Privacy

Privacy Policy

Introduction

This notice explains how and why St Mary’s School, Hampstead (the School), through its Development & Alumni Relations Office (DARO), uses personal data about you when carrying out our fundraising and development activities.

This notice also outlines what we do with your personal data and what decisions you can make about your personal data in relation to fundraising and development.

If you have any questions about this notice please contact the Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development whose contact details are:

Thomas.Wood@stmh.co.uk / Alumni@stmh.co.uk
020 7435 1568 / 020 7435 1868
Development & Alumni Relations Office, St Marys School, Hampstead, 47 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, London NW3 6PG

If the Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development is not available, you can contact the Bursar on in relation to any of the matters set out in this notice.

Our Alumni Network is part of the School and this notice also covers how the Alumni Network uses your personal data. The Alumni Network maintains a database of alumni (pupils, their parents, staff, governors and trustees) and other friends and supporters in order to stay in touch with our community and keep you updated about news, events, careers initiatives and fundraising activities. As the Alumni Network is part of the School, the School is responsible for how it, and the Alumni Network, use your personal data. To use data protection terminology, the School is the controller.

Some of our database (but not all) choose to join our online community by registering on our dedicated alumni website and creating an online profile. In both instances (individuals with offline database records and individuals with online profiles), we collect and store personal information (or “data”) about you. We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and this notice sets out what information we collect about you, where and how we use (“process”) it.

This notice only covers how the School uses your personal data for fundraising and development purposes. For more information about how the School uses your personal data more widely (for example, in relation to educating pupils) please ask the Bursar for a copy of the appropriate privacy notice. The Bursar can be contacted as follows:

Sara.Gibbins@stmh.co.uk
020 7435 1868
Bursar, St Marys School, Hampstead, 47 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, London NW3 6PG

What is personal data?

Personal data is information about you from which you can be identified (either directly or indirectly).

This includes your contact details, your relationship with the School and financial information.

What personal data does the School hold about you and how is this obtained?

We receive information about you from other teams within the School but only where this is relevant to our work. We obtain information from the Admissions Team about the dates when you attended the School, as well as further relevant information from your time at the school and at time of departure. We hold a specific database with information about alumni, parents, former parents, former staff, former governors and trustees, and other friends and supporters.

You provide us with information about yourself during our relationship with you. For example, when you

visit our Alumni website;
create or update your online profile;
post content on our Alumni website or other websites and social media sites managed by the School;
take part in an event;
attend a meeting with us and provide us with information;
contact us in any way including online, email, phone, SMS, social media or post;
open an email sent from the School or our Alumni website;
send a message via the direct messaging system on our Alumni website;
sign up to receive communications from us or order tickets for events.

In addition, we will obtain your personal data from other sources, which we use for the purposes described below. These are others who are involved in our development activities, for example, members of your family and other alumni might tell us about your interests or your career.

We will hold information such as:

your name, gender, sex at birth, and date of birth;
photographs;
information about your family, for example, whether you have any brothers or sisters who attended the School;
any connection you may have with other members of the School community such as other alumni;
the dates when you or your child attended the School (if applicable);
schools you attended before and after our School (and the relevant dates of attendance);
if you are a former staff member the dates when you worked at the School;
your contact details;
information about your achievements and interests, e.g. which sports team you were part of as a pupil or any hobbies that you have now;
where you attended university, your occupation and where you work/have worked (if applicable);
consent options and communication preferences;
your involvement with us and participation in our events, emails, competitions, surveys and other activities. This includes correspondence with you, your attendance at our events, and whether you are involved in other activities with us, such as reading with current pupils;
records of any donations and your Gift Aid eligibility, if applicable;
geo-location data (your geographical location based on your IP address);
log-ins and activity on the alumni website;
a record of payments made via the website (but we do not store your credit/ debit card details as these are processed securely externally by a third-party payment provider) which could include event tickets, shop purchases or online donations;
content (such as announcements, stories, photos, documents, comments, events, jobs) that you post on this website or provide to us by other means;
messages that you send to other community members via the direct messaging system when logged in to this website;
information from articles in the media;
medical information or information about a disability you have, e.g. to make adjustments for you or to help you if you are hurt whilst taking part in an activity;
any dietary requirements for catering purposes.

Why do we use your personal data?

We use your personal data in the following ways:

to provide you with the information or updates that you have asked for;
to send you communications (with your consent, if required) that may be of interest, including invites to events, newsletters and fundraising campaigns;
delivering our obligations under any contract between us;
to keep you informed about events and activities and in relation to your attendance at those events (for example, so that we can accommodate you if you tell us about any special needs or dietary requirements);
to facilitate interaction between members of the School community ;
running our events and activities;
displaying your name as a list of potential ‘matches’ when you (or someone with similar details) signs-up for an event, makes a donation or joins the online community and the system is trying to match your information to an existing record stored in our database;
to tell you about merchandise sold to benefit the School such as clothing, umbrellas and water bottles;
to keep you informed about what is happening at the School, for example, by sending you a copy of the Alumni Network newsletter with events, news and invitations;
in connection with providing financial support to the School (including making donations to the School, specific campaigns, such as for estate development and other capital projects, bursaries, and requests for sponsorship);
in connection with the other ways in which you might support the School (such as when you volunteer);
in connection with any research we carry out. For example, we may ask you to complete a survey, provide feedback or join a focus groups;
updating our database records and ensuring we know how you prefer to be contacted;
analysing your engagement with our website and other content to help us improve our services for you.

We may contact you for the above purposes by a range of platforms, including our Alumni website, email, telephone, social media, post or by text message but we will only do this where we are allowed to do so under data protection law (for example, we will usually need your consent before sending you an email about a fundraising opportunity). If you tell us that you do not want to be contacted for any of these purposes, then we will of course respect that.

If you wish to make a donation, particularly a donation of a substantial value, we may need to verify your identity and / or carry out financial due diligence on you. This may involve taking and retaining copies of your identification documents and obtaining your personal data from the following sources: internet search engines, 192.com, the Charity Commission, Zoopla, Business Week and related media articles. This is to comply with our legal obligations and our Gift Acceptance Policy.

We may take photos or videos of you to use in our publicity or on our social media platforms and website. If we consider that the photo or video is more privacy intrusive then we may speak to you about it first.

We may use your personal data to build up a picture of your willingness to give and your personal circumstances so that we can tailor our fundraising communications to you. As part of this we may use your personal data to help us decide how much we think you are willing and able to give. We may use the following information for this purpose: your postal address and history of giving. We may also obtain information from sources outside of the School. These sources are as follows Zoopla (for house prices), LinkedIn, Bloomberg, Companies House.

How and why does the School share your personal data with third parties?

Third parties who provide services for us, for example, hosting our Alumni database, collecting or processing data and sending mailings. We select our third-party service providers with care. We provide these third parties with the information that is necessary to provide the service and we will have an agreement in place that requires them to operate with the same care over data protection as we do.
Third parties if we run an event in conjunction with them. We will let you know how your data is used when you register for any event.
Web hosting, email hosting, analytics and search engine providers that enable us to run our community database and improve our website and its use.
Third parties in connection with restructuring or reorganisation of our operations, for example if we merge with another business. In such event, we will take steps to ensure your privacy rights will be protected by the third party.
If you use a third-party platform to donate, then we will receive information about you from them.
If you attend one of our events, then we will share your personal data with event booking platforms such as Eventbrite.
In accordance with our legal obligations, we will share information with local authorities, the Independent Schools Inspectorate and the Department for Education, for example, where we have any safeguarding concerns.
On occasion, we may need to share information with the police for the prevention and investigation of crime and the prosecution of offenders.
We may also need to share information with our professional advisors. For example, we may share your personal data with our legal advisers for the purpose of obtaining legal advice.
We will need to share information if there is an emergency, for example, if you are hurt whilst on School premises or at one of our events.
We will share information with HMRC in connection with Gift Aid claims.

We may share your personal data with any of the representatives or advisors of any of the third parties mentioned in this privacy notice. Anyone that we share information with may give us information about you as well.

Our lawful bases for using your personal data

This section contains information about the lawful basis that we are relying on when handling your personal data.

Legitimate interests

This means that we are using your personal data when this is necessary for our legitimate interests, except when your interests and fundamental rights override our legitimate interests. We rely on legitimate interests to use your personal data for all of the purposes described in this document except where we have asked you for your consent (in which case consent applies as the lawful basis). Specifically, we have a legitimate interest in:

ensuring that there is an active community of supporters which will benefit the School and members of the School community, such as current and former pupils, staff and parents;
promoting the objects and interests of the School. This includes fundraising, e.g. if we want to raise money for the bursary fund or new buildings;
using your personal data to administer our events;
safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our current and former pupils with whom you may be in contact, e.g. if you arrange work experience, or mentor a former pupil, or reading with current pupils; and
ensuring that we comply with our legal obligations.

If you object to us using your personal data where we are relying on our legitimate interests as explained above, please speak to the Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development

Public task

We rely on this basis (as well as legitimate interests) where we use personal data in order to look after those we are responsible for. For example, if we needed to carry out checks on someone before allowing them to read with our pupils.

Consent

In some cases, we are processing your personal data because you have given us your consent to do so. For example, to receive fundraising email communications from us.

If we ask for your consent to use your personal data, you can take back this consent at any time. Any use of your personal data before you withdraw your consent remains valid. To withdraw your consent please contact the Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development on:

Thomas.Wood@stmh.co.uk / Alumni@stmh.co.uk
020 7435 1568 / 020 7435 1868
Development & Alumni Relations Office, St Marys School, Hampstead, 47 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, London NW3 6PG

Necessary for a contract

We will need to use your personal data in order to perform our obligations under a contract with you, for example, we need your name and contact details so that we can send you tickets for a concert that you have purchased tickets for.

Legal obligation

On some occasions we will need your personal data to comply with a legal obligation. For example, we may need to keep a record of who is attending an event so that we can comply with our health and safety obligations.

Vital interests

For example, to prevent someone from being seriously harmed or killed.

Updating your consent preferences

If you have an online profile on our Alumni website, you can update your consent options by logging-in and clicking on “My Settings” in your profile. Scroll down to find your ‘Consent options’ where you will see a list of consents and the options “opt-in”, “opt-out” and “unspecified”.

Via ‘My Settings’ you can also choose to hide your profile from Google, limit access to your profile so that it’s only viewable to your connections and adjust some of the automatic notifications that you receive from this website. Please note that your name (but not full profile) may appear in various places around the community website, such as a ‘Recent Joiners’ box and in ‘Search’ results irrespective of the privacy settings you have selected.

If we are using consent as our legal basis for processing your data, we must have an explicit “opt-in” from you for this specific type of processing.

If we are using legitimate interests as our legal basis for processing your data, we will process your data responsibly in a way that you would reasonably expect, and you can opt-out at any stage.

If you click ‘unsubscribe’ at the bottom of one of our emails sent you will be automatically opted-out of these types of email communications in the future.

If you do not have an online profile and/or want to contact us about your consent preferences, please contact the Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development:

Thomas.Wood@stmh.co.uk / Alumni@stmh.co.uk
020 7435 1568 / 020 7435 1868
Development & Alumni Relations Office, St Marys School, Hampstead, 47 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, London NW3 6PG

How we keep your information safe

We understand the importance of keeping your personal information secure and take appropriate steps to safeguard it.

Your data is stored on a dedicated, secure cloud server hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the EU and managed by our Alumni website provider, ToucanTech. Industry standard firewalls, anti-virus, encryption and back-up methods are in place, as well as strict data handling protocols.

We always ensure only authorised persons have access to your information, which means only our approved employees and contractors, and that everyone who has access is appropriately trained in data management.

If you have an online profile for the Alumni website, you are responsible for keeping your login details (email and password) confidential and we ask that you do not share your password with anyone.

No data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. So, whilst we strive to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you provide online and you do this at your own risk.

Sending your personal data to other countries

When the School sends personal data outside of the UK, we have to consider if the other country has the same level of protection for personal data as there is in the UK. Some countries are considered by the UK Government to have adequate rules and this includes all of the European Union and some other countries, such as, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and Argentina.

The School sends your personal data to countries with adequate rules if we were to use an event booking platform which stores your personal data on servers in Ireland.

In certain circumstances, we may send your personal data to countries which do not have the same level of protection for personal data as there is in the UK. For example, depending on the software company used, we may store your personal data on cloud computer storage servers based in, for example, the USA. In this situation, we would ensure that safeguards are in place and further information about this would be available if required outside of this privacy notice.

If you have any questions about the safeguards that are in place please contact the Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development or Bursar.

For how long do we keep your personal data?

We have an ongoing relationship with you, and we would like you to be involved with the School for many years to come. For this reason, the Development & Alumni Relations Office keeps the majority of the personal data it holds about you indefinitely. For example, we keep your contact details so that we can continue to stay in touch with you. Similarly, we will retain information about your involvement with the School as this helps us tailor our communications to you both now and in future.

If you ask us to stop contacting you, we will keep a record of your contact details and limited information needed to ensure we comply with your request. If you ask us to remove your personal data from our database, we will delete all the information we hold out apart from your name and the dates that you attended the School and will archive your record in our database.

Where we rely on your consent to contact you for direct email marketing/ fundraising purposes, we will treat your consent as lasting only for as long as it is reasonable to do so. This will usually be for two years. We may periodically ask you to renew your consent.

We also keep some information indefinitely for archiving purposes (this is known as "archiving in the public interest" under data protection law) and for historical research purposes. This includes the School's legitimate interests in research; supporting long-term accountability; enabling the discovery and availability of the School's and the wider school community's identity, memory, culture and history; enabling the establishment and maintenance of rights and obligations and of precedent decisions; educational purposes; and commercial and non-commercial re-use. For example, we keep some old photos so that we have a record of what the School was like in the past. Information held in our archive may be made publicly available, but this would only be done in compliance with data protection laws.

The School will also keep information for a long time as part of its wider legal and regulatory obligations, even if that information is no longer needed for marketing, development or fundraising purposes. This is especially relevant to former staff, pupils and parents. For more information on how personal data is used by the School more widely please contact the Bursar.

Although the Development & Alumni Relations Office keeps the majority of your personal data for a very long time, there are some exceptions to this. Further information can be found in our Information and Records Retention Policy.

Keeping your information up to date

Please would you let us know if your contact details change. Online members can update your details directly by logging-in to the Alumni website and clicking on ‘My Settings’ under your profile. You can also update your details by contacting Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development:

Thomas.Wood@stmh.co.uk / Alumni@stmh.co.uk
020 7435 1568 / 020 7435 1868
Development & Alumni Relations Office, St Marys School, Hampstead, 47 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, London NW3 6PG

What decisions can you make about your personal data?

Correction: if information held about you by the School is incorrect or incomplete you can ask us to correct it.
Access: you can also ask what information we hold about you and be provided with a copy. We will also give you extra information, such as why we use this information about you, where it came from and who we have sent it to.
Deletion: you can ask us to delete the information that we hold about you in certain circumstances. For example, where we no longer need the information.
Portability: you can request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party in a format that can be read by computer in certain circumstances.
Restriction: you can request that we restrict how we use your personal data.
Object: you may object to us using your personal data where:

we are using it for direct marketing purposes (e.g. to send you an email about a fundraising opportunity);

the lawful bases on which we are relying is legitimate interests or public task. Please see the section "Our lawful bases for using your information" above;

if we ever use your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes.

The right to withdraw consent: if you have given consent for us to use your personal data, e.g., to receiving marketing emails, then you may withdraw your consent at any time.

The Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development and Bursar can give you more information about your data protection rights. To exercise any of your rights you can speak to the Head of Marketing Admissions & Development or Bursar at:

Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development:

Thomas.Wood@stmh.co.uk / Alumni@stmh.co.uk
020 7435 1568 / 020 7435 1868
Development & Alumni Relations Office, St Marys School, Hampstead, 47 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, London NW3 6PG

Bursar:

Sara.Gibbins@stmh.co.uk
020 7435 1868
Bursar, St Marys School, Hampstead, 47 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, London NW3 6PG

Please note that these rights do not apply in all cases and are subject to exemptions.

Further information and guidance

The Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development, together with the Bursar, is the person responsible at our school for managing how we look after personal data and deciding how it is shared in relation to fundraising and development. The Head of Marketing, Admissions & Development can answer any questions which you may have.

Like other organisations we need to keep your personal data safe, up to date, only use it for what we said we would, destroy it when we no longer need it and most importantly - treat the information we get fairly.

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to provide the information or service you have requested. We may also be prevented from complying with our legal obligations.

You have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (“ICO”) – www.ico.org.uk. If you do have any concerns about how we have handled your personal data, we would kindly ask that you contact us in the first instance before you speak to the ICO so that we have an opportunity to put things right.

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This Policy was last updated in March 2026.