Make a privacy request

If you are planning on making a request for your personal information, please be aware that there may be a delay in our response to you during these unprecedented times. We will do our best to meet the deadlines and thank you in advance for your patience.

For more guidance on this approach, see the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Making a privacy request

Under the data protection legislation you have the right to:

  • Be told whether or not your personal data is being processed by the University
  • Be told where personal data is being processed and for what purpose
  • Make a privacy request in respect of your own personal data or make a request on behalf of the data subject
  • Ask the University to change incorrect or incomplete personal data held about you
  • Ask that the University to delete or stop processing your personal data, for example, where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
  • Object to the processing of your personal data where the University is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing
  • Ask the University to stop processing your personal data for a period if the data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the University’s legitimate grounds for processing the data.

We will respond to your request promptly and will provide you with your data within one month. If the request is complex, we may take an additional two months to provide you with your data in which case we will let you know.

You will need to provide satisfactory proof of your identity. Members of the University who submit their request via their university email address will meet this requirement.

When you receive your data, you may find that some of it is blanked out. This is where we have removed data that relates to other individuals to protect their privacy or where it relates to other exemptions within data protection legislation. If this happens, then we will explain it in more detail at the time of providing you with your data.

You can also make a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Personal information held by the Student Union

If you would like to request personal data held about yourself from the University of Surrey Students’ Union please email Natalie Bancroft as they are a separate data controller.

Making a privacy request

Students' Union personal data request