When they asked me to leave a legacy, they knew I had the cash

SEVEN years after graduating from Leeds, I got an email hailing the university’s successes before it bluntly asked: ‘How will your legacy to Leeds make a lasting mark?’

The email explained how ‘a gift in your will, however large or small, is a wonderful way to help future generations of students and the wider world’.

Almost a year to the day later, there was another email. ‘How far could a gift in your will go?’ it asked.

At the time, what was unbeknown to me – and to the many other alumni who received the emails – is that months earlier we had been screened to work out if we were likely to leave gifts in our wills.

Our personal details were secretly sent to an agency named Bluefrog Fundraising, which specialises in assessing whether alumni or charity donors are likely to be generous in the future.

The university has since admitted this was done ‘to assess the likelihood of data subjects leaving a gift in their will to the University of Leeds’ and that ‘this information was then used to tailor fundraising communications to those most likely to respond’.

I was also stunned to discover my alma mater had sent my data to wealth screening firms three times since 2013.

It admits I never gave written permission, but said emails to me included small print with a link to a ‘privacy statement’ where I could have found out it may have been passing on my details.

Leeds added the emails I received about leaving a gift in my will were ‘sent to all alumni on our email database’ and not directly linked to my details being shared.

As the Mail Investigations Unit reveals today, my experience is far from unique.

In fact, millions across the country who attended university will have had their highly sensitive financial information scrutinised without their knowledge. The money-making tactics have come to light after we sent Freedom of Information requests to universities, forcing them to reveal whether they had used wealth screening companies.

To find out the full details of the snooping, reporters also sent the universities they attended ‘ subject access requests’ – a legal means for anyone to ask an organisation for a copy of all the information it holds on you.

The process revealed that a number of colleagues had been similarly screened by their alma maters. One graduated from University College London in 2004. Nine years later, it sent her details to two wealth screening firms to assess how they should target her for donations.

She was dismissed as a potential major donor by investigators at Prospecting for Gold, which was looking for the wealthiest former students who could afford to donate more than £100,000.

But another firm named Response One discovered she and her family members had previously supported human rights charities. The significance? UCL was trying to raise money for its law department’s Centre for Access to Justice.

By finding out which former students had given to human rights causes, the university could tailor appeals to them.

UCL said its privacy notice is online and would have been sent to former students when they enrolled and in subsequent alumni letters.

Bluefrog Fundraising said it is not a wealth- screening firm and does not hold data on people’s finances. It would not reveal how it came to advise Leeds that I might be willing to add the university to my will.

‘I never gave permission’ ‘Dismissed as a major donor’