Another odd thing about this story is that I for one have never been approached for support by Cambridge University, only by my College. I imagine that is the norm. Very few Oxbridge graduates are likely to donate to the University, unless we’re talking about the super-rich who might endow a whole new laboratory or even a College. So that raises the question of whether the University is sharing this supposed illegal data with the Colleges, and if not, what is it doing with it? In short, I’m mostly inclined to see this story as just another confused and ill-informed anti-Oxbridge hatchet job from the Mail.
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I don’t see any particular ethical problem with determining which ex-students are now super rich so you can go bother them instead of everyone else. Most of it can be done on the public record, simplying googling their names will work if you aren’t worried about false negatives.
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I also find it difficult to figure out what the illegal part is, and what part of this is not already common practice in the US.
I guess it would be more becoming if the universities kept this sort of nefarious gold-digging under wraps by keeping it in-house like most universities do. At my college, the provost has very detailed files on all alumni and families so he will always know the names of your kids and your favorite hobbies and drinks.
In the US, wealth and donation potential profiling of alumni and families goes all the way from universities down to private elementary schools, who want you to submit your tax forms even if you’re not asking for financial aid so they can calibrate their asking. I’m hardly surprised to hear that companies will do all that off-campus, and that universities will out-source to them. All they would really need to get going is the name of the student, and is there any more public record than a graduation?
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The EU has very strong general privacy protection laws that forbid much of the data sharing that has become so common in the US; this surely includes both the data mentioned in the article and the subsequent profiling done by the companies for the schools.
On the other hand, the US has strong laws (FERPA) about student data being used for unauthorized purposes, which is why I’ve never heard of US schools doing the kind of outsourcing described in the article.
I am also fairly certain that neither my current employer nor the two schools which I attended did the kind of specific profiling mentioned in the article, even in-house, though of course who the wealthiest alumni are is known to administration in all three cases, as fundraising is part of their job description. (The FAFSA and tax forms submitted by parents and/or students of course gives no indication of the students’ wealth once they are alumni. The school would have to do a broad financial records search based on information they do have, such as SSN, and while I don’t doubt this is possible I think it is easier for schools to just hammer alumni equally with calls for donations.)
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What makes one wonder is just what they are up to now if a publication in a jurisdiction with outright British libel laws is calling it an illegal program.
It’s no secret that schools love grooming the alumni for donations, and would presumably be using the same sorts of market research and demographic tools that team marketing uses; but those are typically in the ‘creepy, but not technically illegal’ band.
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What is confusing me here is the difference between “student data” and normal data about students. For example, courses taken, grades received, disciplinary actions, etc. is “student data.” Who the students are, when they attended, whether they graduated: not “student data.” Per FERPA:
Schools may disclose, without consent, “directory” information such as a student’s name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance.
That is enough information for any party (say, some 400 pound slob in his pajamas in his mom’s basement, like me) to figure out within a pretty narrow range how much money someone makes, has, and donates. Because everybody puts their employers and job titles on social media, most contributions are public information, and anybody can zillow your house. You don’t need precision, just estimates, to determine which donation range D. R. falls into.
None of that would be illegal in the United States. It’s not surveillance, it’s not stalking, and it’s not hard. And I would be very surprised to find out that they aren’t doing it already, so they can have a little summary to peruse every time I say I’ll attend an event or they want a kid to cold-call me.
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It is a type of small dragon, isn’t it?
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It is however collecting and storing personal data, and there’s an EU Directive about that.
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Is this surveillance able to detect dead pig head fucking before said pigfucker assumes the prime ministry?
Only if a sizeable donation could be extracted, presumably.
Fuck the Mail. Publishing a thing that is maybe technically partially true perhaps makes them no less of a criminal gang of scare-mongering, lying-through-their-teeth, reactionary rat bastards. Case in point,
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