The Croucher Foundation Limited (Croucher) is committed to ensure that all personal data provided to Croucher and submitted through the Croucher website are handled in accordance with the relevant principles and requirements of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (the “Ordinance”). The full text of the Ordinance is available at https://www.pcpd.org.hk/english/data_privacy_law/ordinance_at_a_Glance/ordinance.html.

The key areas of Croucher’s general practice and policy with respect to data protection are summarised as follows:

1. Supply of personal data

You are required to supply accurate, complete and up-to-date personal data to Croucher in connection with applications for grants, scholarships, fellowships, membership of any association for award recipients established by Croucher and/or matters relating to Croucher’s management and administration of its funding programmes.

The scope of personal data requested from you may vary depending on the type of applications being made. In general, they may include some or all of the following:-

• full name, gender, date and place of birth;
• Hong Kong Identity Card details;
• social security and/or national identification number, nationality/citizenship, passport details (including visa information), residence and work permit (if applicable);
• workplace address, home address, telephone number, mobile telephone number, and email address;
• educational and professional background, examination results, references, and employment details;
• language and other relevant skills; and
• characteristics, including photograph.

Supply of personal data to Croucher is non-obligatory but failure to do so may result in Croucher being unable to process your applications or to provide you with the relevant facilities and services.

2. Use of personal data

Your personal data may be used for the following purposes or any directly-related purposes:-

• collating statistical information relating to the applicants to assist Croucher in the management and administration of its funding programmes;
• assessing your suitability and verifying your eligibility for grants, scholarships, fellowships, membership of any association for award recipients established by Croucher and/or any other funding programmes operated by Croucher (regardless of whether you are a new applicant or an applicant who re-applies for such grants, scholarships, fellowships, membership and/or funding programmes);
• making arrangement with the higher education institutions for placement;
• promoting Croucher’s grants, scholarships, fellowships and other funding programmes (e.g., publicity materials, the Croucher website);
• maintaining continuous communication with recipients of grants, scholarships and other award recipients during the period, and upon expiry, of their awards;
• handling matters relating to administration of scholarships and fellowships which have been awarded;
• meeting any disclosure requirements as required by the relevant laws and regulations; and
• facilitating communication between you and Croucher.

Unless your prior consent has been obtained, your personal data will only be used and processed by the authorized employees, agents and consultants of Croucher for the purposes or a directly-related purpose for which they were collected or where it is permitted under the Ordinance.

Croucher will from time to time need to disclose and transfer some of your personal information to other external organisations (including but not limited to higher education institutions, your referees, governmental authorities, examination boards and awarding bodies) for the purposes or a directly-related purpose for which the personal data were collected or where it is permitted under the Ordinance.

Unless permitted or required by law, Croucher will not disclose or transfer your personal data to any other third parties without your prior consent.

3. Access to and correction of personal data

You are entitled to request for access to personal data held by Croucher about you and to correct, amend or delete such data. You also may object to the processing or transferring of your personal data if you have legitimate reasons to do so. Croucher will charge a reasonable fee for the processing of such requests. You may direct your request in writing to:

Head, Finance and Administration The Croucher Foundation Limited Suite 501, Nine Queen’s Road Central Hong Kong

4. Retention of personal data

Personal data will not be kept longer than necessary for the purposes (including any directly-related purposes) for which they were collected, unless the retention is governed by legislation or it is in the public interest not to erase the data.

Application data of unsuccessful applicants will be erased as soon as practicable and in any event no later than one year upon rejection of offers.

5. Security of personal data

Croucher has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that personal data supplied to Croucher are protected against unauthorised or accidental access, processing, erasure or other use. All personal data you provide to Croucher, by any means including via this website, are secured, and access to them is restricted to authorised personnel only.

Croucher will record visits to this website without collecting any personal identifiable information of users. Such general statistics are collected for the compilation of statistical reports and the diagnosis of problems with or concerning computer systems to help improve this website.

Search function on this website is provided by proprietary software of Croucher. Croucher does not collect personal identifiable information while serving search results through this website and will not match the data obtained from any such search activity with any personal data possibly held by Croucher.

If you have any queries about this privacy policy and our practices, please contact us at education@croucher.org.hk.