Introduction
When you complete an application form for study at the University of Liverpool, whether via UCAS (for undergraduate applications) our online application system, Apply Yourself (for taught and research postgraduate applications and pre-sessional English Language applications), through our student portal for current undergraduates who wish to study postgraduate taught programmes or directly to us for programmes such as Go Higher or for courses offered by Continuing Education, you are sharing your personal data with us.
We use the data that you have shared with us for the purpose of processing your application for study and determining whether you are eligible to be made an offer of a place. Once an offer of a place has been made, we use the data you have provided to confirm your place and make sure our student records database is ready for you to be able to register as a student.
What the legal basis is for collecting it?
The processing of your data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests of the University in enabling us to manage your application to study at the University of Liverpool; if you are made an offer of a place and you accept it, a contract has been formed between us and from then until your registration as a student, we process your data on the basis that we need to do so in order to fulfil our contractual obligations to you. Throughout the Admissions process we may need to share your data with other internal Departments, such as Student Administration to allow us to fully process your application. We may also have a legal obligation to pass your data to third parties, such as UK Visas and Immigration if you are an international student who will require a Student visa, or to prevent criminal activity such as fraud.
This privacy statement outlines what this means in practice and explains how the University of Liverpool collects, stores, manages and protects your data during the admissions stage of your relationship with us.
What it will be used for?
The University’s central Admissions Team and local Departmental Admissions teams processes applications for study for all full-time undergraduate and full-time and part-time postgraduate taught and postgraduate research degrees. We receive applications either via the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), direct from the applicant (normally during Clearing) or, direct via University partners, for undergraduate programmes, or via our online postgraduate application form for taught and research postgraduate programmes and pre-sessional English Language programmes, or through our student portal for current undergraduates who wish to study postgraduate taught programmes. The University also receives personal data from you if you complete an application form for other programmes run by the University, such as the Go Higher programme or courses offered by Continuing Education.
We use the data that you provide to determine whether or not your previous academic qualifications and other information provided on the application form have prepared you appropriately for study on our programmes, and to enable us to decide whether to make you an offer of a place.
What types of information we need?
In order to provide this service, we gather information from you via the application form and any other information you may have supplied to us directly, and we may also use information we have received from third parties, including but not limited to:
- Your referees
• An educational agent (if you applied via one of the University’s representatives overseas
• Your previous place of study
• Awarding bodies, including those offering English language tests such as IELTS and TOEFL - Portfolios, media of performance or essays
- UCAT/GAMSAT
Your data is shared with individual members of staff who have been appointed to make decisions on applications according to the criteria that have been agreed for entry.
As an applicant, the data we hold is mostly provided by you when you completed either the UCAS application form or one of the University’s online postgraduate application forms. This may include:
- Your name, title, gender and date of birth
• Your home or parental address, correspondence address, email address and telephone numbers
• Your nationality, country of birth, country of residence, passport number
• The course(s) you are applying for
• The qualifications you already hold, and those you are currently studying towards, including English language qualifications
• Other documents in support of your application, such as transcripts, degree certificates, a Curriculum Vitae, etc
• The mode of study (full-time, part-time, online learning, etc)
• Your main source of funding
• If you are an international student who will require a Student visa, your passport number and CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies) number
• If you are an international student, the length of any previous study in the UK - If you are applying for an Undergraduate (Bachelors) degree, please email: uguk@liverpool.ac.uk
• If you are applying for a Taught Postgraduate (MA, MSc, Masters) degree, or for a Research (MRes, MPhil, PhD) degree, please email: pgosi@liverpool.ac.uk
Some of the data that we hold may be regarded as particularly sensitive, and this includes:
Ethnicity (if you have chosen to disclose this on the application form)
Disability (if you have chosen to disclose this on the application form)
Whether or not you have any criminal convictions
Extenuating circumstances that have impacted your education
Other information that we hold may be obtained from your referee(s), who may be asked to comment on your academic suitability for the course for which you have applied.
The University also receives UCAT scores for applicants for programmes in Medicine and Dentistry.
Who the information will be shared with?
We use your information for the purpose of managing your application for study at the University of Liverpool. When we receive your application, it is passed to an admissions decision-maker, who will determine your eligibility to be made an offer for the course you have applied for. The decision-maker may be a member of the central Admissions Team, a member of staff in the clinical subject areas (Medicine, Dentistry, Health Sciences and Veterinary Science), or an academic member of staff who has been appointed as an Admissions Tutor.
If you have applied for a programme which is run in conjunction with one of our partner institutions, we will share your data with relevant admissions staff at those institutions.
We may also use the data you provide to determine your eligibility for certain scholarships, where we can determine whether you meet the criteria on the basis of the information you have provided on your application form.
We will also use the data you have provided to let you know about other services provided by the University, which may be of interest to you, such as letting you know about the student accommodation we offer.
In addition, we may be required to share data about you with third parties. If you are an international student who will require a Student visa to study in the UK, we are required to pass the following personal information to UK Visas and Immigration for the purposes of supporting your application for a visa:
Surname/Family Name
First Name
Other names
Date of Birth
Gender
Nationality
Country of Birth
Passport Number
Applicant Number
UCAS ID Number
We may be required to share information on applicants to certain programmes in the clinical subject areas (Medicine, Dentistry, Health Sciences and Veterinary Science) with external bodies such as the General Medical Council (GMC) or General Dental Council (GDC). We may also share information with other external bodies in order to prevent criminal activity, such as fraud.
We use data about your Ethnicity for monitoring purposes only. If you have declared a Disability, we will use this information to enable our Disability Advice and Guidance Team to contact you to let you know of the support they may be able to offer and any reasonable adjustments that may be made for you.
If you disclose other sensitive information, such as having been in local authority care or factors that may have disrupted your education such as being a young adult carer, we may share this information with specialist colleagues within the University whose role is to offer advice and support.
If you have declared that you have a criminal conviction, we will contact you to request more information about the offence and to seek your permission, if relevant, to contact your Probation Officer or other official who may be dealing with your case. If the conviction is for one of a range of offences, including offences against the person, offences involving children or offences involving drugs or the trafficking of drugs, we will convene an Admissions Risk Assessment Panel to determine whether the application may be allowed to proceed. Further details of our risk assessment procedure may be found in our Criminal Convictions policy.
Whether the information will be used to make any automated decisions about the individual.
We may choose to use an automated admissions process to confirm acceptance or rejection of applicants’ academic grades once the academic results are received from UCAS.
We may also choose to use an automated admissions process to support admissions decision makers in processing applications for both undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes.
How long it will be kept for?
The length of time that we keep your data will depend on the outcome of your application to us. If your application for study is successful and you go on to register as a student, your application will form part of your student record and will therefore be kept for up to six years after you graduate or otherwise leave the University.
If your application for study is unsuccessful, your data will be kept for up to six years from the date of your application being unsuccessful or you having withdrawn your application.
International students who will require a Student visa should be aware that UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) require us to keep application data at least until the University is subject to a periodic audit of its visa compliance procedures. This means that your application data may be kept an indeterminate number of years, even if your application for study was unsuccessful.
How the individual can withdraw their consent (where appropriate)?
If you become aware that the data we hold about you is incorrect, please contact us at one of the email addresses shown below, and we will correct the information where appropriate. In some cases, such as if your name has changed, we may ask you to provide documentary evidence of the change, such as a marriage certificate or deed poll before making the change.
What rights they have under the UK GDPR.
You also have the right to request copies of the data we hold about you. To do so, please submit a ‘Subject Access Request’. More information about submitting subject access requests may be found here.
How they can complain to the University’s Data Protection Officer.
In the first instance, you may wish to contact the Admissions Team directly to discuss your concerns. Please contact Jude King, Associate Director, Admissions, Enquiries and Fulfilment. Contact details are included at the end of this document.
How they can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
In addition, you may raise any concerns directly with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at: https://ico.org.uk/concerns
In the interests of being transparent, we may amend this Privacy Statement from time to time. Any significant changes to this Policy or to the way in which we treat your data will be communicated via the University’s website.
Further Information
If you have any questions that you feel have not been answered by this Privacy Statement, please do not hesitate to contact:
Jude King
Associate Director, Admissions, Enquiries and Fulfilment
Student Recruitment, Admissions and Widening Participation
University of Liverpool
Email: judeking@liverpool.ac.uk
Back to: Legal & Governance