Students and Alumni Privacy Notice

Introduction

This privacy notice applies specifically to information held about research degree and taught course students, and alumni.

Collecting and using personal information

Categories of personal data we collect include, but are not limited to:

  • Identification and contact details, such as names, digital photographs, date of birth, nationality, ethnic origin, address, email address, phone numbers.
  • Details relating to academic study and funding eligibility, such as previous qualifications and institutions, examination and attendance histories, disciplinary and communication histories, residency, family relationship and passport details, finance and library records and disability data.
  • Data collected for statistical purposes, such as religion and sexual orientation.

As part of your registration with the ICR, we use information provided by and generated about our students in its original and electronic form. This information is required as part of the contract you have with the ICR so that we can fulfil our obligations as a provider of Higher Education.

We use personal information for the purposes of course administration – which includes management of your application, admissions information, student records, ID cards, student progress and support, alumni information and events.

On registration you need to provide certain ‘special categories’ of data, such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, and religion. We process this data for statistical purposes as we are legally obligated to carry out equal opportunities monitoring. Disability data may also be used by the ICR to assess how we can provide reasonable accommodations to assist you with your education.

We process some of your personal information where it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise our official authority, for example when we carry out national surveys set by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Following your graduation, we retain contact details and collect career destination information for our alumni records. Further information can be found in the alumni section below.

We will not use your personal information to carry out any wholly automated decision making that affects you.

Retention of personal information 

We retain all personal information for six years following your graduation. At that time, we review your information and destroy data that we no longer require, in line with our retention schedules. After you graduate a core record of your studies is retained indefinitely so that the details of your academic achievements can be confirmed and for statistical or historical research. These core records will also be added to the alumni database and processed as set out below.

We only store and use personal information that we believe to be factually correct and relevant to our work and not excessive in nature.

Data processors

We use data processors to process personal information for the purposes outlined above. These processors are required to process personal information under our instruction only, protect personal information and respect your rights by law. We only use processors with a contract in place to ensure the protection of personal information and your rights.

Disclosure of your information to third parties

We share your personal information, on a considered and confidential basis, either as permitted or required by law, as part of our contractual obligation to you or our official authority as a higher education institution. The organisations we share your information with include:

 

Every year we send some of the information we hold about students to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) – this includes special category data. HESA is the official source of data about UK higher education institutions. For further information on the data that is shared with HESA during your studies and after graduation, and what it will use it for, please visit the student collection notice on HESA’s website.

We are obliged by law to release information to police and similar law officers who are undertaking criminal investigations and, in certain circumstances, to officers of the Court with relation to civil proceedings.

From time to time, educational institutions are asked to provide information they have collected to the Higher Education Funding Councils, to bodies acting on the Councils’ behalf and to other external funding bodies. This can include personal information about students and alumni. For example, the ICR may be required to provide student contact details for national student surveys or bodies funding individual studentships and fellowships for reporting purposes.

On request from other organisations (such as employers and universities), we will verify details of current and past student registrations and outcomes, where we have reason to believe that the student has supplied this information to the organisation.

Where students are working on projects in collaboration with another organisation, personal information may also be made available to appropriate employees, workers and other contractors of the partner institution.

In the case of clinical/medical students employed by an NHS Trust or other healthcare provider, we may notify a student’s employer in the case of unprofessional or dishonest behaviour, such as examination offences or attendance concerns.

To comply with terms and conditions of funding awards, the ICR is required to share personal information with external funders in relation to allegations of bullying, harassment and research misconduct as outlined in the relevant ICR Policies for these areas.

Alumni

We use future employment information for our own reference, including job titles and organisations you work for, to help us produce reports on where our students go following completion of degrees at the ICR. We obtain this information from you directly (via student surveys) and from public information, such as organisation websites, LinkedIn and other reputable public sources.

We use this information for the following purposes:

  • To provide statistics on the destinations of our alumni in order to demonstrate the success of the ICR’s programmes and to monitor progression against our equality targets.
  • To provide reports to our funders to demonstrate student outcomes, including person level information for projects for which they provided funding.
  • To gather information on the career path of our alumni in order to ensure the training we provide supports our students’ transition into work following graduation.

We use the contact details you provide us:

  • To keep in contact with you to ask you for information about your career, to ask for feedback about your experiences and to let you know about alumni networks and events that may be of interest. You can opt out of receiving these messages at any time.
  • To send you national and ICR-run surveys. We do this using a processor with whom we have a contract to securely process your data. The information you provide via the survey is given with your consent.
  • To send to the Higher Education Statistics Agency which manages and runs the national survey. The information you provide via the survey is given with your consent.
  • With your consent, to send you a twice-yearly new alumni e-newsletter, highlighting the ICR’s key achievements, events and collaboration opportunities.

Under Data Protection law, our main legal basis for processing your information is in pursuit of ICR legitimate interests as outlined above or, where specified, with consent from you. Where consent has been used you can withdraw your consent at any time – meaning we will destroy the information we hold about you collected on the basis of this consent.

When processing personal information for the ICR’s legitimate interests, we carry out a balancing test to ensure that this does not have a negative effect on your rights.

Your rights

If you have any questions or concerns about the personal data we hold about you or your rights, please contact the [email protected].

You may request to access information held about you at any time. Find out more about making a request or a complaint on our main privacy page.