Diversity Policy Document

Why a Diversity Policy Document?

The Diversity Policy Document provides a framework for diversity and inclusion that faculties and units can base their diversity policy on.

What question is answered in the Diversity Policy Document?

How can the UvA ensure an inclusive learning and working environment that helps all students and staff to feel at home and boosts the quality of our teaching, our research and our societal impact?

With the Diversity Policy Document, we want to:

• launch new activities that contribute to a diverse and inclusive learning and working environment
• strengthen existing initiatives by students, faculties, units and diversity officers within the UvA

Accessibility and study success for students whose background makes studying at a university a less likely course of action for them.

• New: support students with a disability in finding work placements.
• New: Meet your Mentor: improve the access of students with a migration background to the labour market.

Successful collaboration within diverse groups and teams.

• New: active offer of diversity and inclusion training and workshops with proven effectiveness (for students and staff).
• Ongoing: attention to diversity and inclusiveness in UTQ and leadership training.

Recruitment, selection, appointment, encouragement and retention of staff from diverse backgrounds.

• New: aim to have 50% of all professorships filled by women from now on.
• New: talent programme for graduates with a migration background: seven tenure positions.

Identification and encouragement of good practices and knowledge exchange.

• Ongoing: the role of the Chief Diversity Officer and the Diversity Officers in organising the exchange of knowledge and skills regarding diversity and inclusion.

Above are some examples of existing initiatives and new ones presented in this policy document. Curious about all the initiatives? Read the full policy framework at uva.nl/diversity.

The Cultural Diversity Barometer offers organisations insight into the cultural diversity of their workforce, without individuals being identifiable in the figures. Organisations with 250 or more employees can participate. Statistics Netherlands links data from an organisation to other data and returns the data as anonymous and aggregated data based on an approach approved by the Dutch House of Representatives in June 2020 (view the Letter to Parliament). No new data on employees will be included and there is no need to share special personal data. CBS has been processing requests on cultural diversity since 1 July 2020. Read more about the Cultural Diversity Barometer on the CBS website.

Cultural diversity by job category and faculty will be published and made available on the CBS website. CBS will not use the data provided by the UvA for other research or purposes. The UvA will only use the data from the CBS Cultural Diversity Barometer to support the policy as stated in the Diversity Document 2019 and to make a comparative analysis of cultural diversity at other Dutch universities.

The UvA will share the following data on academic, support and management staff from its own personnel administration: date of birth, gender, postcode, house number, house number suffix, faculty, job category (for example: PhD candidate, researcher, lecturer, staff member, professor). The following reference dates will be used for this purpose: year-end 2010, year-end 2015 and year-end 2020. The Amsterdam UMC has its own personnel administration system and will therefore submit a separate request to CBS.

In order to substantiate the policy of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on equal opportunities and cultural diversity, the UvA would like to use the Cultural Diversity Barometer of Statistics Netherlands (CBS). The UvA therefore intends to share some of your personal data with CBS. Insight into the cultural diversity at the university will increase the effectiveness of the university’s efforts to foster diversity and inclusivity, as stated in the Diversity Document. The Cultural Diversity Barometer offers organisations insight into the cultural diversity of their workforce, without individuals being identifiable in the figures. Organisations with 250 or more employees can participate.

The UvA only receives data on cultural diversity within faculties and job categories from CBS, and these data cannot be traced back to individual persons. The UvA itself will not register or manage any data on the cultural background of its staff. CBS will not use the data provided by the UvA for other research or purposes.

The email states that the UvA receives data on cultural diversity within faculties and job categories from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and that these data cannot be traced back to individual persons. What do we mean by that?

The UvA shares personal data of its current and former staff with CBS. CBS links these data to its databases in order to gain insight into cultural backgrounds. CBS needs the personal data to verify that the link relates to the right person (e.g. to prevent a link with someone with the same name or date of birth). For reasons of privacy, CBS pseudonymises the date of birth and address details. Eventually, the UvA will receive an overview showing the distribution of cultural backgrounds per job category. This overview no longer contains any personal details.

The UvA shares personal data of its current and former staff with CBS. CBS links these data to its databases in order to gain insight into cultural backgrounds. CBS needs the personal data to verify that the link relates to the right person (e.g. to prevent a link with someone with the same name or date of birth). For reasons of privacy, CBS pseudonymises the date of birth and address details and then aggregates them per category. Eventually, the UvA will receive an overview showing the distribution of cultural backgrounds per job category.

The UvA does not have information on the cultural backgrounds of individuals. The UvA also has no intention of keeping track of these data. However, the UvA would still like to have insight into the cultural backgrounds in each job category. That is why the UvA is participating in the Cultural Diversity Barometer of the CBS (in Dutch).

Around the same time that this email was distributed, the UvA was subjected to a cyber attack. We understand that this has made recipients even more vigilant. However, this was not a phishing email. The list of recipients was drawn from the UvA’s employee database and the email was carefully sent from the UvA’s own email system.
 

Your rights relating to the use of your personal data are governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Under the GDPR, you have the right to object. If you do not want the UvA to share some of your personal data with CBS for the purpose of the Cultural Diversity Barometer, please send an e-mail within two weeks to: barometerUitvraag-bb@uva.nl.

If you have indicated by email that you do not wish to participate in information requests (i.e. you have objected), your data will be removed from the list of personal data sent to Statistics Netherlands. Your data will not be shared with Statistics Netherlands. You will receive confirmation of your objection by email within four weeks.

The UvA takes privacy and the protection of personal data very seriously. The UvA treats data on staff, students, research participants and other UvA data subjects with the utmost care. More information and a Privacy Statement can be found on the UvA’s website.

CBS safeguards privacy in all of its research. Business data are processed and analysed under strict confidentiality to produce general economic statistics. CBS uses highly secure computer systems. The law stipulates that the data may only be used for statistical purposes. No other institution has access to the data collected by CBS. The statistical information published by CBS does not contain any identifiable information about an individual company or institution.

Since the hacking attack on the UvA, we have been devoting special attention to the way in which we share data with Statistics Netherlands. In cooperation with Statistics Netherlands, we have checked the data exchange process for vulnerabilities. The UvA’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has asked critical questions and judged the process to be secure. How are data shared with Statistics Netherlands in practice? There is an upload portal and a download portal. The upload portal is secured by the fact that the login details can only be used once and the upload portal cannot be used to download the uploaded data. The download portal is only used to share aggregated data with the UvA. No individual employee data are identifiable in these data.

CBS will immediately convert the UvA data into pseudonyms linked to job categories. CBS will then link the pseudonym and the job category to data from CBS’s databases and aggregate the data. Based on this method, the share of staff who have no migration background, a Western migration background or a non-Western migration background will be determined by job category and by faculty.

CBS may break down the results according to migration background only if there are 250 or more persons in a job category or faculty. This will ensure that individuals are never identifiable in the figures.

CBS maintains a standard retention period of 2.5 years for source files. No maximum retention period applies to non-traceable data fed back to the UvA.

In this case, the UvA is processing the personal data in accordance with the GDPR basis ‘necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests’ (Article 6.1f of the GDPR). The UvA considers it important to substantiate its policy on equal opportunities and cultural diversity. An inclusive and diverse workforce contributes to better teaching and research at the UvA (and therefore to the appeal of the UvA as an employer and its position on the labour market).

The opt-out option fulfils a data subject’s right to object under the GDPR when a processing operation takes place on the basis of being ‘necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests’. Opt-in would mean that prior consent to processing is sought from the data subject. This basis is (almost) impossible in an employer-employee relationship, as consent cannot be freely given in a relationship of dependency.