider. 

• Assess any feedback and survey responses you provide. 

• Share your data with our evaluation and marketing partners, as detailed in this Privacy Notice. 

• Share your data with DBT and your business school, as described below. 

If you opt-in to receiving our newsletter, we will use your email address to send it to you. 

Where do we process your personal data and how do we keep it secure? 

We process data at our registered office: 3rd Floor, 40 Queen Street, London, EC4R 1DD. Our staff who work remotely and our third-party service providers do so under contracts which protect your data, as described below. 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, or used, accessed, altered, or disclosed in an unauthorised way. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents and contractors who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. 

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach. DBT will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office of a breach where it is legally required to do so. 

We will take all steps necessary to ensure that your data is processed and stored in a secure environment, in accordance with our legal obligations and the UK GDPR and DPA 2018. 

International transfers 

We may transfer your data outside the United Kingdom (UK).  

Whenever we do so, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that one of the following safeguards is implemented: 

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the UK Government. For further details, see: A guide to international transfers | ICO 

• Where we use certain service providers outside of the UK/EEA, we use specific contracts approved by the UK Government which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK. Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK. 

What are our principles for retaining personal data? 

In accordance with the UK GDPR and the DPA 2018, we retain personal data for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is being processed or to comply with our legal obligations. 

Our marketing partners must delete your personal data after expiry of their contracts. 

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Your rights below for further information. 

Any Special Category personal data that you provide in relation to an event will be deleted from our records within one month after the relevant event. 

There are some circumstances where personal data may lawfully be stored for longer periods or permanently, such as for statistical purposes or if the data is anonymised. 

Your contact data processed for the purposes of sending our newsletter and event and webinar invitations, partner offers and ad hoc emails relating to the Alumni Network, will be stored until you unsubscribe or request erasure of your personal data. 

What personal data do we share with DBT and your business school? 

If you belong to the Alumni Network, we will share the following information with DBT: 

• Technical Data, which is collected through the cookies on our site if you agree. Please see our cookie policy for further details. 

• Anonymised engagement data such as email click through rates and open rates; event and webinar registration and attendance numbers; event feedback. 

We will also share some anonymised data with the business school you enrolled with, including: 

• Anonymised engagement data such as how many times an online article was opened. 

Do we share your personal data with third parties? 

 WP Engine, which hosts the platform, will have access to your data, including your: 

• Identity Data 

• Contact Data 

• Transaction Data 

• Technical Data 

• Profile Data 

• Usage Data 

Other third-party service providers who help support our platform will also have access to your data for this purpose, including Ashton Court Group Limited, which is developing and supporting our customer relationship management platform; Indigo Tree Digital Limited which is developing and supporting the Alumni Network Hub; and our website developer responsible for the Small Business Charter website. 

We will share the following anonymised information with Ipsos and the Institute for Employment Studies for the purpose of evaluating engagement with the Alumni Network: 

• Anonymised website traffic data, e.g. number of visitors to the Alumni Network Hub, time spent on it, number of articles read. 

• Anonymised data about attendance numbers at Alumni Network events. 

We may share the following information with DBT, which may share it with HMRC: 

• Anonymised website traffic data, e.g. number of visitors to the Alumni Network Hub, time spent on it, number of articles read. 

• Anonymised engagement data such as email click through rates and open rates; event and webinar registration and attendance numbers; event feedback 

No personally identifiable data on individuals will be shared with HMRC. 

We may also pass your information to third parties for the purposes of completing tasks and delivering services to you on our behalf, for example when we work with a partner to deliver an alumni event; or when briefing the facilitator or speaker ahead of an alumni event.  

When delivering an alumni event, we may pass on registration lists (name only) to a venue for security purposes, ensuring appropriate encryption to protect your information. 

We use the following service providers to send our newsletter: Microsoft Dynamics and WordPress (WordPress’ Privacy Information).  

We use Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity to collect and process website traffic data e.g. number of visitors to the Alumni Network Hub and time spent on its pages. 

We will not sell your information to third parties. 

When we use or work with third-party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations, we disclose only the personal data that is necessary to deliver and manage the Alumni Network, or to send you our newsletter if you opt-in. 

We require all our third-party service providers to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. 

Your rights 

How can you change your preferences for our newsletter or update the data we hold on you? 

If you would like to change your preferences about the information we send you, you can. If you want to opt-out of receiving our newsletter, you can unsubscribe via the unsubscribe option in the footer at the bottom of all our marketing emails. 

 If your details have changed you can ask us to update the records we hold about you. To do so, please contact us by emailing Marketingteam@charteredabs.org or call +44 020 7236 7678. 

How can you access the personal data we hold about you? 

You have a right to request copies of the personal data we or your business school hold about you. This is commonly referred to as a Subject Access Request. There are some exemptions to this right, which means you may not always receive copies of all the information we process. You can read about this right here. If you would like to make a Subject Access Request, please write to us at enquiries@charteredabs.org, and put ‘Subject Access Request’ in the subject field. DBT is required to respond to your Subject Access Request within 1 month of your request under UK GDPR. However, if your request is complex or we receive a number of requests from you, DBT reserves the right to extend the time for response by a further two months. We or DBT would confirm this with you in writing. 

You will not normally have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, if your request is clearly unfounded or excessive, DBT could refuse to comply with your request. 

What other rights do you have in respect of the data we (or your business school) hold about you? 

You may: 

• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you: this enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us. 

• Request erasure of your personal data: this enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local the law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request. 

• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms: in some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms. 

• Request restriction of processing of your personal data: this enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: 

• If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy. 

• Where our use of the data is unlawful, but you do not want us to erase it. 

• Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. 

• You have objected to our use of your data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it. 

• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party: we will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you. 

• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data: however, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent. 

How do we use cookies and how can you control them? 

Most websites you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, please see this link to our Cookies Policy. 

Third party links 

The Alumni Network Hub may include links to third-party websites. Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party links or notices and are not responsible for their privacy statements. 

How to contact us or to make a complaint? 

If you have any questions about the Alumni Network or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us by emailing Marketingteam@charteredabs.org or call +44 20 7236 7678. 

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or our data protection practices, or if you are not happy with the way that we have handled your personal information, you can contact our data privacy manager: 

Focus 4 U Ltd. – dpo@charteredabs.org 

You can contact the DBT Data Protection Officer at: 

Data Protection Officer 
DBT Data Protection Officer 
Department for Business and Trade 
Old Admiralty Building 
London 
SW1A 2EG 
Email: data.protection@businessandtrade.gov.uk 

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator.