Privacy Notice

Version 2.0   09.01.24

Project FORTITUDE is based at the School of Law at the University of Sheffield, and is being carried out in conjunction with the Psychology Department at Nottingham Trent University. Further information on these institutions can be found here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ and here: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/

The University of Sheffield is the Data Controller for your information. The Data Protection Officer is Luke Thompson, Head of Data Protection and Legal Services. He can be contacted:

●      By Post: University Secretary's Office, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN

●      Email: dataprotection@sheffield.ac.uk  

●      Telephone: 0114 222 1117

This Privacy Notice explains how we use your personal information and your rights regarding that information. You can find out more about your information rights in general from the Information Commissioner’s Office www.ico.org.uk.

What information are we collecting?

For our research activities with children, we will collect information through a consent form which will be issued to parents/carers to enable us to identify each child who will be participating in the research activities.  We will be collecting information about the child’s school, child’s name, age, month/year of birth and gender. During our evaluation phase, we will be collecting information about the child’s additional needs status (educational, health and care plan or not); EAL status (English is an additional language or not); and ‘looked after’ status (is /has been part of the care system or not).

We will talk to children in person or online if necessary.  This may be in individual interviews, with a parent or carer present, or in focus groups consisting only of children. Where an activity takes place remotely, this will be via Microsoft Teams or Google Meet. We will ask the child’s parent/carer to provide an email address to facilitate this.

Where we have permission, we will video record or audio record our individual interviews with children. We will not use children’s own names in these activities. We will watch or listen back to these recordings and type them up, so we have a written record of what children told us.  Children’s names will not be included in these written records. The recordings and our written records of them will be stored in dedicated, University-managed secure storage drives at the University of Sheffield or Nottingham Trent University.

As well as talking to children, we will conduct some anonymous surveys, which will involve collecting information about a child’s age, gender, whether English is their second language, and if they have a teaching assistant helping them in their classroom. As we are not collecting children’s names and will not be able to identify them from the data, this data will be anonymous, and so we will not ask for consent to collect this. 

We will conduct individual interviews with a limited number of adult experts in person or online. We will collect only their name through a consent form which will be issued to them prior to them taking part.  We will audio record these interviews (or video record if online). We will not use adults’ own names in these interviews. We will watch or listen back to these recordings and type them up, so we have a written record of what was said.  Adults’ names will not be included in these written records. The recordings and our written records of them will be stored in dedicated, University-managed secure storage drives at the University of Sheffield or Nottingham Trent University.

Data will be collected for research purposes so we can find out what some children and adults think about the tests we are creating to measure children’s psychological dispositions in relation to the law-related problems they come across on a day-to-day basis. Once we know this, we will go on to create game-based interventions to measure and improve children’s legal knowledge; and to build up their skills and confidence to deal with law-related problems.

What is the legal basis for processing the data?

For this research activity to process your personal data, the legal basis which is being relied upon by the University of Sheffield is public task. This is set out in Article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

“Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.”

When we gather information about a child’s additional needs status, EAL status and ‘looked after’ status then the legal basis for processing this data is that it is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific research purposes or statistical purposes, as set out in as set out in Article 9(2)(j) of the GDPR.

Please note you are not legally or contractually obliged to supply us with your personal information for research purposes. Your decision to participate is voluntary.

If we are sharing your data with others, who are we sharing it with?

We will be keeping the names of all children who participate in this project confidential to the research teams based at the University of Sheffield and Nottingham Trent University. The only exception to this is where we feel that a child or someone else is at risk of being hurt. If this happens, we will need to disclose this to the child’s teacher/Head teacher, or to the social care team at the child’s local council. Where this is impractical for any reason, the disclosure will be made to the NSPCC online or via telephone. 

This is in accordance with Article 6(1)(d) of UK GDPR, which allows the processing of personal data where this is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject.

Data will be gathered by researchers at both the University of Sheffield and at Nottingham Trent University, in order to achieve our research aims.  In addition, we will be working with a small group of children as an advisory panel for this project. They will be given examples of some of the data we gather through research activities so that they can help us in analysing it.  Names of children will not be included in this data.

Where necessary, we may engage a professional transcriber to assist with typing up the audio recordings of our conversations with children. The transcriber will not be provided with any of the children’s names.

How long will we process your data for?

This research project is funded until 31 May 2025 and we will be gathering and processing data until this date.  Once the project has ended, we will continue to process data as we write up the findings of the research. Anonymised data will be uploaded to a research data repository, where it may be accessed by others, e.g. other researchers. We will also store the data securely for a period of 10 years from the end of the project. After this time the data held by the University will be destroyed.

What are your rights and how to enforce them?

• The right to withdraw consent at any time. You will be able to request that any data already provided is withdrawn from the research. However, kindly note that withdrawal of these data will be possible only up to the point in which they have been used anonymously in our analysis. 

• The right to be informed: You have a right to be informed about how your personal information is being processed.

• The right to access your personal information: All individuals have the right to access their personal data regardless of the format or location of the data in the university.

• The right to rectification: All individuals are entitled to have their personal information rectified, or corrected, where it is inaccurate or incomplete.

It is important to note that some of these rights are not absolute and may be restricted by exemptions that apply to data processed for research and statistical purposes, as set out in in Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Whether or not an exemption applies will be decided on a case by case basis.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, then please contact the lead researcher, Professor Dawn Watkins, by email on d.watkins@sheffield.ac.uk or by phone on 0114 222 6827.

How to complain: 

Initially, you can complain to the Data Protection officer whose contact details are provided at the start of this Privacy Notice. 

If, having received a response, you are still not satisfied, then the Information Commissioner can be contacted:

●      By post: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK95AF.

●      Email: via accessing www.ico.org.uk.

●      Telephone: 0303 123 1113