The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) does not apply to the University in general, however the University must manage some personal information provided by Students under the Higher Education Support Act 2003(Cth) in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
Your personal information is managed under the University’s Information Privacy Policy which is aligned to the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
We are committed to protecting your privacy and processing your personal information fairly and lawfully. Further information about how the University defines and manages personal information is available in our Information Privacy Policy [217 kb DOC] and on our Privacy webpage.
The University is also considered to be a data controller for the purposes of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) in relation to the collection of personal information from individuals located in the European Union (EU).
The University of Western Australia is committed to protecting personal information provided by you. All information collected by the University is governed by the University’s Information Privacy Policy. For further information about how the University deals with personal information, please refer to the University’s Information Privacy Policy and Guidelines.
The University collects personal information of prospective, current and past students which may include:
Student photos and CCTV images (either directly with consent, or incidentally in relation to, and only for the security of individuals, the campus and facilities)
The University will collect personal information directly from the student wherever possible.
The University will/may collect students’ personal information indirectly in certain circumstances for specific purposes where direct collection is not practicable. Examples include:
Where practical, if the indirect collection of personal information can be avoided, or made voluntary without preventing the provision of the service or a University function, then an option will be provided. Where such opt outs are provided, this may result in a degradation, or reduction in some way to the service provided to the individual.
From time to time we also use remarketing and similar tools to advertise online including those provided by Google and Facebook. We will respect your privacy and are not collecting any identifiable information through the use of any third-party remarketing system.
UWA and our third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) together to:
This privacy statement does not apply to external websites linked to the University site. The University is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of external websites. When you link to another site, we recommend you read the privacy statement of that site to familiarise yourself with its privacy policy.
For access to personal information the University holds about you, you should contact the department that holds the information. If this information is incorrect, or needs to be updated, you will be able change it. Depending on the type of change, this can be done:
At times, the University may require requests for personal information to be made in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1992 (WA).
We will endeavour to inform you of any substantive changes to this Privacy Statement, however, we may occasionally make changes without notice, particularly where there are changes in the relevant laws or we adopt new working practices. We encourage you to regularly review this statement for any updates.
There are a number of purposes which mainly relate to the proper administration of an individual's course of study at the University, the University’s internal planning requirements, its governmental reporting obligations and the organisation of relevant health and welfare programs.
The UWA website contains the University's Information Privacy Policy and provides detailed information about the University's privacy regime and how to contact the Privacy Office if you wish to exercise any right, report an issue or make a complaint.
The University holds information in both computer, and paper-based records. Information held may be located on UWA premises, or provided by externally hosted and supported systems and locations. The University will where possible choose suppliers located within Australia, and in all cases will ensure relevant contractual obligations are in place to uphold its commitment to protecting your privacy and personal information.
UWA takes all reasonable steps to ensure the information it holds is accurate and complete and is protected from misuse, loss, unauthorised access or disclosure.
The University will only retain your information for as long as it is required for the purposes it was collected and in accordance with our other legislative obligations such as under the State Records Act, 2000 (WA). This information is then securely disposed of in accordance with the applicable general or sector Disposal Authority.
The Education Portfolio is responsible for maintaining the information of prospective students (Future Students team) and those currently enrolled students (Student Life Directorate) and the Development and Alumni Relations areas maintains alumni records.
The University will use or disclose your personal information only:
This means that the University will not disclose any information it holds about you, including results, addresses or other information, to your relatives (including parents or spouse), without your consent. The University will not confirm you are or have been a student of the University, except as outlined in this statement, unless you have a record of graduation, as this is a public document.
The following are examples of instances where the University will use and disclose your personal information for legitimate purposes:
The use of some University systems and websites including portals such as UniFI, UniGuest, UWA App collect directly and indirectly data as identified above to better understand general user trends at a combined level and improve their performance, services, and maintenance.
To the extent that this data could make you identifiable, the University will not attempt to identify individuals from these records, unless required to do so as part of an internal investigation or for another law enforcement-related purpose, and then, only in compliance with the University’s Information Privacy Policy.
The University will not disclose the personal information collected as part of your use to a third party without your consent, unless we are required or authorised to do so by law or other regulation
The University will, where practical and possible, seek to de-identify personal information by anonymisation or pseudonymisation, when such data is used within business intelligence and analytics.
A cookie is a small file containing certain pieces of information that a website creates when you visit the site. It can track how and when you use a site, which site you visited immediately before, and can store that information about your computer.
The University website uses cookies to facilitate the sampled reporting of demographics and interests of its visitors within services such as Google Analytics, which may allow us to collect information such as age, gender and interests. This will allow us to better understand the users visiting our site and identify how we can improve user experience and interaction. This data is used to provide better services and more relevant content to our users based on demographic and interest data.
You can opt out of the use of cookies by selecting appropriate settings within your browser, however please note this may cause some reduction in the functionality and personalisation of the website you experience.