Privacy Statement
The University of Westminster is the data controller of the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) system.
The University of Westminster takes its data protection obligations very seriously, and access to your personal information is subject to a confidentiality agreement, and is limited by system permissions to only those staff, researchers and administrators who need access for their teaching, research or professional role.
VRE system permissions are automatically created based on your status (staff, student, researcher, administrator etc), and the role undertaken in relation to any taught or supervised research work.
Your personal data has been sourced from the University human resources system, student records system and where you have input personal information into the VRE yourself.
The categories of personal information held in the VRE are for the most part personal data relating to your identity and student/researcher/professional life, including University contact information.
In some circumstances, where consent has been given, information relating to agreed learning/research support will be held for individual students and researchers. This information is sensitive personal information of a special category and will only be available where it is essential for the delivery of agreed learning/research support.
Withdrawal of consent to share learning/research support within the VRE is managed from the student records system, and any withdrawal of consent in that system will be reflected in the VRE. Requests to withdrawal of consent related to sharing learning/research support information should be directed to the relevant registry.
Additionally, staff have the option in the VRE to manage their consent to the use of personal professional information and a personal photograph that is loaded into our public website.
Only authorised University VRE system users or staff will have access to VRE personal data and it will only be shared externally with consent, as aggregated statistical data or where allowed and required by law.
The University of Westminster uses your personal information in the VRE system for the purposes of:
- Administering and supporting agreed teaching and research at the University
- Internal and external aggregated reporting on our teaching and research activities, for evidential and quality purposes
- And to provide a mechanism for the publication on our public website of researcher and staff contact, biographical, teaching, research and publications details
Currently any researcher and staff details provided for publication on our website, including any personal photograph, are optional and consent based. As are any special category information held to ensure the delivery of any agreed learning/research support.
All other details are required under the terms of undertaking teaching and research to help ensure the quality and success of these activities.
The University will only retain and process your personal information in the VRE system whilst that information is required for the administration of teaching and research, and until these and related business purposes, including evidence of teaching and research delivered, are no longer required.
None of your personal information is transferred at any time outside the United Kingdom or European Economic Area.
If you have any questions relating to your personal information and your information rights, including right of access, rectification and erasure, please see the University’s data protection web pages.
Or contact the University Information Compliance Team [email protected].
You can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office in relation to any concerns or issue you may have with the processing of your personal information.
This statement is subject to regular review and was last updated in January 2020.