Data Protection Notice: UNIC Joint Master’s Programmes

At University College Cork, we treat your privacy seriously. Any personal data which you provide to the University will be treated with the highest standards of security and confidentiality, in accordance with Irish and European Data Protection legislation. This notice sets out details of the information that we collect, how we process it and who we share it with. It also explains your rights under data protection law in relation to our processing of your data.

Who we are

Throughout this Notice, “we”, “us” and “our” refers to joint master’s programme administrators at University College Cork, and University College Cork (UCC).

“RePIC” joint master’s programme (Redesigning the Post-Industrial City MSc) is administered by the School of Architecture, contact architecture@ucc.ie.

"SEOS” joint master’s programme (Superdiversity in Education, Organisations and Society MA) is administered by the School of Applied Social Studies, contact appsocialstudies@ucc.ie.

How we collect your personal data

Your data is collected at the following processes of RePIC or SEOS as applicable:

Data is provided by you directly to the Ruhr University Bochum RePIC Student Management Department or SEOS Student Management Department (depending on which programme you are taking) to register for the programme.

If you are awarded a place on the programme, a subset of this data – only what is required – is transferred to UCC for local registration, using secure cloud-based data transfer platforms. It will be used by us only in accordance with the purposes outlined in this notice.

This includes: your full name, gender, email address, date of birth, country of residence, nationality, address.

During the delivery and award processes of the joint programme some personal data will be generated; primarily data relating to progress and grades. This data may be transferred – only as required for programme delivery - between the eight UNIC partner universities involved in delivering: University College Cork (Ireland), Ruhr University Bochum (Germany), Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands), University of Zagreb (Croatia), University of Deusto (Spain), Koç University Istanbul (Türkiye), University of Liege (Belgium), University of Oulu (Finland).

The purpose and legal basis for collecting your data

Any personal data provided to us by a joint programme partner, generated during delivery of the programme, or provided by you directly during the programme, will be processed fairly and lawfully.

 It will be used for the purposes of application, programme delivery and programme award.

The primary legal basis for processing is per article 6(1)(f)/GDPR: processing is necessary in pursuit of the legitimate interests of UCC in managing the University and providing students with the education and support services required during the course of their studies. The legal basis for processing special category data is Article 9(2)(a)/GDPR i.e. explicit consent of the data subject.  In certain circumstances processing may be necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller and your data may also be processed where there is a legal/ statutory requirement to do so.

Details of third parties with whom we share personal data

In addition to cases where the University is required or permitted by law to disclose your personal data to others, the University will share some of your data – only as required for programme delivery - between the eight UNIC partner universities involved in delivering: University College Cork (Ireland), Ruhr University Bochum (Germany), Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands), University of Zagreb (Croatia), University of Deusto (Spain), Koç University Istanbul (Türkiye), University of Liege (Belgium), University of Oulu (Finland).  This data will be shared using secure cloud-based data transfer platforms.

Relevant data points will include your name, identifier such as student number, module grades, pass/fail status, progress data (evaluation comments), your student stage submission report and/or log, student placement undertaking forms for UCC (as part of AT6022), thesis grades and titles, final results.

Where we use third parties to process personal data on our behalf (acting as data processors), a written contract will be put in place to ensure that any personal data shared will be held in accordance with the requirements of data protection law and that such data processors have appropriate security measures in place in relation to your personal data.

Cross-border data transfers

Data (the above mentioned data points relevant to programme delivery) will be securely transferred to some of the UNIC university partners involved in delivering the programme.

The University will only transfer personal data to a third country (i.e. a country outside the EEA) on the understanding that we rely on legally approved mechanisms to lawfully transfer data across borders, including the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission.

How long we will keep your data

In keeping with the data protection principles, we will only store your data for as long as is necessary and in accordance with relevant record retention schedules.

Local registration information (your full name, gender, email address, date of birth, country of residence, nationality, address) is retained by UCC’s Student Records and Exams Office ‘in perpetuity’; i.e. the student record is retained indefinitely after your graduation for the purpose of the academic transcript.

Your rights

You have various rights under data protection law, subject to certain exemptions, in connection with our processing of your personal data, including the right:

• to find out if we use your personal data, access your personal data and receive copies of your personal data;
• to have inaccurate/incomplete information corrected and updated;
• in certain circumstances, to have your details deleted from systems that we use to process your personal data or have the use of your personal data restricted in certain ways;
• to object to certain processing of your data by UCC;
• to exercise your right to data portability where applicable (i.e. obtain a copy of your personal data in a commonly used electronic form;
• where we have relied upon consent as a lawful basis for processing, to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time;
• to not be subject to solely automated decision.

If you wish to avail of these rights, please write to: The Information Compliance Manager, University College Cork at gdpr@ucc.ie.

Questions or Complaints

If you have any queries in relation to your local registration at UCC for RePIC or SEOS joint master’s degrees please contact

If you are a RePIC student: UCC programme co-ordinator Cathal Mulry, School of Architecture, on architecture@ucc.ie.

If you are a SEOS student: appsocialstudies@ucc.ie

If you have any queries or complaints in connection with our processing of your personal data, you can contact UCC’s Information Compliance Manager by email at: gdpr@ucc.ie 

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission if you are unhappy with our processing of your personal data. Details of how to lodge a complaint can be found on the Data Protection Commission’s website (www.dataprotection.ie), or by telephoning 1800 437 737.

In submitting this form, you understand and agree that your personal details will be used by UCC and Architecture (in the case of RePIC) or Applied Social Studies (in the case of SEOS) for the purposes outlined above.