Prospective student privacy notice

This notice applies to everyone applying for admission to the University of Pretoria, or anyone registering as a prospective student at the University of Pretoria, or any of our units, like the Disability Unit, or JuniorTukkie.

We have created this notice to help you understand how we collect, use, and protect your personal information.

We may need to update this notice periodically, but we will let you know when we do.

If you have any questions about this notice, please email us at [email protected] (PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS EMAIL ADDRESS FOR APPLICATION ENQUIRIES. YOU MAY CONTACT THE STUDENT SERVICE CENTRE AT [email protected])

1.1. We collect and generate personal information

We process personal information to conclude a contract with you and to meet our contractual obligations with you.

  • When we process and consider your application to study at UP.
  • When we process your application for funding, residence, and other UP services.
  • When we verify your past academic record with a third-party verification agency, your school, or your previous academic institution.

We process your personal information because it is in your or our legitimate interest to do so.

  • When you contact us by social media, email, telephone, or online chat, we use the personal information we collect to reply to, investigate, and resolve your query, complaint, or request.

We process your personal information with your or your parent’s or guardian’s consent.

  • When you subscribe to our email newsletter, you can unsubscribe at any time by following the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email or by contacting us.
  • When you are older than 18, we will ask your consent before providing your parents or legal guardians with information about your UP application status.
  • UP Healthcare workers and their support staff at the UP Disability Unit process health information to provide proper treatment and care to UP students and prospective students.
  • We process your health information to provide special support to UP students and prospective students and arrange to accommodate a student’s or prospective student’s disability.
  • We process this personal information with your or if you are younger than 18, your parent’s or guardian’s consent.
  • When the Disability Unit processes your health information to give you the support you need, whether academic or in terms of facilities.

We process your personal information as a legal requirement under the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997.

  • When we produce reports and returns for funding agencies, government departments and public bodies.

We process your personal information further for historical, statistical or research purposes.

  • When we contact you to participate in institutional and research surveys and analyse the results of the study.
1.2. In order to process your application, we may share your personal information with others we trust

We only use service providers we trust and who will keep your personal information secure, and we have contracts in place to ensure that they do – whether they are local or abroad.

In order to meet our contractual obligations with you, we will sometimes share your information with third-party verification agencies to verify your academic results. We use the following verification agencies:

  • Universities South Africa (USAf)
  • Cambridge International Examinations (CIE Direct)
  • International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBIS)
  • Ecctis Ltd (UK NARIC)

The Higher Education Act 101 of 1974 requires us to share your information.

In terms of the Higher Education Act 101 of 1974, we share information about students and staff with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) annually to be included in the Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS). HEMIS data forms the basis of the annual state funding allocations which UP receives as a public university.

If you’re not a JuniorTukkie, you can skip section 2, but you should read sections 3, 4, and 5.

2.1. How we collect personal information when you are a member of JuniorTukkie

We collect information about you when you register as a JuniorTukkie member or download the JT App, which enables us to let you know about student life at UP.

We collect:

  • your contact information (e.g., name, your email address, your parent's or guardian’s email address, home address, your province, cell phone number)
  • your nationality
  • your ethnic group
  • your gender
  • your identity document number or your birth certificate number for those younger than 16 (RSA citizens)
  • your passport number (non-RSA citizens)
  • your current grade and education authority (e.g., NSC or IEB)
  • which JuniorTukkie events you wish to attend
  • your first and second choices of degrees you want to study at UP
  • your academic average achieved on your last exam report
  • if you have been awarded national colours in a sport
2.2. When and why we process your personal information as a member of JuniorTukkie

We process your personal information to meet our contractual obligations with you.

  • When you register as a JuniorTukkie member or download the JT App.
  • When we let you know about campus tours, summer or winter school programmes, faculty open days, bursary opportunities, events with other JuniorTukkie members in your area and other events that the University hosts.

We process your personal information because it is in your or our legitimate interest to do so.

  • When you contact us on social media, by email, WhatsApp, telephone, or online chat, we use the personal information we collect to reply to, investigate, and resolve your query, complaint, or request.
  • When we send you bursary invitations that you could apply for.
  • When we provide University departments with the names of JuniorTukkie members interested in studying one of their academic programmes (e.g., Medicine).

We process your personal information with your or your parent’s or guardian’s consent.

  • When we post videos or images of you at any live or virtual JuniorTukkie event to any of the JuniorTukkie social media platforms or the JT App.

We process your personal information further for historical, statistical, and research purposes.

  • When we track the progress of your UP applications and academic journey.
  • When we provide statistical information about JuniorTukkie members who have graduated from the University and become UP Alumni to schools around the country as part of our recruitment process.

We only use service providers we trust and who will keep your personal information secure, and we have contracts in place to ensure that they do – whether they are local or abroad.

We use service providers to help us:

  • communicate with you;
  • manage academic transcripts, events, career and other services;
  • monitor the effectiveness of our services;
  • manage our business, (e.g., accountants and professional advisors); and
  • provide IT services.

We only use suppliers and service providers we trust and who have agreed to keep your personal information secure and confidential and to only use it for the purposes for which we shared it with them.

Some of the service providers that we use may be located in other countries. These countries may not have the same levels of protection of personal information as South Africa, in which case those service providers must undertake to protect the personal information of our students to the same level that we do.

We provide for appropriate safeguards by means of contracts between us and our foreign service providers.

Sometimes the law requires that we share your information, for example, the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997.

We have reasonable security measures in place to protect your personal information.

Our security measures are in place to protect your personal information from being:

  • lost
  • misused
  • accessed without authorisation
  • altered
  • destroyed

 

We base our security measures on the sensitivity of the personal information that we hold.

We regularly monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks.

No system is perfect, and we cannot guarantee that we will never experience a breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards, but we regularly monitor our systems for vulnerabilities.

We will let you know of any breaches that may affect your personal information.

If something should happen, we have taken steps to minimise the threat to your privacy, and we will let you know if your personal information has been compromised. We will also let you know how you can help minimise the impact of the breach.

You can help keep your personal information secure by being aware of how you communicate.

While our servers are protected, emails can still be intercepted. It is better not to share personal information with us in an email.

Rather, give us a call or complete our online contact forms.

If you have any questions about your personal information, please email [email protected]
We may take one month to respond to your request, and in certain circumstances we may refuse your request.

You may ask us about your personal information.

You have the right to know when we collect and use your personal information and to ask us what we know about you and what we do with that information.

You may access your personal information.

You may ask to access your personal information by sending an email to [email protected]. We may take one month to respond to your request and may charge a fee in some circumstances. We will let you know if this is the case.

You have control over your personal information.

  • You may ask that we update incorrect personal information, or complete personal information that may be incomplete.
  • You may ask that we delete your personal information.
  • You may ask to receive your personal information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.
  • You may ask that we reuse your personal information for your own purposes across different services.
  • Under certain circumstances, you may object to the processing of your personal information.
  • You may object to automated decision-making and profiling.
  • You may ask that a human review any automated decisions we made about you, express your point of view about it and obtain an explanation of the decision. You may challenge any automated decision made about you.
  • You may ask that we restrict our use of your personal information.

You have the right to unsubscribe.

You have the right to unsubscribe from any direct marketing we send you.

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