Graduation ceremonies
This privacy notice explains how Birmingham City University (‘BCU’) protects and processes your personal data, and provides information about your rights in relation to the personal data we hold about you. BCU is the data controller for your personal data and is subject to the UK data protection laws. For contact details relating to data protection, please see section 5 below.
1.What type of personal data is collected?
We will collect your personal data directly from you when you register your intention to take part in your Graduation Ceremony by completing the registration portal in SRS or via email or phone. For more information about how BCU manage your personal data as a student please refer to the Enquirers, Applicants and Students Privacy Notice.
BCU will also collect your audio and visual data at the Graduation Ceremony via a live stream recording. All ceremonies are filmed and live web-streamed. By attending the ceremony, you and your guests should be aware that your images could be used for these purposes. You may be filmed during the ceremony for live web-streaming and be photographed on the ceremony day for future University publicity purposes (this does not include personal portraits taken by our official photographer).
We may collect the following types of personal data about you:
- Personal details such as name, title, address, telephone number, email address
- Student ID number
- Your responses to the publicity questions
- Photographs and video footage
- Details of your award
- Academic related financial status as those who have outstanding debts are excluded from attending
- Any access requirements for your ceremony which may include health information (special category data)
The University relies on the following lawful bases as outlined in the UK GDPR:
- Consent – For example if you provide any health information to us as part of the registration process or correspondence with the events team you are consenting to us using that information to make reasonable adjustments
- Legal obligation – We are legally required to process some information for the purposes of complying with equality and health and safety laws
- Legitimate interests – Allows the University to process personal data where it is in our, or someone else’s legitimate interests to do so and would be reasonably expected and which have a minimal privacy impact. Examples of where we may rely on legitimate interests include:
- It is in the interests of BCU and our graduates to live stream our ceremonies to enable guests who cannot attend in person to watch the ceremony.
2. How will the personal data be used and how long is it kept?
We will use your personal data to organize, manage and administer our graduation ceremonies including:
- To collect information about you including disability and access requirements (special category data).
- Graduation programmes. We provide a commemorative brochure to every graduate on the day of the ceremony. You can opt to have your name printed in the brochure and if you achieve a First Class Honours or Distinction you will also have your award classification included.
- Your name and award will be read out prior to you walking across the stage.
- We will live stream the Graduation Ceremony using social media sites to allow friends and family who are unable to attend to view the ceremony.
- Live stream recordings may be used at the time of the event and in the future to promote BCU.
- We also provide the option for you to be included in official ceremony/alumni merchandise such as your name/award included on BCU branded commemorative merchandise (e.g. clothing/hoodies).
- If you provided consent for your household income details to be shared with the University for bursary purposes we may review this to identify if you are eligible for bursary benefits.
BCU will only send you marketing emails or contact you via your selected preference selections where you have expressly agreed to this. We may personalise the message content based upon information you have provided. You can update your preferences at any time see section 7 below.
BCU may use artificial intelligence (AI) where it may bring benefits to the university and / or people and organisations who interact with BCU. Please be assured that BCU will only use AI where it has been assessed as safe and appropriate. BCU makes every effort to ensure that it meets its’ legal obligations under data protection laws when using AI tools in order to protect your personal data.
We will hold your personal information within a secure dedicated database, in accordance with BCU’s Retention Schedule for as long as is necessary to provide graduation ceremonies and relevant ancillary services to you, after which it will be permanently destroyed.
3. Who can access my personal data and will they share it with anyone?
Within BCU your personal data will only be accessible to relevant staff.
- We will share your personal data with BCU’s Videographer (Red Shell Productions) for the purpose of providing a live stream and recording facility.
- Virtual graduation ceremonies will be hosted by StageClip, BCU will seek your consent to send your name and BCU email address to StageClip. Your data will only be used by StageClip for the purposes of displaying your name at the ceremony and enabling you access to your ceremony.
- Limited personal data (your student ID number, name, award and date/time of ceremony) will be shared with the University’s gowning supplier Ede&Ravenscroft
- If you provide us with permission we may also share information (Name and your student ID number) with Birmingham Mail and Campus Clothing for merchandise
- We may also share your information (student ID number, assigned ceremony, voucher code) with the Symphony Hall box office if you are eligible for complimentary guest tickets
When we use a third party as detailed above, we will always ensure that appropriate controls are in place to ensure data is safe, it is only used for the allowed purpose, and it is permanently deleted after the task has been completed.
We may also share the stream and or a recording with the following social media sites such as: Instagram, X, Facebook, YouTube etc.
In addition to the circumstances stated above we will share your personal information if we believe someone’s life is in danger or we believe we are compelled to by law.
4. What rights do I have regarding my personal data?
You have the right to correct or update your personal data at any time. As a BCU student, your main contact for this is the Student Support Centre. If you cannot do that, you can contact informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk. You may have the right to have your data deleted, the right to restrict processing, the right to object and / or the right to data portability and you have the right to know about and challenge automated decision making and profiling. Follow the links to find out whether those rights apply in these circumstances. To do any of those things or if you have followed the links but would like clarification, please email informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk.
You have the right to request to see the personal data we hold about you. You can submit a Subject Access Request (SAR) in accordance with the Subject Access Requests (SAR) Procedure.
5. How to ask questions or raise concerns?
If you have read this privacy notice and would like further information, you’re welcome to contact our Data Protection Officer by emailing informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk or by post to: Data Protection Officer, Information Management Team, Legal Services, Birmingham City University, Floor 1, Joseph Priestley Building, 6 Cardigan Street, Birmingham, B4 7BD, or by phoning 0121 202 4597.
If you are not content with how we handle your information, please follow our Data Protection Complaints Procedure. If you have used that procedure and are unsatisfied with the response you have received, you then have the right to complain directly to the Information Commission (IC). You can find out more about this on the IC’s complaints website.