Information about you will be shared with the provider you are complaining about. If you were studying at more than one provider, or you were studying at one provider for a qualification awarded by a different provider, we may need to send your information to both providers, if both of them have been involved in what you are complaining about.
If you were studying at a provider which is a member of our Scheme but the qualification you were studying for is awarded by an organisation which is not a member of our Scheme - for example, an HNC or HND awarded by Pearson (Edexcel) - we may need to send your information to the awarding organisation, or to Ofqual. This is because in some cases, complaints about these bodies cannot be considered by us, but may be considered by the awarding organisation or by Ofqual.
If you have given us permission to do so, then we may share limited information (including your name, contact details, that you have made a complaint to us and the date of that complaint) with a person or organisation carrying out research into student complaints. This kind of research is not undertaken with every complaint. It would only happen when we have finished looking into your complaint. We can still look at your complaint even if you do not want to be contacted by researchers afterwards.
If we decide that your complaint raises serious concerns about how the provider as a whole or a particular course, department or process is operating, we may share information about those concerns with quality regulators such as the Office for Students (OfS) or the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), or professional bodies such as GMC, NMC, SRA or HCPC. We will not share any information which could identify you unless we have first obtained your permission.
Very rarely, we become concerned for the personal safety of students who are using our service. If we think that you may be at risk of causing harm to yourself or others, we may use the information we have about you to contact someone who can check that you are OK, for example, a family member, medical professional, or the police.
We will never pass information about you on to a third party company for profit. We will never use your information for marketing purposes.
