Alumni Relations Privacy Policy

At the time of graduation, your relevant student data is duplicated from the student records system to the alumni database. For all alumni, we maintain a basic record of your details as transferred from our student database when you complete your studies, which includes your name, date of birth, gender, nationality, course of study, dates of study and final award and contact data (postal address, email, phone number). We may also collect and retain the following data, if you have provided it: 

• Occupational data (e.g. your job sector and employer);
• Hobbies and interests (e.g. to organise student/alumni sports events);
• Your relationships with others within the University network;
• Media coverage of you and content created by and about you, including social media postings;
• Photographs submitted to us by you for use in alumni relations activities such as events, alumni publications, social media, and other promotional materials. 

Most of the personal data used by the alumni team comes from you or already exists within the University’s databases (e.g. via the student records system). We also gather data from public sources (e.g. LinkedIn) to understand the companies and industries our alumni network work in. We use research to update data held on you and your ability and willingness to volunteer with the University. 

We also keep records on:

• Any communications we have exchanged with you;
• Your engagement with the University at meetings, events, clubs, campus visits, as well as volunteering and networking opportunities (e.g. registration and attendance details, notes of conversations between our team and you about future alumni projects or activities);
• Your use of the University’s services (e.g. use of our online careers platform, or the alumni networking platform). Operational data on engagement with University services (i.e. careers appointments, logins, resources accessed, job applications) are retained within these platforms and subject to deletion in line with the University’s retention policies.  
• Web analytics about your use of the University’s online properties, such as:
• IP address, location and browser type;
• Navigation data and referral source;
• Length of visit and page views. 

For more information on the use of cookies on our website, please refer to: https://www.regents.ac.uk/cookies  

• Donation and wealth history (for some alumni, e.g. where you have donated to the University in the past), such as:
• Your history of donations made to the University and previous Gift Aid declarations (we keep these records for up to 7 years as required by HMRC); and
• Historical wealth and historical giving potential to the University. 

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. 

In order to provide you with a bespoke alumni service, we use a secure database which tracks your interactions with the University over time. Access to this database is restricted to members of staff who need to view the data to undertake their duties. This includes members of the Alumni Community Team, IT Services and the Careers team, as well as members of the reception team (when you attend campus for events). At times, your data can be shared internally with other departments/staff who work closely with the Alumni Community Team, including academic staff. 

The Alumni Community Team does not routinely collect special category data or criminal offence data from you. However, under the following specific circumstances, we may collect this type of data: 

• Allergies/dietary requirements and/or access requirements (i.e. health/medical data) only for (and not beyond) specific events you wish to attend.
• Sexual orientation may be inferred where spouses are recorded in the alumni database.
• News stories regarding alleged criminal activity may be stored in the alumni database, to support decision making around engagement and collaboration with alumni. 

We will process your data for different purposes, depending on your relationship and interactions with us. These purposes will be reliant on a specific lawful basis defined within the UK GDPR.  

We process your data for our legitimate interests: maintaining alumni information enables promotion of the University through case studies and other graduate outcome statistics; it also means that we are able to provide you with a basic record of your studies with us, after you have graduated. Your core student record is automatically transferred to our alumni database when you graduate. We may also use your data to: 

• Conduct research (e.g. what University alumni go on to do);
• Produce internal or external reports on graduate outcomes and careers (your data would be anonymised for these reports, unless you have explicitly consented to provide a ‘case study’),  

We also use your data on the basis of consent, more specifically implied consent. This means, from the context of our relationship, we understand that being part of our alumni activities would be of interest to you. However, you can update your communication preferences or simply opt out from our alumni activities at any time by contacting us via [email protected]. We will use your data for the following purposes, unless you change your communication preferences or opt out: 

• Sending you communications and updates about the University;
• Inviting you to events (e.g. alumni reunions);
• Promoting volunteering engagements (e.g. mentoring opportunities);
• Offering you benefits, discounts and services (e.g. careers support, Regent’s Clubs, postgraduate, or executive programmes);
• Building an engaged alumni community to support the University’s educational mission and its strategic and operational aims (e.g. by inviting you to join advisory boards);  
• For administrative purposes (e.g. processing your access card application). 

In certain circumstances, and where it is in the public interest, we may process your personal data due to a ‘recognised legitimate interest’. For example, where necessary, we may: 

• Share your data with another organisation which has requested it because they need it for their public task or official functions;
• Share your data with third parties, such as the police, in relation to the prevention, detection or investigation of crimes;
• Process or share your data in order to respond to, or deal with, an emergency situation (e.g. an extreme weather event, a terrorist incident, other events that threaten serious damage to people’s welfare);
• Process or share your data for safeguarding reasons, e.g. to protect a 'vulnerable individual' from neglect or physical, mental or emotional harm or protecting their physical, mental or emotional well-being. A 'vulnerable individual' covers children (i.e. anyone aged under 18) and ‘at risk’ adults. 

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected.  Some of your personal data (such as your core student record) will be retained in perpetuity, where it is understood to be accurate and relevant to our purpose of supporting and promoting the alumni community, and where it is used to provide you with a record of your studies. Data collected to fulfil a specific and time-limited purpose (e.g. testimonials) is securely destroyed in line with our retention and destruction policy.

For further details about the retention periods for all our activities, please contact [email protected]. 

We can at times share data with third party suppliers to provide services on our behalf. This includes email marketing services to send communications, web services (e.g. online forms) to update your details and software companies which manage our databases on our behalf.  

Your data can also be shared with third parties engaged in providing additional benefits to alumni (e.g. e-mentoring and careers events) and may be shared with potential employers, where you have specifically opted into this service via our careers platform.  

• Under certain circumstances, your personal data will also be shared by the University with the third parties outlined below:
• The police, or local authorities, or other public bodies, as required by law, for crime prevention/detection or anti-fraud purposes or investigation;  
• The Home Office or other government agencies, in order to comply with our obligations as a sponsor of international students;
• Present or potential employers, or other educational organisations, in order to confirm your academic qualifications (with your consent);
• Statutory reporting bodies and sector agencies such as the Office for Students and HESA/Jisc (for the purpose of administering the graduate outcomes survey). 

No third parties have access to your personal data unless we have a contractual relationship with them to deliver services on our behalf, or unless the law allows them to have access. We will not sell or rent your data to any third parties. We will not share your data with third parties for marketing purposes unless we have first obtained your explicit consent to do this. 

All your personal data is processed by our staff in the UK. However, for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance, this data is stored on servers within the European Union (“EU”), as permitted under UK adequacy regulations, and the United States (“US”). Where data is stored in the US, we have taken steps to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this notice. If you would like to learn about the safeguards in place for these transfers, you can contact us by email to [email protected] or in writing to: Governance Office, Regent's University London, Inner Circle, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4NS. 

You have a number of rights in relation to the processing of your data which you can exercise under certain circumstances. These rights are: 

• Right to access your personal data – You have the right to obtain confirmation that your data is being processed lawfully and to access your own personal data. There is no charge for this unless the request is considered manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly where it is repetitive. We may charge a ‘reasonable fee’ which may also apply should further copies of the same personal data be requested. This fee will be based on the administrative cost of providing the personal data.
• Right for rectification – The accuracy of your personal data is important to us. You can request to have any incomplete or inaccurate personal data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new personal data you provide to us.
• Right for deletion – If you decide that you no longer wish the University to hold your personal data, you can ask us to delete your personal data where there is no legitimate reason for the University to continue to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing.  
• Right to object to processing – You have a right to object to the processing of your personal data in relation to direct marketing purposes.  
• Right to restrict processing – You can ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data for the below reasons:
• You are challenging the accuracy of your data, and you don’t want us to process your data until the accuracy of the data is confirmed;
• Where we process your data unlawfully, but you do not want us to erase it; and
• We no longer need your personal data, but you require us to retain your data in order to exercise or defend legal claims.
• Request to transfer your data (data portability) – You can ask us to transfer your data to a third party.  Please note that this right only applies to automated personal data which you initially provided consent for us to use.
• Right to withdraw consent – Where we are processing your data on the basis of your consent, you have a right at any time to withdraw your consent and we will stop processing your data if you do so. Please note that where you decide to withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you with certain services linked to this consent.
• Rights related to automated decision-making including profiling – Our alumni activities do not involve automated decision-making including profiling. 

If you want to exercise any of these rights, please contact us by email to [email protected] or in writing to: Governance Office, Regent's University London, Inner Circle, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4NS. 

Once your identity has been verified, we will fulfil your request to exercise any of the rights within one month of receiving it. However, this period may be extended up to a further two months where requests are complex or numerous. You will be informed of this within one month of the request being received with an explanation of why an extension is necessary. 

If you are not satisfied with our response to your request to exercise any of these rights or believe we are processing your data unlawfully, please let us know. If you remain unsatisfied, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office for guidance on your options: https://ico.org.uk. 

Please contact us if you have any question about our privacy notice or the personal data we hold about you: 

• by email at: [email protected]; or
• in writing to: Governance Office, Regent's University London, Inner Circle, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4NS. 

This Notice is subject to change to meet new legislative requirements or new processing activities, so please check this page occasionally to ensure you are informed of any changes. This privacy notice was last updated in April 2026.