Data Protection: Library and Archives

How we use your personal information

This statement explains how Gonville & Caius College (“we” and “our”) handles and uses information we collect about visitors and enquirers to the College Library and Archives (“you” and “your”).  In broad terms, we use your information to ensure we can deal with your enquiries and to check references where appropriate.

The controller for your personal information is Gonville & Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TA. The Data Protection Officer for the College is the Office of Intercollegiate Services Ltd (OIS Ltd), 12B King’s Parade, Cambridge; 01223 768745; college.dpo@ois.cam.ac.uk. The Data Protection Officer should be contacted if you have any concerns about how the College is managing your personal information, or if you require advice on how to exercise your rights as outlined in this statement. The person within the College otherwise responsible for data protection at the time of issue, and the person who is responsible for monitoring compliance with relevant legislation in relation to the protection of personal information, is the Senior Bursar (email: senior.bursar@cai.cam.ac.uk). 

The legal basis for processing your personal information is that it is necessary in order for you to enter into a contract to provide facilities and resources to you.  We will retain your information for the periods stated below unless or until you request us to do otherwise.  

We collect and process your personal information for the following purposes:

A: maintaining clear contact information for following up and responding to enquiries.

We may keep enquiries or details of donors of articles to the College Archives indefinitely so that they can inform further research or enquiries. Enquiries to the Library are deleted once they are dealt with, except for details of donors of books, which are kept indefinitely unless the donor wishes to remain anonymous. We will not in any case pass your personal information on to other enquirers without your permission.

B: providing you with necessary and preferred services, including enabling access to valuable items. We may check references where these have been requested, e.g. for access to historic collections.

For the purposes of future reference, research and statistic gathering we retain indefinitely the visitors’ books for the Lower Library.

We also operate CCTV on our sites which will capture footage. The legal basis for processing your personal information via a CCTV system is that it is in our legitimate interests to protect College property, ensure a safe environment, deter and detect crime and provide evidence for alleged breaches of College status, regulations and staff handbook. Our CCTV policy is available on our website.

We do not share personal information with third parties.
 
If you have concerns or queries about any of these purposes, or how we communicate with you, please contact us at the address given above.

You have the right: to ask us for access to, rectification or erasure of your information; to restrict processing (pending correction or deletion); to object to communications or direct marketing; and to ask for the transfer of your information electronically to a third party (data portability).  Some of these rights are not automatic, and we reserve the right to discuss with you why we might not comply with a request from you to exercise them.

You retain the right at all times to lodge a complaint about our management of your personal information with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Last updated: Records Manager, College Librarian, College Archivist, October 2022