Graduation ceremonies

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 data 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).

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 in the Birmingham Mail and name 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.

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.

• 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: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.

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 10 below.

BCU is committed to safeguarding your personal data. Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation. In relation to all our records these are held within a dedicated and secure database system hosted on a secure network with access limited on a need to know basis. A range of administrative, technical, physical security controls are used to ensure a robust approach to protecting data held on University IT systems, and when approved transfers between third parties are undertaken. For more information a copy of BCU’s overarching Data Protection Policy is available on the policies page of the BCU website.

We will hold your personal information within a secure dedicated database for as long as is necessary to provide educational and ancillary services to you. Where you have indicated you no longer wish to receive any services your information will be retained and securely and permanently destroyed in accordance with the BCU retention and destruction policy.

BCU wants to ensure that we keep the details we hold about you up to date and communicate with you fully in accordance with your wishes. You should also get in touch with us if any of your personal details change. You can update your details and your communication preferences during enrolment tasks, by contacting Academic Services or at any time:

• By email to: informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk
• By telephone on: +44 (0) 121 202 4597
• By Post to: Data Protection Officer
  Information Management Team
  Birmingham City University
  University House
  15 Bartholomew Row
  Birmingham

Under the Data Protection Laws, you have the following rights:

• Request access to your data (commonly known as a “subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of your data and to check that we are lawfully processing it;
• Request correction of your data. This enables you to ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you.
• Request erasure of your data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove your data in certain circumstances, for example, if you consider that there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
• Object to processing of your data where we are relying on our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your data for direct marketing purposes.
• Request the restriction of processing of your data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your data, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• Request the transfer of your data to another party.

Depending on the circumstances and the nature of your request it may not be possible for us to do what you have asked, for example, where there is a statutory or contractual requirement for us to process your data and it would not be possible to fulfil our legal obligations if we were to stop. However, where you have consented to the processing (for example, where you have asked us to send you certain types of communication), you can withdraw your consent at any time, by emailing us at informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk. In this event, we will stop the processing as soon as we can. If you choose to withdraw consent it will not invalidate past processing and it may impact our ability to provide particular additional services to you. Further information on your rights is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

If you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the following contact details:

By email to: informationmanagement@bcu.ac.uk

By telephone on: +44 (0) 121 202 4597

By post to: Data Protection Officer
Information Management Team
Birmingham City University
Floor 1, Joseph Priestley Building
6 Cardigan Street
Birmingham B4 7RJ

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about how we use or handle your personal data please contact the Data Protection Officer using the contact details in section 11 above.

If you are not content with how we handle your information we would ask you to contact our Data Protection Officer to help you. You do also have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner or via post at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. More information about the Information Commissioner.

This privacy notice may be updated from time to time so you may wish to check it each time you submit personal information to BCU. The date of the most recent versions will appear on this page (see version control). We encourage you to check our privacy notice from time to time to ensure you understand how your data will be used and to see any minor updates. If material changes are made to the privacy notice, for instance how we would like to use your personal data, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification or correspondence of privacy notice changes). We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal data.

Document version control

• Version: 3
• Created: 03/04/2024