Alumni Relations Privacy Policy

Regent’s University London Limited (trading as Regent's University London) is the 'data controller' as defined by the Data Protection Act 2018. Personal information will only be collected and/or processed by Regent’s University London in accordance with the Act.

The Alumni Community team connects Regent’s with its alumni, volunteers, friends and other supporters. We organise events, send you publications and enable access to university benefits and resources. We do this in accordance with the University’s data protection policies, which you can find here.

For this, we use a secure database which tracks your interactions with Regent’s over time. Access to this database is restricted to members of staff who need to view the data to undertake their duties. This includes all members of the Alumni Community team, IT services and the Careers team. Data may be shared internally with other departments/staff who work closely with the alumni team including academic staff.

At the time of graduation, all relevant student data is duplicated from the student records system to the alumni database. The type of data transferred includes student names, education details (i.e. degree & years studied), contact addresses, telephone numbers and personal email address. While most of the data comes from you (e.g. via the student records system at graduation stage), we also add to it from public sources. We use research to update information held on you and your ability and willingness to volunteer with the University. You can update your communications preferences or simply opt out at any time by contacting us here.

The following are examples of how your data will be used:

• Sending you communications and updates about Regents
• Inviting you to events (e.g., alumni reunions)
• Promoting volunteering engagements (e.g., mentoring opportunities)
• Offering you discounts and services (e.g., postgraduate or executive programmes)
• For administrative purposes (e.g., processing your access card application)
• Your data may also be shared with third parties to process data on our behalf. See third party data sharing for more details.

The retention of your data is crucial in our efforts to build an engaged and interactive community, to support the Regent’s philanthropic aims, and to help safeguard its future. Legitimate interest provides the lawful basis we rely on for most of our activities set out in this privacy notice.

• The Alumni Community Team processes information in pursuit of our legitimate interest in: Staying in touch (e.g., via social media, publications, invitations)
• Offering services and benefits (e.g., careers support, Regent’s Clubs)
• Building an engaged alumni community to support Regent’s educational mission and its strategic and operational aims (e.g., by advisory boards).

We retain education records on all former students in perpetuity. This way, you can get a transcript even after many years.

We may also retain other information, such as:

• Personal information (e.g., name, titles, date of birth)
• Contact details (e.g., postal and email addresses, phone numbers, instant messaging and social media accounts). We update these details whenever you inform us that your details have changed.
• Your academic history at and beyond Regent’s (e.g., previous schools and postgraduate programmes)
• Occupational information (e.g., your job sector and employer)
• Hobbies and interests (e.g., to organize student / alumni sports events)
• Your relationships with others within the Regent’s network
• Media coverage of and content created by and about you, including social media postings
• Photographs submitted to us for use in alumni relations activities such as events, alumni publications, social media and other promotional materials.
• Special category data: It may be necessary to collect sensitive information for a specific purpose such as event planning. The type of sensitive data may include information relating to disability, dietary requirements and/or information about your health e.g. any medical conditions. Please note that we will only collect, store, and use this sensitive information with your consent, for a specific purpose such as event planning. 

We also keep records on:

• Any communications we have exchanged with you
• Your engagement with Regent’s at meetings, events, clubs, campus visits as well as volunteering and networking opportunities
• Your use of University services (e.g., use of the entrepreneurship Hive and our online careers platform, Handshake. Operational data on engagement with such services (e.g., student support journal entries) may be retained for up to three years within our student services database after graduation and then deleted. Web analytics about your use of Regent’s online properties, such as:
• IP address, location and browser type
• Navigation data and referral source
• Length of visit and page views.
• Donation and wealth history such as:
• Your history of donations made to Regent’s and previous Gift Aid declarations (this is required by HMRC)
• Historical wealth and historical giving potential to Regent’s

The University is fully PCI-DSS compliant and does not store credit/debit card details. Bank details used for processing Direct Debits are stored by a trusted third-party, under the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including any legal, accounting, or reporting purposes.

Your rights under the GDPR and data protections acts are protected, including your right to be forgotten.

You have the right to:

• Ask for your data to be amended. You may ask us to change or update any incomplete or incorrect information we hold about you
• Request for your data to be erased. You can ask us to delete your data if you believe there is not a good enough reason for us to continue processing it
• Request access to your data (known as a subject access request). If you wish to submit a subject access request, please email governance@regents.ac.uk
• Opt out of communications. Should you no longer wish to receive communications from us, you can opt out by emailing alumni@regents.ac.uk
• Object to the processing of your personal data where data is processed for legitimate interests, to aid our public interest tasks or for direct marketing purposes.

We may share data with third party suppliers to provide services on our behalf. This includes email marketing services to send communications or web services (e.g., online forms) to update your details. 

Your data may also be shared with third parties engaged in providing additional benefits to alumni (e.g., access to careers support via Handshake). 

We will only share data with external service providers on a confidential basis, where appropriate. They will only process your personal data in line with our policies.

We will not sell your data to a third party.