**IMPORTANT** PLEASE ENSURE THAT, WHEN COMPLETING THE EMERGENCY CONTACT DETAILS SECTION, YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO GIVE THE PERSON’S NAME AND NUMBER.
STUDENT PRIVACY NOTICE 2023 2024
This privacy notice explains how we use and share your personal data and your rights in relation to the personal data that we hold. This notice relates to our processing of the personal data of past, current and prospective students.
As a data controller we must process personal data subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Ireland’s Data Protection Acts, and periodic guidance from Irish and EU data protection authorities.
We are committed to complying with our obligations under data protection laws. This notice is complementary to our Data Protection Policy which is available here.
What information do we collect about you:
The types of information collected and processed by us may include, but may not be limited to, the following:
Biographical and Contact Details: Name, student ID number, gender, address, date of birth, country of birth, telephone number, email, PPS number
(or overseas equivalent), nationality, citizenship, next of kin/emergency details, image, passport number, Eircode.
Financial information: Bank details, details of funding, and fees paid and outstanding.
Information on others: Parents’ socio-economic grouping, parents’ occupation, and parents’ employment status.
Academic information: Academic
history, academic grades, relevant work experience, exam scripts, continuous assessments, records related to your research and its progress, qualifications awarded, attendance record, disciplinary information, and library information.
Special category personal data: Health (physical and psychological), sex life or sexual orientation, and disability information, medical assessments, counselling notes, religious or philosophical beliefs, ethnic origin, and criminalconvictions.
Interaction details: If you communicate with TUS, details of that communication may be held in the form of, notes taken during phone calls, emails, hard copy correspondence and complaints, comments and opinions from online delivery discussions.
Online services: Cookies are used to analyse your use of our website. These record your browsing preferences, and your location data, and capture a record of your internet browsing history when using TUS Wi-Fi facilities. You can view our cookies policy here.
Other personal information: CCTV images, photographs, and video footage.
How we collect your Personal Data
We collect your personal data at various points in your relationship with TUS. These include:
• Admissions and Registration
This includes registration with joint programme providers such as the National Apprentice Organisation (NAO), SOLAS; and other HEIs.
• Interaction with Faculty
• When you register with our student support services
• Examinations
• Applications for funding
• When you use our website and online services (see Online Services above for Cookies link)
• When you use the TU Student services
• Where you make your personal data available to us through social media accounts
• CCTV cameras
• When you complete certain surveys including the Irish Survey of Student Engagement
• When you use the Sports Facilities in relevant campuses
• When you use the services of our Campus companies, such as the Canteen and the Gym.
• When you take part in conferences, peer assisted support activities, events or competitions related to the academicexperience we provide.
The personal data we hold in relation to you can come from a number of external sources. These will include:
· CAO
· International Agents
·National and International Partner Colleges and Universities
· SOLAS
o NAO
· SPRINGBOARD
· DARE/HEAR
· Equal Ireland
· INIS / GNIB Immigration Services
· Yourself – in the contexts of direct applications, lifelong learning and general use of services including Moodle Learning Management System
· Placement providers
· An Garda Síochána
· Employers
Where we hold your data
Any data we collect will be stored securely and treated confidentially. We will store your data only on our secure servers, on systems hosted directly, and on cloud-based systems. Cloud based systems are subject to a GDPR compliance assessment and must have adequate access security as a requirement.
We aim to avoid physical storage of hard-copy personal data, however, where this is a requirement, it will be limited and will be subject to security measures.
These measures will include but not be limited to access-control of administrative office spaces and lockable storage in accordance with requirements. Our ‘Clean Desk Policy’ is designed to safe-guard your data from inappropriate and unauthorised access.
Purposes for which we process your Personal Data
In order to carry out essential functions and to provide associated student services, we require certain personal data from you. Without this data it will not be possible for TUS to process your registration.
We are committed to ensuring that access to your data is limited to those who havea need to process it in line with the purposes set out below.
To provide you with information relating to the range of activities available, and to fulfil our duties to all students, we collect and use your personal data for a range of contractual, statutory and public interest purposes, including the following:
SERVICE PROVISION
· to provide efficient, accessible educational services – along with appropriate support services, as indicated in our programme brochures, prospectuses and advertising;
• to deliver and administer education services, record the details of your studies and/or research and to determine your overall award outcome;
• to manage the online delivery and correction of examinations
• where relevant to facilitate collaborative learning between us and other educational providers and/or Industry partners, domestic and international;
• to attract the appropriate professional and regulatory recognitions of your learning, e.g. Engineers Ireland, CORU, NMBI;
• to process scholarships, prizes and bursaries and administer other financial aspects of your relationship with us;
• to deliver services to you including catering, student supports, libraries, sports, careers and IT services;
• to provide you with a student I.D card, which contains your photograph, for the purposes of identification, security, and for accessing certain services including the library services;
• to facilitate your participation in events, such as careers fairs, sports entertainment, and graduation ceremonies;
• to provide you with a student email address which will be the primary means of contacting you in relation to specific and general information during the course of your studies; to enable your participation in international mobility. E.g. Erasmus, study abroad and/or other international exchange opportunities;
SERVICE MONITORING
• To monitor, evaluate and support your studies, including placement and block release, and your research activity, in line with our contractual obligations to you;
• to evaluate compliance with our regulations relating to conduct during examinations and assessment, including plagiarism and other offences and to ensure compliance with academic regulations;
• to compile and anonymise, statutory data for statistics for internal and statutory reporting, management and research purposes;
• to carry out and circulate voluntary studies and surveys to obtain learner feedback to improve our services, and practices;
• to ensure efficiency of our online resources;
LEGISLATION AND POLICY
• to comply with our obligations under legislation including, revenue, social protection, equality, immigration and health and safety legislation;
• for security purposes (e.g. C.C.T.V. footage) in line with our security policies;
• for Garda Vetting purposes; note that for programmes where the placement settings involve working with children and / or vulnerable adults (as defined in the Children and Vulnerable Adults Act 2014) and other settings where course brochures and materials indicate that the placement provider requires Garda vetting to take up placement.
• to assist in the prevention or detection of crime,
• to facilitate student elections;
• to assess accidents or other insured events that occur on our properties;
• To share specified information with authorised family/next of kin and/or to enable us to contact others in the event of an emergency where you have supplied their contact details;
MARKETING
• to create and publish print and electronic material for promotional and archival purposes;
• to communicate with you by post, email and phone, including the distribution of relevant newsletters and other information associated with the life of the TUS and its campuses;
• to enable us to make reasonable contact with you after you have completed your studies e.g. survey of graduates, alumni networks, marketing etc;
• Occasionally we may have events, or information, which we believe may be of interest or benefit to you. These may fall outside the original purpose of the collection of your data. In order to let you know about these we may send you an email, text message, or contact you using the phone number you provided, to request your consent. If you are not interested in what we have sent – we will not contact you any further on thatmatter.
Our lawful bases for processing your Personal Data
We consider the processing of your personal data for the purposes
outlined above to be necessary on the following lawful bases:
• Where you have given your consent for us to do so;
• To enable us to fulfil our contractual obligations to you;
• To allow us to meet all obligations and duties set out in legislation with which the TU must comply;
• For the performance of functions conferred on us by legislation;
• To perform tasks carried out in fulfilment of our duty to act in the public interest
and
• In the legitimate interests of the TUS. Legitimate interests will only be relied upon as a lawful basis where there is clear evidence to support the decision.
Who do we share your personal data with
• Government Departments: Revenue Commissioners, Department of Employment and Social Protection, Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation, and Science, and the Department of Justice/INIS, and relevant international government agencies, for e.g. scholarship providers;
• State Agencies: Higher Education Authority*, Student Universal Support Ireland, Quality and Qualifications Ireland (SUSI), SOLAS, An Garda Síochána, HSE, Department of Employment, and Social Protection;
• Professional and Regulatory Bodies: Engineers Ireland, CORU etc.;
• Third Level Institutions: Other higher education institutions, partners or research organisations to which a student transfers or pursues an exchange programme or where a student’s programme is being run collaboratively; Erasmus and International partners;
• External Examiners: External Examiners and assessors for a transparent examinations process;
• Software Providers: Software providers or service providers performing administrative functions on behalf of TUS; Plagiarism detection service providers;
o In order to ensure the highest possible security for your personal data, it is necessary to update the software we use on a regular basis. Occasionally this means that we have to migrate your data from an older version or system to a newer version or
system. All precautions are taken in advance of, and during, any migration or system upgrade, to ensure that your personal data is protected during the process.
• Employers and Industry Partners: Work placement providers; employers of apprentices;
• Other Essential and Beneficial Third Parties: Sponsors funding student prizes and awards; Companies or organisations providing specific services to, or on behalf of the TUS; Auditors; Legal advisors; Payment providers; Insurance companies., THEA – the Technological Higher Education Association – a support body for the technological section of Higher Education in Ireland;
• Parents: where the student is under 18 years of age or where older students have provided us with consent;
• TUS Students Union;
* In compliance with the Higher Education Authority Act 1971, and any subsequent amending Acts, TUS share personal data with the HEA (Higher Education Authority). Please click here to access their Privacy Statement, or as an attachment at the end of this document.
We will ensure that all data sharing agreements, required by law, are in place with the entities listed above.
How long do we retain your Personal Data
Under data protection laws, we may only store your personal data foras long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this document. We maintain a Retention Schedule setting-out specific, pre-determined periods for the retention of particular records. The updated retention schedule for TUS is
currently being drafted. In the meantime the previous retention schedules for the relevant campuses will apply. If you have any queries in relation to the retention of data during the development of the new schedule, please contact the Information and data compliance office at datacompliance@tus.ie. The data retention policy is available on request from datacompliance@tus.ie.
Your rights and how to exercise them
You have the following rights under data protection law, although your ability to exercise these rights may be subject to certain conditions:
• The right to receive a copy of and/or access the personal data that we hold about you, together with other information about our processing of that data;
• The right to request that any information that we have on record about you is corrected if found to be inaccurate;
• The right, in certain circumstances, to request that we erase your personal data;
• The right, in certain circumstances, to request that we no longer process your personal data for particular purposes;
• The right to object to the way in which weprocess your data;
• The right, in certain circumstances, to transfer your personal data to another organisation;
• The right to object to automated decision making and/or profiling;
• The right to complain to the Data Protection Commissioner.
How to make a complaint
If you are unhappy with how your personal data is being processed by us, please give us the opportunity to address this by contacting us using the contact options outlined below.
How to Contact Us
Midlands Campus
Phone: +353 (0) 90 6468009
Email: datacompliance@tus.ie
Post: Information and Data Compliance Office,
Technological University of the Shannon, Midlands: Midwest
University Road,
Athlone,
Co. Westmeath.
You can contact the Data Protection Commission at:
Telephone +353 57 8684800 +353
(0)761 104 800
Lo Call Number
1890 252 231
E-mail info@dataprotection.ie
Postal Address
Data Protection Commissioner
Canal House, Station Road, Portarlington, R32 AP23 Co. Laois.
Changes to this statement
We will update this Privacy Statement from time to time. You can find an up to date version of this statement on our website at www.ait.ie/gdpr or can email datacompliance@tus.ie to ask us for a copy.
Changes to this statement
We will update this Privacy Statement from time to time. You can find an up to date version of this statement on our website at www.ait.ie/gdpr or can email datacompliance@tus.ie to ask us for a copy.