Higher Education Loans Board respects your privacy and is committed to protect your personal data. This privacy statement lays down the rules and principles relating to the processing of your personal data at the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB). Its purpose is to ensure that HELB processes personal data in line with the Data Protection Act, 2019. It explains personal data that HELB collects, the purpose and how it is processed.

This statement should be read together with the Terms and Conditions of use for HELB products and services and the consent form where applicable.

It applies to all students, loanees, suppliers, visitors, HELB staff, Board members, the general public, strategic partners and third-party entities engaging with HELB under a contractual agreement.

For the purposes of this privacy statement, the following definitions apply:

• 2.1 You or Your shall refer to:
  • 2.0.1.1 Student – means any Kenyan citizen admitted and pursuing higher education with financial assistance from HELB.
  • 2.0.1.2 Loanee – means any person granted an education loan either under the Higher Education Loans Fund Act (Cap. 213, now repealed) or any person granted an education loan by the Ministry of Education from 1974 through the National Bank of Kenya or any person granted an education loan by the Ministry of Education through the National Bank of Kenya and the Kenya Commercial Bank from 1989 until commencement of this Act, or any person granted an education loan by the Board under this Act.
  • 2.0.1.3 Visitor – Any other person other than a HELB staff who gains access to any HELB premises, website, portals, mobile application and any other digital platform.
  • 2.0.1.4 Supplier – Any person who has been contracted by HELB to provide goods and services.
  • 2.0.1.5 HELB staff – Any person who is an employee of HELB.
  • 2.0.1.6 Board members – Any person who is a Board member at HELB.
  • 2.0.1.7 General public – Any person who typically does not have an active interest with HELB services.
• 2.2 HELB, we, us, our, ours and its – shall refer to Higher Education Loans Board.
• 2.3 Personal Data – Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.
• 2.4 Data Subject – An individual whose personal data is subject to processing.
• 2.5 Consent – any manifestation of express, unequivocal, free, specific and informed indication of the data subject’s wishes by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifying agreement to the processing of personal data relating to the data subject.
• 2.6 Data Controller – refers to HELB, an authority to oversee the management of and to determine the purposes for the processing of personal data.
• 2.7 Data Protection Officer – A designated HELB staff responsible for overseeing the implementation and enforcement of data protection measures, ensuring compliance with the Act, advising the organization and its employees on data processing requirements, and acting as a primary point of contact with ODPC regarding data privacy matters. 
• 2.8 Processing – any operation or sets of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data whether or not by automated means, such as

(a) collection, recording, organization, structuring;

(b) storage, adaptation or alteration;

(c) retrieval, consultation or use;

(d) disclosure by transmission, dissemination, or otherwise making available; or

(e) alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.

• 2.9 Third party – natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body, under the direct authority of HELB, are authorised to process personal data
• 2.10 Strategic Partners – Organizations, institutions, or stakeholders that collaborate with HELB
• 2.11 Digital platforms – Refers to the
  • HELB Website (helb.co.ke)
  • Portals

• • • Student portal
    • Loanees portal
    • Employer portal
    • Institution portal
    • Debt collectors portal
  • Mobile Application
  • USSD (*642#)
• 2.12 HELB Staff Dependants – Any person affiliated to a HELB staff
• 2.13 Legal obligation – HELB as a statutory body established under the Higher Education Loans Board Act, 1995 has a legal mandate to process personal data for loan administration purposes listed below.

1. • For loans, bursary and scholarship application, appraisal and award;
   • For online financial literacy education;
   • For sharing with third party entities for purposes of resource mobilization, data verification towards loan recovery and data validation;
   • For conducting credit checks and credit scoring;
   • Creating awareness of our new products and services and sending reminders on loan repayments;
   • For business analysis and intelligence to enable decision making and improvement of systems operations;
   • Sharing with parliament for accountability purposes;
   • To analyze trends and manage the volume of calls, texts, social media and customer relationship management (CRM) interactions to identify areas for improved customer service;
   • Loan insurance;
   • To determine the level of need of the applicant using the Means Testing Instrument (MTI) that will inform the level of financing of Government scholarships, loans and household contributions;
   • To support loan recovery process;
   • Communication to the institutions of higher learning;
   • Communicating to the applicants, parents and guardians regarding loans, bursary and HELB scholarships;
   • External Resource Mobilization; and
   • Religious data shall be collected for purposes of developing religious compliant products.

• 2.14 Contractual agreement – Processing of personal data as necessary for contractual obligations (e.g., granting and recovering loans).
• 2.15 Legitimate interest – processing of personal data without explicit consent where processing is necessary for a legitimate purpose and does not override the fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject.
• 2.16 Cookies – small text files stored on a user’s device by a web browser when they visit a website to help websites remember user preferences, track behaviour, and improve functionality.

• 3.1 Students
• 3.2 Loanees
• 3.3 Parents / Guardians / Sponsor
• 3.4 Guarantors
• 3.5 Suppliers
• 3.6 Third parties
• 3.7 Visitors
• 3.8 Board members
• 3.9 Strategic partners
• 3.10 General public

The following is the information we process about you and the related purpose:

• When you contact us through calls, social media, our chatbot on our website and email, we may record your data following these interactions with us for quality management.
• We record and retain Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance data from our CCTV devices installed at all our office locations to provide a safe and secure environment in our premises.
• We record and retain HELB WIFI data (device address, traffic information on websites visited, duration and date accessed) for guest and visitors. This information is used for legitimate reasons.

We will collect data about you from the following sources:

• 5.1 By filling in application forms when you apply for HELB products;
• 5.2 Through correspondence on phone, e-mail or social media platforms;
• 5.3 When you access our digital platforms and submit your personal data;
• 5.4 When you visit any of our premises and we collect your images on CCTV;
• 5.5 When you interact with us through our customer touch points;
• 5.6 From your employers for purposes of loan recovery; and
• 5.7 From third parties.

We will process your personal information based on any of the following lawful basis as provided for under the Data Protection Act, 2019: 

• 6.1 Compliance with a mandatory legal obligation;
• 6.2 For performance of a contractual agreement with you;
• 6.3 Legitimate interests of the data subject;
• 6.4 To protect your vital interest;
• 6.5 Public interest;
• 6.6 For the purpose of historical, statistical and scientific research; and
• 6.7 Consent you issue to us.

To determine the appropriate retention period of your personal data, we consider applicable legal frameworks and the record management policy.

HELB may share/disclose personal data to third parties below:

• 8.1 Credit Reference Bureaus;
• 8.2 Debt recovery agencies;
• 8.3 Law enforcement agencies, regulatory authorities, courts or other statutory authorities;
• 8.4 Publicly available and/or restricted government databases such as The Kenya University and Colleges Placement Service (KUCCPS), The Universities Fund (UF), The State Department for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (SD-TVET), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Office of the Auditor General (OAG), National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) and Integrated Population Registration System (IPRS), National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), Kenya National Examination Board (KNEC), Telcos (Safaricom, Airtel), National Council For Persons With Disabilities (NCPWD), State Department For Basic Education (SDBE), Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), State Department for Social Protection and Senior Citizens Affairs, National Employment Authority (NEA)and Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC).
• 8.5 Resource mobilization partners.
• 8.6 Public utility companies such as Kenya Power Lighting Company and Water services company
• 8.7 Higher Learning Institutions such as Universities and Colleges
• 8.8 Telecommunication Companies
• 8.9 Financial Institutions.
• 8.10 Employers

We shall send you information to create awareness of our products, our activities, accomplishments and market surveys as well as reminder messages on your loan status through short message services (SMS) and our social media platforms.

We may store some information using cookies when you visit our website. This enables us to recognise you during subsequent visits. The type of information gathered is non-personal (such as: the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer, the date and time of your visit, which pages you browsed and whether the pages have been delivered successfully.

Should you choose to do so, it is possible depending on the browser you are using, to be prompted before accepting any cookies, or to prevent your browser from accepting any cookies at all. This may however cause certain features of the web site not to be accessible.

Our websites provides hyperlinks to other locations or websites on the Internet. These hyperlinks lead to websites published or operated by other third parties. These hyperlinks have been provided for ease of navigation to enhance your user experience and are presented for information purposes only.

We do not endorse, recommend, approve or guarantee any third party products and services by providing hyperlinks to an external website or webpage. We are not in any way responsible for the content of any externally linked website or webpage.

By clicking on a hyperlink, you will leave the HELB webpage and accordingly you shall be subject to the terms of use, privacy and cookie policies of the other websites that you choose to visit.

HELB is committed to ensuring the security (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) of your information. We have put in place reasonable physical, technical, and administrative safeguards designed to prevent unauthorized access to your information.

A need may arise for transfer of your personal information outside Kenya for processing. Where we send your information outside Kenya, we will ensure that your information is properly protected in accordance with the applicable Data Protection Laws in that jurisdiction.

Your rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data are:

• 14.1 Right to be informed that we are collecting personal data about you;
• 14.2 Right to access personal data being processed and the purpose for processing such data;
• 14.3 Right to request for correction of your personal data where it is inaccurate or incomplete;
• 14.4 Right to request for deletion of your personal data;
• 14.5 Right to object to processing any or part of your personal data;
• 14.6 Right to withdraw your consent; and
• 14.7 Right to restrict processing of your personal data.

The above rights are applicable so long as they do not negatively affect the lawful basis for which the data was processed.

If you would like to contact us to exercise any of the stated rights above, you can download and complete the data subject request form available on the website under “About us” section on the homepage and send it to the email dpo@helb.co.ke

Below are the contact details of the Data Protection Officer:

Data Protection Officer

dpo@helb.co.ke

Higher Education Loans Board

18^th Floor, Anniversary Towers University Way

P.O. Box 69489-00400

Nairobi, Kenya

This privacy statement may be amended as and when need arises.