Data Protection

The types of personal data processed by LYIT include, inter alia:

• Personal Information: Student ID number(s), Name, date of birth, country of birth, nationality and telephone numbers, Addresses (home and term addresses), Eircode, Gender, PPS number, Email address
• Academic Information: Details of previous examination result, Schools/colleges attended, Course application details, Academic history, Relevant work experience, Academic marks, Attendance records, Qualifications awarded, Continuous Assessment and Examination Scripts, Disciplinary information. Deregistration Rationale.
• Financial Information: Details of funding and fees paid and outstanding, Bank details, including IBAN, BIC, Name of bank/ building society, Credit Card Details (processed in real time),
• Interaction Information: Engagement with IT system, Blackboard activity and use of facilities such as the library, IP Address,
• Other Personal Information: Next of kin/emergency contact details, Visa Information (International students only), Image in digital photograph for ID card and Images in CCTV.
• Special category (sensitive) personal data: Health and disability information, Religion, Ethnic origin, Details of criminal convictions as provided through Garda Vetting (for specific courses). Some of the information about you that the Institute holds is classified as sensitive personal data. This sensitive personal data is collected to meet Government requirements, to monitor whether our equal opportunities policies are working and to ensure that disabled students and other under-represented groups receive appropriate support. For certain programmes which involve contact with minors, information about past criminal convictions is processed. In addition to the normal standards of confidentiality, we also carefully control access to sensitive data within the Institute so that it is only available to people who 'need to know'.

The purposes for which LYIT may process your personal information include:

• To administer your studies, record academic achievements and determine/record your overall award outcome. The Institute uses virtual learning platform called Blackboard for the purpose of providing you with teaching and learning resources to help you succeed within your programme of study.
• To assist in the registration process for international students and Springboard students and RPL students (Refer to the RPL Privacy Notice)
• To administer the financial aspects for your registration as a student (e.g. payment of fees, refunds, debt collection)
• To allow the deregistration process including capturing reasons for withdrawal to allow the Institute to improve the overall student experience
• To identify you and enable you to access resources by means of your ID cards
• To support you in your studies, i.e. we may use information you have given us (e.g. disability) and information we collect about your engagement with services (e.g. Blackboard) to identify who require additional support or specific services and enable analytics for reporting purposes (such as student progress and academic performance). The Institute does provide a Communications Learning Centre (CLC) and Maths Learning Centre (MLC), use of these services is voluntary and these services have their own privacy notices.
• To monitor and evaluate the student experience.
• To review attendance, your attendance will be recorded in electronic or hard copy format by your lecturers and this will be remitted to administration.
• To enable effective communication with you using phone, email and post regarding your academic career furthermore occasionally the Institute may have events, or information, which we believe may be of interest or benefit to you and you will be contacted by phone or email or post.
• To enable our continued contact with you after you complete your studies (e.g. survey of graduate work destinations, alumni networks, marketing, etc)
• To manage Institute facilities and services including Computer Services, Library, Careers, Chaplaincy service etc.
• To administer appeals, complaints, grievances, disciplinary matters, and matters relating to conduct and cheating / plagiarism
• To process scholarships, prizes and bursaries
• To ensure your health, safety and well-being
• To maintain a proportionate CCTV system for the specific purposes outlined in the CCTV Policy.
• To assist with law enforcement or where required or authorised by law and to provide information to organisations such as the HEA, Social Welfare, Revenue, SUSI, the Gardaí, in line with legal and government requirements.
• To comply with statutory reporting requirements.
• To enable the preparation and analysis of student statistics relating to registration, performance, progression and retention at sectoral level via THEA
• To produce reports and aggregated statistics for management and research purposes in order to plan and improve services
• To track progress in achieving the criteria for designation as a Technological University via the Connacht-Ulster Alliance (CUA)
• To ensure academic standards are maintained
• To administer voluntary surveys of student opinion about your experience and the performance of the Institute
• To create and publish print & electronic material (e.g. prospectus, brochures, website, etc) for promotional and archival purposes. (Consent will be obtained in advance of using your individual photograph in the Prospectus by the Marketing Department)
• To arrange placements for you with employers.
• To confirm the details of your academic achievements, and for statistical and historical purposes, a core record of your studies in retained indefinitely
• To facilitate elections by the Students' Union
• Recruitment and selection for Institute positions (e.g. library staff and Student Ambassadors).
• To allow your name to be included on our Graduation Booklet when you graduate from an Institute programme.
• To facilitate Contact Tracing during COVID 19.
• To allow Institute staff to return an item to you if something you have lost is found and handed in to the Institute a member of staff may contact you by phone or email.
• To respond to requests for information made under data protection legislation and freedom of information.

Additional processing may be required for students registered on specific programmes (e.g. teaching and social care work) or with certain funding requirements or for students who choose to pursue studies abroad.

The Institute undertakes to maintain your information securely and restricts access to employees, professional advisers, and data processors on a strictly need to know basis.

Below are examples of when the Institute will release data about you to third parties (i.e. outside LYIT) where we have a legitimate reason in connection with your time here at the Institute.

LYIT may share your relevant personal data with bodies including the following:

• Higher Education Authority (HEA)* - please refer to the HEA collection notice below
• Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI)
• Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) for grant eligibility purposes
• Department of Social Protection to verify employment status and eligibility for allowances
• Revenue Commissioners
• Professional and regulatory bodies where programmes are accredited by such bodies for example Engineers Ireland, Nursing and Midwifery board of Ireland, the Veterinary Council of Ireland, the HSE (Health and Safety Authority) bodies for Nursing programmes
• Work placement providers
• Other higher education institutions, partners or research organisations to which a student transfers or pursues an exchange programme or where a student’s programme is being run collaboratively
• Software providers or service providers performing administrative functions on behalf of LYIT (e.g. IT services)
• Technological Higher Education Association (THEA) LYIT shares pseudonymised (you can’t be identified without additional information) student data with THEA. THEA is the representative body for the Institutes of Technology and Technological Universities and supports our aims and objectives in numerous ways including collating student data for statistical analysis. LYIT has a relevant data protection agreement in place with THEA.
• Connaught Ulster Alliance (CUA) Working Group LYIT shares information with the working group of the CUA. The CUA is a consortium of LYIT, GMIT and IT Sligo who are working together to achieve Technological University Status. LYIT has a relevant data protection agreement in place with the CUA Working Group.
• LYIT Students’ Union to facilitate student elections.
• External examiners.
• Sponsors funding student prizes and awards.
• Research funding bodies.
• Plagiarism detection service providers (e.g. Turnitin) to ensure academic standards.
• Potential employers/recruitment companies for verification of qualifications.
• Student and Staff Surveys: The Institute receives a number of requests each year from students and staff who wish to circulate surveys, relating to their studies, using the Institute email system. Where appropriate the Institute will try to accommodate these requests. Surveys are also carried out at an Institute level to monitor student feedback on certain items such as COVID 19.
• Official Surveys. The Institute has an obligation to the HEA and other official bodies to carry out a number of official surveys. These includes the Equal Access Survey – a consent based survey completed by first year students and the Graduate Survey – completed by graduates it also includes Student Survey Ireland – Irish Survey of Student Engagement – this is a voluntary survey. The company who collect the data are given the student number while the information is being collected. This is then removed so that the final data set are anonymous.
• Insurance companies in respect of accidents occurring within the Institute.
• Institute legal advisors.
• An Garda Síochána to assist in the prevention or detection of crime.
• Garda Vetting Agency (specific courses only).
• Auditors for example the Institute is subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) on an annual basis and internal auditors for the sector are Deloitte. Various funding bodies may also require the audit of claims for funding.
• Credit Card Providers.
• Information may be shared with the HSE for contact tracing purposes during COVID 19. The legal reason for processing is public interest.

This is not an exhaustive list and any other disclosures to third parties not listed here are made only where there is legitimate reason to do so and in accordance with the law.

It is your responsibility as a student to communicate and engage with the Institute. LYIT will not normally disclose your data to parents or relatives without your consent, other than in exceptional circumstances i.e. where there is potential danger to the health or well-being of a student. We may agree to discuss matters relating to you with a parent/relative but only if you consent to this. Exceptionally, where urgent communication with a student through direct contact details is not possible or has, following repeated attempts, been unsuccessful, contact may be via a student’s parents and/or next of kin using contact details provided by the student.

All graduating students, including those graduating in absentia, will have their name, award and classification listed in the graduation booklet. The graduation ceremonies are streamed live on the internet and are recorded for publication on the internet and for archival purposes. Many LYIT events are recorded and streamed/published on the LYIT website.

There are certain circumstances where we will transfer personal data outside of the EEA to a country that is not recognised by the European Commission as providing an equivalent level of protection for personal data as is provided for in the EEA. We are currently working on getting appropriate transfer mechanisms in place to protect personal data in these circumstances.

There are certain circumstances where we will transfer personal data to a third party employer or recruitment agency to allow them to verify your attendance at LYIT and in other situations for the provision of a reference. We are currently working on getting appropriate safeguards around verifying your consent and verifying the source which the information will be provided.

You have the following rights, subject to certain exemptions, in relation to your data:

• The right to be informed about the data processing the Institute does
• The right to request access to your personal data held by the Institute – to have a copy of the personal data that we hold about you
• The right to rectification – to have inaccurate or incomplete personal data rectified
• The right to erasure of personal data where there is no legitimate reason for the Institute to continue to process your personal data. If you exercise this right, the Institute will continue to hold some personal data which, for graduates, will include name, subject(s) studied, graduation details, date of birth and unique identification number, so that we do not inadvertently contact you in the future and to maintain your education records for archive purposes. We may also continue to hold some financial records about you for statutory purposes
• The right to restrict the processing of personal data – you have the right to block the processing of your personal data in specific situations
• The right to data portability - you have the right to request that the Institute provides some elements of your information (e.g. academic progress records) in a commonly used machine readable format in order to provide it to other organisations
• The right to object – you can object to the processing of your personal data by the Institute in certain circumstances, including the sending & receipt of direct marketing material
• The right to object to automated decision making & profiling. LYIT does not currently make decisions affecting students by automatic means without human intervention.

In order to exercise any of the above rights please contact us using the contact details set out below.

The Institute will retain your personal data in accordance with our retention policy in our data inventories. The policy operates on the principle that we keep personal data for no longer than is necessary for the purpose for which we collected it. It is also kept in accordance with any legal requirements that are imposed on us. This means that the retention period for your personal data varies depending on the type of personal data. The Institute will hold some of your data indefinitely in support of your lifelong relationship with LYIT, or unless you ask us to do otherwise. See ‘The right to erasure of personal data’ above.

We are committed to ensuring that your personal data is secure with us and with the data processors who act on our behalf. We are continuously taking technical and organisational steps to better protect your information. Data Protection training has been made available to all staff.

The LYIT website privacy policy explains how data may be gathered about users of the Institute’s website

We may contact you by telephone, email or post. In addition, if you have provided us with your mobile number, we may text you with Institute-related information e.g. exam information, grant information, appointment reminders, placement arrangements and reminders about the requirement to carrying out Garda vetting for certain courses.

We process your personal data at various points in your relationship with LYIT. This information is provided by you, either directly or indirectly. It may be provided in direct applications, applications by international students, RPL applications or through financial support applications made by you throughout your academic career. It may be provided through interaction with The Curve and applications to for funding or equipment. It may also be provided by third parties like the CAO, Springboard, SUSI, Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, etc