As a University, we use personally-identifiable information to conduct research, including to improve health, care and services. As a publicly funded organisation, when we use personally-identifiable information from people who have agreed to take part in research, we do so in the public interest. This means that when you agree to take part in a research study, we will use your data in the ways needed to conduct and analyse the research study. Your rights to access, change or move your information are limited, as we need to manage your information in specific ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate. If you withdraw from the study, we will keep the information about you that we have already obtained. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally identifiable
information possible.
The University Charter sets out that ‘the objects of the University are to advance education and disseminate knowledge by teaching, scholarship and research for the public benefit’ (paragraph 3). This underlies the University’s use of the personal data provided by research participants for research and evaluation in the public interest under the GDPR lawful basis ‘task in the public interest’,
Health and care research should serve the public interest, which means that we have to demonstrate that our research serves the interests of society as a whole. We do this by following the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research for our research projects involving health and care. For specific information about the following, please refer to the participant information that is provided to you when you agree to participate in a particular research study:
- types or categories of personal data processed
- the source of the personal data (if not provided directly by you)
- the purposes of the processing
- the recipients or categories of recipients of the personal data
- the details of overseas transfers of personal data (including the transfer mechanism used to legalise the transfer if applicable)
- the period for which the personal data will be retained
- details of the existence of any automated decision making, including profiling
If you wish to exercise your rights or raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter. If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are processing your personal data in a way that is not lawful, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The University of Kent’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at: dataprotection@kent.ac.uk