ASU London is committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal data.
This Privacy Notice explains the types of personal data we may collect about you when you interact with us. It also explains how we store and handle that data and keep it safe. This Privacy Notice does not constitute, or form part of, any contract between us. We hope that this document answers any questions you have but, if not, please do get on touch. Contact details are set out below.
The main section of this document covers the following information:
The annexes to this document provide additional detail regarding our data collection and processing in relation to students (including applicants) and staff (including applicants):
You should refer to the relevant annex for more specific information about the types of personal data we hold about you and how we will use it.
It is likely that we will need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time, and you are welcome to come back and check this at any time or contact us by any of the means shown below.
Past versions of this Privacy Notice are available by request to the Data Protection Officer – data.request@asu-london.ac.uk.
We are ASU London, a new specialist HE provider in London, co-founded by Arizona State University, King’s College London and UNSW Sydney, and providing innovative engineering education programmes. In June 2025, UNSW and KCL retired from the charity and Cintana Education acceded to the charity.
ASU London is a data controller. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.
“Personal data” is information relating to you as a living, identifiable individual.
“Processing” your data includes various operations that may be carried out on your data, including collecting, recording, organising, using, disclosing, storing and deleting it.
The law requires us:
The following sections will answer any questions you have but if not, please contact our Data Protection Officer by email at data.request@asu-london.ac.uk or by post to: ASU London, 11 Quebec Way, London, SE16 7LG.
Data that we collect includes names, contact details, socio- economic, medical and financial information, education, qualifications and references, passport details and nationality, awards and achievements and is collected during various periods and interactions. The data collection could be in electronic or paper format.
At present we collect your data:
Often, we receive your personal data directly from you. In addition, we may receive data from third parties. We may also produce personal data relating to you in the course of our relationship with you.
ASU London collects personal data in order to manage its functions as a provider of higher education.
For example:
If we are unable to collect necessary data, it may mean that we are unable to properly manage our activities, or to fulfil our obligations. Where provision of a service to you requires the collection of your personal data, it may not be possible to offer that service to you if we are unable to collect the data needed.
The law on data protection sets out a number of different reasons or conditions for which an organisation may collect and process your personal data. When collecting your personal data, we will always make clear to you which data is necessary for each purpose.
We will generally use your personal information to provide you with the services, products or information you have requested from us. We may need to share your information with our service providers for these purposes, but we will ensure that appropriate contracts with these parties are in place and they only process your information in accordance with our instructions and data protection legislation. If we need to transfer any information to a country not recognised as providing equivalent protection, we will use additional safeguards approved by UK or EU regulators.
Most commonly, we will process your data on the following lawful grounds:
In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations. For example, course applicants and students will need to provide us with personal data to enable us to process their applications, manage students on-course and provide other pastoral and domestic services. Similarly, applicants for jobs and employees will need to provide details of their qualifications, and we will need to process their bank details for payments to be made.
If the law requires it, we may need to collect and process your data. Relevant data may include employment information required to report earnings to tax authorities, evidence of student attendance in support of visa conditions, or providing data about our staff and students to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in line with the legal requirement for universities under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992).
We may also share personal data with law enforcement and similar agencies to meet our obligations under UK and international law in matters such as Safeguarding and Prevent in the UK, or to assist in the investigation of fraud or other criminal activity affecting ASU London.
In specific situations, we will process your data to achieve legitimate interests, aims and objectives as an organisation. For example, in time we will keep records of past members and associates of ASU London so we can keep you informed about ASU London and invite you to events which we consider will be of interest to you. We will keep our donors and supporters informed of new developments in ASU London and of new goals which you might wish to support.
In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent. The use of consent will generally be limited to circumstances in which we need to collect and process more sensitive data (called “special category” data) and where no other legal basis is applicable, for example, medical information in relation to requests for support in respect of a disability or nationality information in support of a visa application. If you are aged under 18, we may ask your parent or guardian to provide appropriate consent.
We may also rely on your consent to send you electronic communications detailing certain events and opportunities which we consider may be of interest to you.
You are entitled to withdraw your consent at any time. This may mean that we are not able to provide you with information in which you may subsequently have an interest.
We may also use your data, typically in an emergency, where this is necessary to protect your vital interests, or someone else’s vital interests.
For specific information about which lawful basis we will rely on in relation to your data, please see the relevant annex.
“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal data require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal data. We aim to collect and process special category data as little as possible. Generally, we will only collect information on your health where we are legally obliged to do so. This is to uphold our duty of care and to ensure the safeguarding of students, candidates, employees and visitors. Other special categories of data may be revealed to us by students during the course of their studies.
The Special Categories of personal data consist of data revealing:
They also consist of the processing of:
We may process special categories of personal data in the following circumstances:
Further legal controls apply to data relating to criminal convictions and allegations of criminal activity. We may process such data on the same grounds as those identified for “special categories” referred to above. We have in place appropriate documents and safeguards which govern the processing of such data.
We use cookies on our website, which track your activity when you visit our website. We use the information gathered to improve our website and user experience. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by the websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We only use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.
We do not collect or store your personal information (e.g. your name or address) so the analytics data cannot be used to identify who you are. We do not allow Google to use or share our data.
Cookies are managed on the website via a third-party tool called Cookiebot™. Listed below are all the cookies used on the site grouped by their type.
Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.
Subject to certain conditions and exceptions set out in English data protection law, you have:
Where the lawful basis for processing your data is consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. When you tell us you wish to exercise your right, we will stop further processing of such data. This will not affect the validity of any lawful processing of your data up until the time when you withdrew your consent. You may withdraw your consent by contacting ASU London’s Data Protection Officer using the contact details below.
To make a request for any of the above, please contact us at data.request@asu-london.ac.uk.
Some of these rights are not automatic and we reserve the right to discuss the basis of your request with us before taking action.
Further guidance on your rights is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office https://ico.org.uk/. You may also wish to contact ASU London’s Data Protection Officer if you are considering how or whether to exercise your rights. To protect the confidentiality of your information and the interests of ASU London, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request to exercise the above rights. If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to request such information.
You have the right to complain to the UK’s supervisory office for data protection, the Information Commissioner’s Office if you believe that your data has been processed unlawfully.
Whenever we collect or process your personal data, we will only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. ASU London’s Registers of Processing Activities (ROPAs) includes retention periods and will indicate the types of data which are archived for historical or statistical purposes.
View the Student ROPA
View the Staff ROPA
We may retain anonymised statistical data indefinitely to enable us to report on such matters as diversity and equality, or the incidents of complaints. Anonymous data is no longer personal data, and as such is not subject to data protection legislation requirements.
We do not, and will not, sell your data to third parties.
ASU London will only share it with third parties, if we are allowed or required to do so by law. Where information is shared with third parties, we will seek to share the minimum amount of information necessary to fulfil the relevant purpose. Examples of instances in which we may share your data are:
It also includes disclosures where the third party is an agent or service provider appointed by ASU London to enable us to operate effectively, provided we are satisfied that appropriate safeguards have been put in place to ensure adequate levels of security for your data. All our third party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies, and are only permitted to process your personal data for specific purposes in accordance with our instructions. We do not allow our third party providers to use your personal data for their own purposes.
We also share your data with our partner Cintana Education, LLC, to enable it to provide student recruitment services on our behalf, and for marketing purposes as further detailed below.
Occasionally we will need to share your personal data with third parties and suppliers outside the European Economic Area (EEA). The EEA includes all EU Member countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
We will only transfer personal data that we collect from you to third-party data processors in countries outside the EEA if an adequacy decision of the European Commission is in place, or appropriate data protection safeguards have been put in place, or it is otherwise lawful to transfer the data. For example, this might be required when we store data in a Cloud Service, or engage international firms to carry out data processing activities on our behalf.
We will only send you electronic communications where we have your consent. In relation to other marketing activities, including postal and telephone communications, and analysis or profiling of contacts to ensure appropriate messages are provided, we have a legitimate interest in carrying out these activities and do so with appropriate consideration of and regard for your rights.
You are free to opt out of hearing from us at any time. You can stop communications from ASU London as follows:
ASU London does not carry out automated decision making.
If you feel that your data has been handled incorrectly, or you are unhappy with the way we have dealt with your query regarding the way we use your personal data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which regulates the use of information in the UK.
You can call them on 0303 123 1113 or go online to https://ico.org.uk/concerns
If you are based outside the UK you have the right to complain to the relevant data protection supervisory authority in your country.
