Privacy and your data rights

The UK GDPR, the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directives) Regulations make up the UK’s data protection legal framework. Together they enshrine the principles of transparency and accountability to individuals about how we use ‘personal data’ about them.

‘Personal data’ is the term used by data protection law to describe information relating to an identifiable human being.

These pages provide privacy information for the people about whom the University holds personal data; data protection law refers to you as a ‘data subject’.

Privacy Notices

Find out:

• Who is the data controller
• What personal data we collect and use
• Why we collect and use personal data (and the relevant legal bases)
• With whom we share personal data and why
• How long we keep personal data

By following the relevant link:

• Current students
• Prospective students
• Potential, current and former employees; casual workers and contractors
• Alumni and supporters
• All users of ORIAM
• Members of Court
• Academic Research project participants
• Speakers, visitors and attendees to Panmure House events and public engagement activities
• Heriot-Watt University Malaysia
• Widening Access & Named Donor Bursary

Data subject rights

As a data subject, you have the right to:

• Find out what personal data we process about you
• Obtain a copy of the personal data we hold about you (find out how at Personal data access)
• Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data
• Unsubscribe from marketing messages. You can do this by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ button in marketing messages.

Under certain conditions you also have the right to object to the way we use data about you, or ask us to:

• Restrict the use of data about you (for example if you have raised issues about the accuracy or use of personal data about you) until we have investigated and responded to your concerns
• Erase personal data about you
• Provide you with a portable electronic copy of data you have provided to us

To exercise any of these rights, contact the Information Rights Team using the address below:

Information Rights Team, Information Governance, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS

DataProtection@hw.ac.uk

Data protection complaints

You also have the right to make a data protection complaint if you think the University has infringed data protection law because of the way we have used personal information about you. Find out more at Data Protection Complaints.