Reporting form and guidance
We recommend you read the guidance below, as well as the Privacy Notice for Reporting Form.
They will help you understand what will happen when you use this form to make a report.
The main reason for submitting a report is so that you can access advice and support. More generally, we want to foster a culture where bullying, harassment and discrimination of any kind are not tolerated and where everyone can go about their business in safety.
You have a lot of control over the confidentiality of any report you make - as well as any actions that might come from it. In any scenario where the University uses the reports to get a sense of any wider issues in our community, this data is only ever available in fully anonymised forms.
A student has reported something to me and I'm unsure what to do:
Urgent help
If you or someone you know needs help urgently, don't use this reporting form, get help straight away:
Sexual violence advice
Additional information if you've been affected by sexual violence or harassment, or are supporting a survivor of sexual violence
Important guidance for submitting a report
Submitting a report with your name and contact details
What will happen
If you submit a report and give your name, a trained member of staff from Student & Academic Services will contact you and discuss the options or actions that are available to you. These might include:
- informal advice
- further informal investigations by Student & Academic Services staff
- counselling
- pursuing an internal complaint
- or reporting to an external authority such as the police.
If, after talking to the contact in Student & Academic Service, you decide you wish to speak to the police, we can support you to do this.
You have a choice of how we contact you: the phone, by email or in person.
Should you request it, we do our best to find someone who shares your personal characteristics to contact you. For example, someone of the same sex or race.
If you decide to meet with a member of staff in person, you are welcome to bring another student or member of staff along with you.
You have control of the process: At any time after you submit the report, you can decide not to pursue the matters raised any further.
Your personal data: We will ensure that your personal data is held securely. See:
Confidentiality
Your report and your details will be treated as confidential.
Your details and the details of the report will not be shared with anyone else without your consent.
Some students worry the report or their details might be shared with:
- their supervisor (it won’t)
- their sponsor or funder (it won’t)
- the perpetrator (it won’t)
- anyone they don’t want it to be shared with (it won’t)
Emergency intervention
There is only one circumstance in which we would act on a report without consulting you (although we would still make every effort to). That is if the report discloses information which suggests that the safety of an individual is at imminent risk.
In such a situation, the University may need to take immediate action. If you feel that your report may fall into this category, we would advise you to seek more .
Submitting an anonymous report
If you submit an anonymous report, we will have no way of knowing who submitted the report, so no one will make contact with you.
Anonymous reports can sometimes help to provide an impression of issues arising in a particular part of the University (for example, in a specific academic unit or service), or across the University as a whole.
In these instances, we might make informal enquiries into the issues identified in the report.
Alternatives to this reporting form
Instead of using this form, you can raise an issue with
- your academic adviser
- with a Respect Adviser
- or with the head of school where you are studying.
If you prefer, you can raise issues directly with the
- Executive Director of Student & Academic Services
- the Chief Operating Officer
- or the Principal.
If you are living in a University-run residence, you can raise issues with
The SRC also provides a confidential advisory service which can be accessed in person or online.
Privacy Notice for Reporting Form (Why we need this data; What we do with your data and who we share it with; Your rights)
Your Personal Data
The University of Glasgow will be what’s known as the ‘Controller’ of the personal data you provide to us as part of the declaration process for Online Reporting system in relation to the University. This privacy notice will explain how The University of Glasgow will process your personal data.
Why we need it
We need to collect data on the type of harassment or bullying behaviour you have reported, the options for this are:
- Bullying
- Harassment
- Stalking
- Relationship abuse (including ex-partner)
- Sexual harassment
- Sexual violence
- Discrimination
- Victimisation
- Other
We then ask you to detail whether you are reporting on behalf of yourself or somebody else and how you/ the person who has been affected by the issue is connected to the University.
We then ask you to, optionally, indicate whether you/ the person who has been affected by the issue believes they have been targeted because of any of the following:
- Age
- Disability
- Sex
- Marital status
- Gender reassignment
- Pregnancy/ parental status
- Race, nationality, ethnic origin, or perceived ethnic origin
- Religion or belief
- Sexual orientation
- Other
We then provide you with an optional free text box to provide any additional details of the report.
We collect all of the above data to ensure we direct you to the appropriate support mechanism within the University.
We then ask you to provide contact details (name, email address, telephone number) so a member of University staff can contact you and provide you with the necessary information so you can choose the appropriate course of action.
You are not required to complete this section, and this would be considered an anonymous report. However, this means the University cannot contact you, investigate the report, or take any form of disciplinary action.
Legal basis for processing your data
We must have a legal basis for processing all personal data. In this instance, the University has a legitimate interest relating to the provision of an online reporting system for students of the University relating to harassment and bullying, and our duty of care to process the data you provide.
We must have a legal basis for processing all special category data, which you may provide us with if you provide your name and you have reported on harassment/ bullying in relation to health, sex life, sexual orientation, religion, political opinions, trade union membership, ethnicity or race. In this instance, by providing this optional information, you have given explicit consent for the University to process such data. The legal basis is therefore explicit consent.
The University has conducted a Legitimate Interest Assessment (LIA) and concluded this process is important to ensure we give due regard to the duty of care to our students and colleagues by ensuring there is an online system for them to report this type of behaviour.
What we do with it and who we share it with
All personal data we process is processed by our staff in the United Kingdom, with the exception of data processed on staff and students who are based at the Singapore Institute of Technology. Your data is not shared with any third parties and is only processed for the purpose of administering the online reporting system for students and ensuring duty of care to the students and others involved.
There are four members of University staff who have access to the reports. Reports will not be shared with anyone else without further consultation with the individual who is reporting. If an individual has named a perpetrator in their report the report will not be shared with that perpetrator.
If an individual wishes to have their report investigated further through one of the University’s formal processes, the information taken from the online report will not be shared without the reporting individual's permission. The individual can request that the information from their report be shared, however, this process is not automatic. If shared for use in a formal process, the data will be processed under the terms of that formal processes’ Privacy Notice.
The data may be reported anonymously for statistical purposes to EDSC/SEC/Senate/Court as deemed appropriate.
Keeping your personal data safe
The University has a series of technical and organisational measures in place to ensure that your personal data is protected and safeguarded. Please see the University’s Information Security webpages for more information.
How long do we keep it
Your report will be kept and deleted in line with the following:
- Report date, plus one year.
- If referred to another process (i.e. Complaints Resolution, Conduct, P&OD) in line with their retention schedule, which can be found within their Privacy Notice. All Privacy Notices are available on the University website.
What are your rights?*
Under data protection legislation and as a student/ colleague of the University, you have a number of rights including the right to:
- Withdraw consent, at any time, where that is the legal basis of our processing,
- Access your personal data and obtain a copy, free of charge,
- Rectify inaccuracies in personal data that we hold about you,
- Erasure, that is, have your details removed from systems that we use to process your personal data,
- Restrict the processing in certain ways,
- Obtain a portable copy of data you have given to us in a commonly used electronic form and,
- Object to certain processing of your personal data by us.
If at any point you believe the information we process relating to you is incorrect, you can request to see this information and may have restricted under limited circumstances, corrected. You also have the right to object to the processing. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact dp@gla.ac.uk.
Please see the University’s webpages for further information on your rights as a data subject.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please submit your request via the webform or contact dp@gla.ac.uk.
* Please note that the ability to exercise these rights will vary and depend on the legal basis on which the processing is being carried out.
Complaints
If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact the University Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter.
Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotectionofficer@glasgow.ac.uk
If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) https://ico.org.uk/
For further information
If you are unsure about anything within the Privacy Notice, then please contact the University’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotectionofficer@glasgow.ac.uk
For further information on data protection, please see the University’s webpages and the Information Commissioner’s Office website
[i] Personal data is defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual, who can identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that individual.