Student Privacy at UQ

UQ uses students’ personal information for the purposes of managing students’ admission, enrolment, progression, graduation, access to academic and support services, and for alumni relations after graduation.  Only personal information that is relevant to the proposed activity or function will be used.  Before using the information, UQ will take reasonable steps to ensure that the information is up-to-date, accurate and complete.

UQ also uses students’ personal information to inform its strategic objectives and decision-making processes, to improve the student experience, and to ensure continuing compliance with its obligations under TEQSA’s Threshold Standards.  This may involve, for example, statistical analyses and analytics processes involving datasets containing students’ personal information.

UQ is required to disclose personal student information to government departments and agencies under:

• the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth);
• the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS);
• the National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018; and
• other relevant laws.

UQ is required by law to disclose students’ personal information to:

• The Commonwealth Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE) regarding student enrolment, educational background, demographic and geographic data, to assist with administering the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) suite of surveys, including the Graduate Outcomes Survey;
• The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in relation to HELP loans where students may defer fee payments through the taxation system;
• The Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs, which requires UQ to report on matters relating to international student visa conditions;
• Centrelink / Services Australia in relation to the monitoring of domestic students’ entitlements;
• Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Authority (TEQSA); 
• Tertiary Admissions Centres to verify academic information or transcripts.

UQ also routinely discloses students’ personal information to:

• other educational institutions to administer your cross-institutional enrolments and student exchanges;
• Unicard to produce your UQ student identification card with photographic image;
• UQ Sport to confirm your status as a UQ student to access sporting facilities on campus;
• Universities Australia, the Group of Eight and other peak bodies, via surveys and benchmarking data;
• the Social Research Centre (SRC) in relation to the Graduate Outcomes Survey and the Student Experience Survey.

For further information regarding the management of personal information at UQ, please refer to the University’s Privacy Management Policy.

For enquiries regarding your personal information at UQ, please contact the University’s RTI & Privacy Office.