Data protectionAccessing your information

Under Data Protection legislation, individuals will have the right to obtain:

• confirmation that their data is being processed;
• access to their personal data; and
• other supplementary information – this largely corresponds to the information that should be provided in a privacy notice.

Any individual the University holds personal data about can make a SAR: staff, students, alumni, contractors, research subjects, visitors to the University etc.

If you wish to request access to your personal information please contact dataprotection@strath.ac.uk including the following information in your request:

• full name;
• your contact details;
• if you are a student or member of staff, your student registration number or employee number;
• if you are a previous student or member of staff details of when you were at the University and what you studied/which department you were in;
• as full a description as possible of the information you are requesting. Please provide as much information as possible to help the University locate the information such as: the time periods concerned; names of relevant members of staff; the department or areas of the University that are most likely to hold the relevant information.

We may have to get back to you to seek further clarification if we do not have enough detail about the information you are seeking.

The University may ask for evidence of your identity, for example passport or driver’s licence. If current staff or students are able to submit their requests from their official University email address this may help with identification.  

Please note that if you request access to your own information via another process or to another department of the University, your request will automatically be forwarded to the Information Governance Unit for processing (if it constitutes a SAR).  

The best way to contact the Information Governance Unit is by email (dataprotection@strath.ac.uk).  You can also contact us by post.

The University will handle your request in the strictest confidence. Authorised staff in relevant departments/service areas will be contacted to locate and retrieve the required information.  This will then be passed to the Information Governance Unit to prepare for release as appropriate. SAR requests are handled on a strictly ‘need-to-know’ basis.

The University will supply the response to you via OneDrive, the University’s secure online cloud storage service. If you prefer to receive a hard copy please indicate this at the time of a request.

In most cases we will respond to your request within one month. If your request is particularly complex we may have to extend this time by a maximum of a further two months but in this case we will inform you and explain the reasons for the delay.

No, we must provide a copy of the information free of charge. However, we can charge a ‘reasonable fee’ for the administrative costs of complying with a request which is manifestly unfounded or excessive or if the request is for a further copy of data, following a request.

If you wish to request information which is not about you then this would come under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 or the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.  Please see our FOI webpages for more information.

Please note that you can only request your own personal data under data protection legislation.  You cannot request information about another individual under a Subject Access Request, unless you are authorised to act on behalf of the data subject and can provide evidence to this effect.

If you are a relative or a solicitor making a request for access to personal data on behalf of an individual, we will require:

• a signed mandate from the individual authorising you to act on their behalf, or
• a power of attorney for the individual.

 Please forward the request to dataprotection@strath.ac.uk  including the following information:

 the name of the individual whose data is being requested

• their relationship with the University e.g., student, staff, alumni
• as full a description as possible of the information you are requesting. Please provide as much information as possible to help the University locate the information such as: the time periods concerned; names of relevant members of staff; the department or areas of the University that are most likely to hold the relevant information.

The University may also require evidence of identity of the individual you are requesting data for, for example a passport or driver’s licence.