Data protection

Requesting data held by your university: A Subject Access Request template for students and academics

We have designed a template for university students and academics to request information held about them by their universities. This information may include any correspondence with public officials such as the police or the Home Office.

Following an article by Liberty Investigates, Liberty’s editorially independent investigative journalism unit, and Metro.co.uk uncovering cases of universities monitoring student protestors and offering intel to police, we have designed a template for university students and academics to request information held about them by their universities, including any correspondence with public officials such as the police or the Home Office.

This request for information that your university holds about you (your ‘personal data’) is called a Subject Access Request (‘SAR’). Your right to make an SAR comes from the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

The template is available to download, edit and then send to your university’s data protection team below:

Disclaimer: You should only send an SAR to your university if you feel comfortable doing so – your records will be looked at by your university’s data protection team and could potentially be exchanged with other departments in the university as part of your request.

If you intend to use our template to request information from your university, we’d be grateful if you could contact us via e-mail on contact@libertyhumanrights.org.uk

Prior to sending your request, Liberty may be able to provide you with additional support in tailoring the wording of your Subject Access Request to more effectively target disclosure of information held on your university’s systems.

Liberty Investigates is the editorially independent investigative journalism unit at Liberty. They work in collaboration with media partners – which have also included the Times, the Guardian and Channel 4 – to expose hidden injustice. If you are open to the idea of your case being included in one of their stories (potentially on an anonymous basis, if preferred), please let them know by contacting libertyinvestigates@libertyhumanrights.org.uk

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