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Introduction

Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin actively seeks to preserve the data protection rights of individuals who share personal data with the University. This is a statement of the practices of the Academic Registry, Trinity College Dublin in connection with the processing of personal data for the purposes of our services and the steps taken by the University as a data controller to safeguard individuals’ rights under data protection legislation, specifically the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (‘GDPR’) and Data Protection Acts 1988-2018.

How we collect your personal data

We collect personal data to provide our services to you in accordance with the purposes outlined in this privacy notice. This data may be collected directly from you, from other systems under the control of Trinity College or from third parties, including Government agencies and international affiliates. We collect personal data via a wide variety of channels including but not limited to: website forms, written application forms, email and phone enquiries and surveys.

For further information on how your personal data is processed please see:

Data security

Personal data is stored securely as required by the Trinity College Information Systems Security Policy and Data Protection Policy. The University is committed to ensuring that the processing of personal data is safeguarded by appropriate technical and organisational security measures relevant to the processing in accordance with Article 32 GDPR requirements.

When we process personal data on our systems the data will be stored either on University premises or on secure IT platforms within the European External Area (‘EEA’) or external of the EEA in compliance with Chapter V GDPR requirements.

Purpose for processing your personal data

The personal data we collect from you will only be processed by the Academic Registry for the specific and lawful purposes as outlined in this Privacy Notice. The Academic Registry will ensure that your data is processed fairly and lawfully in keeping with the principles of data protection as set out under Article 5 GDPR.

Specifically, your personal data may be processed for any of the following purposes:

Service Centre Desk

    • Education verifications

    • Document Verification (Statutory bodies, e.g. Social Welfare, Veterans Aid)

    • Certifying forms

    • Registration letters

    • Receipts • English translations

    • Thesis submissions and thesis submission form completion.

    • Student ID card production

    • Sharing personal data, including image, with Trinity Sport for Sports Facility access

    • Seanad Register

    • FOI Requests

    • Public access to graduate books

    • Queue Management

    • Admission Queries - Application / CAO / other

    • Applicant / Student/ Sponsor Fees enquiries

    • Collection of prizes, awards, medals

    • Garda Vetting - Review/Acceptance

    • Name / Details Change Request

    • Receiving Departmental Sponsorship / Research Funding forms

Applications and Admissions

    • Processing Postgraduate Taught applications, including Irish Aid Funding

    • Processing Postgraduate Research applications, Including Distance Learning PhDs

    • Postgraduate Awards for Postgraduate Research applicants

    • Inbound and Outbound Students - Erasmus and non-EU

    • Undergraduate admissions

    • Requests for data

    • BT Young Scientist

    • Entrance Exhibition Awards

Assessment, Progression and Graduation

    • Prizes

    • Exams

    • Scholarships

    • Assessment

    • Marking

    • Invigilation Applications and Scheduling

    • Nomination of Examiners

    • E-Thesis - Submission and Examination

    • Thesis to Library

    • Graduation

    • Results

    • Receive/Issue calls for nominations for Honorary Degrees

    • Outstanding debt

    • Tickets for ceremony

    • Name change requests

    • Address Amendments

    • Production of 'Blue Lists' i.e. the list of graduands for each ceremony

    • Commencements - graduation of candidates and students

    • Posting of degrees for 'In Absentia' candidates

Business Support and Planning

    • Tutor Allocation

    • Admissions Rollover

    • HEA SRS Dataset A

    • HEA SRS Dataset B

    • CAO

    • Registration

    • Reporting

    • Mentor Allocation

    • Reporting

    • Transcripts

    • Academic Rollover

    • Seanad Electoral Register

Communications, Human Resources, Administration (CHA)

    • Transcript Production

    • Module enrolment for visiting students

    • Student Survey

    • Facebook / Social Media enquiries

    • HR Activities

Records and Case Management

    • Exam absence - Undergraduate cases (UG)

    • Withdrawal from College (UG)

    • Exam accommodations (UG)

    • OBA - Off-books taking assessments (UG)

    • OBN - Off-books no assessment (UG)

    • COFA (Courts of First Appeal)

    • Mark changes (UG)

    • Open progression (UG)

    • Medical repeat (UG)

    • Fitness to return to study (UG)

    • Lifting Exclusion (UG)

    • Scholarship Intermissions (UG and PG)

    • Course Transfer - Postgraduate cases (PG)

    • Admissions - Deferral (PG)

    • Fitness to return to study (PG)

    • Change of supervisor (PG)

    • Continuation Year (PG)

    • Examination Deferral (PG)

    • Extension to Submit Thesis (PG)

    • Major Revision (PG)

    • OBN - off-books no assessment (PG)

    • Open progression (PG)

    • Readmission (PG)

    • Retro-registration (PG)

    • Withdrawal from College (PG)

Student Finance

    • Free Fees Assessment

    • Students Assessment and Eligibility

    • SUSI student processing

    • Student Loans (UK and Northern Ireland, US Federal Aid, Sallie Mae certification, Veteran Affairs, Canadian Aid), student processing

    • Scottish Aid student processing

    • Creation of new / continuing students for inclusion in College Calendar

    • Scholarship payment management

    • Payment and debt management

    • Fee management

    • Loans assessment

    • Enrolment Forms

    • Disbursement Forms

    • Attendance Confirmation Forms

    • Private savings administration

    • Aid related payment proposals

    • Application of scholarships

    • BT Young Scientist - provide award payments

    • Student sponsorship

    • Correct charges incorrectly coded to student and not sponsor

    • Erasmus Receipts reporting

    • Auditor's queries

Legal basis for processing personal data

Ordinary personal data

Typically, Trinity College processes personal data under the legal basis that processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the exercise of official authority vested in the University, specifically the Universities Act, 1997 and the Higher Education Authority Act, 1971 or where the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the College is subject.

Trinity College may also be required to process your personal data where it is necessary for the formation of a contract with you. In certain circumstances, Trinity College may also seek your consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes.

Special categories of personal data

The University processes special categories of data that relate to you in limited circumstances and in accordance with data protection legislation. Your special category data may be processed:

    • upon receipt of your explicit consent;

    • for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety of health care;

    • where processing is necessary to protect your vital interests of another natural person where the data subject is physically or legally incapable of giving consent;

    • where it is necessary for the purposes of providing or obtaining legal advice or for the purposes of, or in connection with, legal claims, prospective legal claims, legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings, or is otherwise necessary for the purposes of establishing, exercising or defending legal rights, including in relation to the management of medical risk and medical claims.

    • for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of your working capacity, medical diagnosis or the provision of health / social care or treatment;

    • processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes; or

    • for reasons of substantial public interest.

Details of third parties with whom we share personal data

Trinity College will only share your data with third parties where necessary for the purposes of processing as outlined in this Privacy Notice and where there is a legal basis to do so.

The University may share relevant personal data with the following categories of third parties:

    • Trinity Development and Alumni.

    • State or regulatory bodies including the Higher Education Authority, Department of Education and Skill, Department of Justice and the Central Applications Office.

    • Research sponsors and external funding agencies.

    • Research and academic partners.

    • Potential employers where you have requested us to share your data.

    • Your professional service providers where you have requested us to share your data.

    • Occupational Health Providers and medical practitioners.

    • Firms that provide professional services to the University such as legal firms and auditors.

    • Firms and individuals that provide services to the University such as insurance brokers and providers and pension administrators.

    • Firms that provide archiving and storage and disposal of confidential waste.

    • An Garda Síochána when we are required to do so by law.

    • IT service providers, including Cloud-based service providers that provide essential services to the University e.g. Microsoft, Google, Oracle and Tribal Solutions.

A full list of Trinity College Dublin Interfaced Systems is available here.

How long we retain your data

The personal data that we collect from you and process will encompass a period starting during the registration process, throughout your relationship with the University and following the termination of the relationship with the University.

In keeping with the data protection principle of storage limitation we will only retain your data for as long as is necessary and in accordance with the Trinity College Records Management Policy.

Your rights under data protection law

You have the following rights over the way we process your personal data. For further information please visit the Trinity College Data Protection Website.

Right of Access

You have the right to request a copy of the personal data which is processed by the Academic Registry and to exercise that right easily and at reasonable intervals.

Consent

You may withdraw your consent to the Academic Registry processing your personal data at any time, when consent is the legal basis for the processing. To withdraw your consent, we require you to advise the Academic Registry in writing.

Rectification

You have the right to have inaccuracies in personal data that we hold about you rectified.

Erasure

You have the right to have your personal data deleted where we no longer have any justification for retaining it, subject to exemptions such as the use of pseudonymised or anonymised data for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) GDPR.

Object

You have the right to object to processing your personal data if:

    • We have processed your data based on a legitimate interest or for the exercise of the public tasks of the University if you believe the processing to be disproportionate or unfair to you.

    • The personal data was processed for the purposes of direct marketing or profiling related to direct marketing.

    • We have processed the personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

Restriction

You have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data if:

    • You are contesting the accuracy of the personal data.

    • The personal data was processed unlawfully.

    • You need to prevent the erasure of the personal data in order to comply with legal obligations.

    • You have objected to the processing of the personal data and wish to restrict the processing until a legal basis for continued processing has been verified.

Portability

Where it is technically feasible you have the right to have a readily accessible machine readable copy of your data transferred or moved to another data controller where we are processing your data based on your consent and if that processing is carried out by automated means.

Cookies

We use information gathered from cookies to help improve your experience of our website. Some cookies are essential so you can move around the website and use its features. Our website also contains third party cookies which are listed in our Cookie Register. You can refuse or consent to third party cookies when you first visit our website or by following the guidelines in our Cookie Policy.

Further information

If you have any queries relating to the processing of your personal data for the purposes outlined above or you wish to make a request in relation to your rights you can contact the Academic Registry:

Email: academic.registry@tcd.ie

Webchat: https://www.tcd.ie/academicregistry/webchat/

Post: Academic Registry, Watts Building, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Tel: +353 1 896 4500

If you wish to make a complaint or escalate an issue relating to your rights you can contact the Trinity College Data Protection Officer:

Email: dataprotection@tcd.ie

Post: Data Protection Officer Secretary’s Office, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

If you are not satisfied with the information we have provided to you in relation to the processing of your personal data or you are dissatisfied with how Trinity College is processing your data you can raise a concern with the Data Protection Commission.