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Information regarding the source and use of personal data from the AQU Catalunya survey on access to the labour market
The survey on access to the labour market is a study of the host of higher education institutions in Catalonia which seeks to gain an acquaintance of the access to the labour market experienced by their graduates, largely three years after completing their programmes.
We are asking graduates of Bachelor’s degrees and cycles from 2016 (and individuals who graduated in Medicine in 2013), graduates of Master’s degrees in the 2015-2016 academic year, as well as PhD graduates and those of arts higher education degrees in the 2015-2016 academic year, to take part in the survey on access to the labour market. This is to enable future students to gain an idea of the professional outcomes offered by these study programmes. Moreover, we are also conducting a follow-up survey on alumni who graduated in 2001 to assess the existence of gender inequalities in their access to the labour market 20 years after graduating.
The responses will help your study programme organisers and universities to review and improve their programmes. The survey also enables the media, researchers and officials from the authorities and HEIs to understand the sector and the transition of graduates to the labour market, thereby making it possible to design suitable employment and education policies.
FAQs for survey respondents:
Why do you not need to ask for my consent?
- AQU Catalunya may use the personal data of graduates in this study without asking for consent for statistical purposes and reasons of public interest, pursuant to Opinion CNS 49/2018 of the Catalan Data Protection Authority (APDCAT, from the Catalan).
How do we use your personal data?
- The personal data shall be used to make contact and to perform statistical processing, draw up employment percentages and establish suitability of employment in accordance with the respondents’ academic and sociodemographic profile.
- Pursuant to Act 23/1998, of 30 December, on Statistics of Catalonia (hereinafter LEC, from the Catalan), all individual personal, private, family, economic or financial data used in order to draw up this statistical study is protected by statistical confidentiality (article 24 of the LEC). Accordingly, all individuals, bodies and institutions involved in the study on access to the labour market are required to uphold confidentiality with regard to statistical information and this obligation remains in place even after the persons who are required to uphold it have ended their professional activity or terminated their ties with the bodies that produce or have statistics (article 25 et seq. of the LEC).
How did the fieldwork company obtain my contact details?
- Universities and affiliated institutions have provided the company in charge of conducting the surveys with your contact details to allow the study to take place.
- Only data that is absolutely essential to conduct the survey is sent, pursuant to the principle of minimisation set out in the GDPR.
- To be precise, the following data is collected: gender, age, nationality, name, email address, telephone number and town. The following academic data is also collected: the study programme admission pathway, start and end year, final grade and qualification obtained.
- In accordance with the Opinion of the APDCAT (CNS 49/2018), the data obtained is considered suitable for the purposes sought in the survey.
What will happen with my contact details?
- Both the company in charge of the fieldwork and AQU Catalunya will delete your personal data used for contact (for instance, your forename and names, telephone number, email address, etc.) within a reasonable period, which is expected to be around six months following the completion of the fieldwork.
What rights do I have?
- You are not required to fill in the survey.
- Data protection legislation grants you the right to access, rectification, erasure, objection, restriction of processing, portability and oblivion in relation to your personal data. However, these rights are limited in specific circumstances when the data is merely processed for statistical purposes; for example, if any individual asks not to be contacted, the record shall be blocked, but the individual will still be counted as part of the population of the study.
- If you have any questions about how the information held by AQU Catalunya is processed, you can contact us at coneixement@aqu.cat.
- If you wish to exercise your rights in terms of data protection, you can write to the same company that contacts you or to the address dpd@aqu.cat.
What safeguards is processing subject to?
In accordance with article 89.1 of the GDPR, processing for statistical purposes shall be subject to certain safeguards:
- The personal data shall be relevant and suitable as necessary in relation to the purpose for which it is processed (data minimisation).
- Only data that is necessary in order to conduct the survey on access to the labour market shall be requested.
- In addition, provided the afore-stated purposes can be met with further processing that does not make it possible to identify the interested parties, it shall be done in this way.
Is my data managed securely?
What will I be asked? Is it compulsory to answer all items?
- During the survey, you will be asked about your current employment situation, the characteristics of your job and, if you are not in work, the reasons why. You will be asked for your opinion about aspects of education and its usefulness at work.
- There are two questions that must be answered; otherwise, the survey will end there: occupational status and relationship between the study programme and employment. The remaining questions are optional.
- If you are in work, you will be asked which range your annual gross salary is in.
- You will also be asked questions relating to sociodemographic aspects, such as the level of education, the occupation and the place of birth of your parents. The aim of this section is to assess equity in access to the labour market.
- You can see the survey questionnaires at this linnk.
Who conducts the survey on access to the labour market?
- A survey with a statistical purpose, such as the one on access to the labour market, is any operation of collection and processing of personal data needed for statistical surveys or for the production of statistical results. The statistical purpose implies that the result of processing is not personal data, but aggregate data, and that this result or the personal data are not used in support of measures or decisions regarding any particular natural person (article 162 of the GDPR).
- Access to the labour market as experienced by university graduates is a statistical area of interest to the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (Generalitat) and shall be deemed as official statistics. AQU Catalunya has been entrusted to compile this data. AQU Catalunya, in turn, has hired Análisis e Investigación, S.L. in order to conduct the fieldwork.
What does it mean to say that the survey has a statistical purpose?
- A survey with a statistical purpose, such as the one on access to the labour market, is any operation of collection and processing of personal data needed for statistical surveys or for the production of statistical results. The statistical purpose implies that the result of processing is not personal data, but aggregate data, and that this result or the personal data are not used in support of measures or decisions regarding any particular natural person (article 162 of the GDPR).
- Access to the labour market as experienced by university graduates is a statistical area of interest to the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (Generalitat) and shall be deemed as official statistics. AQU Catalunya has been entrusted to compile this data. AQU Catalunya, in turn, has hired Análisis e Investigación, S.L. in order to conduct the fieldwork.
Will I be contacted for future surveys?
- You may be, but any future contact by AQU Catalunya shall always take place following transfer of data from your HEI.
- There may be statistical bodies that wish to contact you subsequently for surveys of public interest. If you are contacted again, this contact will come from your HEI or the organisation conducting the research and will include the relevant information on privacy.
How is my information used and by whom?
- Your responses will be handed over to the university or institution where you followed your study programme, assuring that personal results are not used in support of measures or decisions regarding any particular natural person, but rather solely for statistical purposes.
- AQU Catalunya will use your responses to draw up statistical indicators that are vital to the diagnosis and review of study programmes and that are addressed to university officials and other university assessment and governing bodies.
- It is envisaged for the data to be disclosed to the UNEIX file – a file from the Ministry of Economics and Knowledge of the Generalitat – for statistical purposes only, and to the Catalan Institute for Statistics (IDESCAT), also for statistical purposes.
- These indicators will be subject to public aggregate disclosure (by study programmes, institutions, etc.) via the web pages of AQU Catalunya in order to draw up public statistics and report on the activity of AQU Catalunya and the higher education system.
- The data will also be available anonymously for access by research groups who request it in order to draw up studies in relation to equal opportunities, education quality and other objects of research. You can see the research studies carried out so far at this link.