Data and Privacy

Privacy statement UM Alumni Office
This privacy statement was last amended on 14 March 2022.

This privacy statement describes how the Alumni Office (AO) of Maastricht University (UM) handles alumni data. An alumnus/a is anyone who has obtained a bachelor's degree, master's degree or doctorate (PhD) at UM. 

Do you have questions about this privacy statement? Send an email to alumni@maastrichtuniversity.nl. 

Personal data
What personal data we have and how we obtained it
If you have obtained a bachelor's or master's degree at UM, some of your personal data will be transferred from the Student Service Center to the alumni database. It concerns:

• Unique personal identifiers
  • Initials
  • First- and last name
  • Birthdate
  • Birthplace
  • Gender
  • Nationality
  • Language preference
• Educational information
  • Name study
  • Name faculty
  • Startdate
  • Graduation date
• Contact information
  • Personal email address
  • Student email address
  • Address. Based on your address we automatically assign an Alumni Circle to you which means you may receive an invitation to an alumni circle event from this particular alumni circle. 
  • Phone number(s)

We will use your first and last name, birthdate and birthplace to verify whether we are actually in contact with you when you want to update your data in the alumnidatabase or when you ask for a portal registration code. 

We receive information from Bureau Academische zittingen about which persons have obtained their doctorate at UM. This concerns your defense date, initials, first and last name, e-mail address, faculty, thesis title and the names of your (co)supervisors. If you have obtained a PhD but not a bachelor's or master's degree at UM, we will use your first and last name, date of defense and the names of your (co)supervisors to verify whether we are actually in contact with you when you want to update your data in the alumnidatabase or when you ask for a portal registration code.

When we adjust your data
You can supplement the alumni database with information about:

• Employment information
  • Startdate
  • Name employer
  • Job title
  • Location
• Interests (themes). We use this information to inform you about future Alumni Communities and to tailer our communication to you. 
• Interest in giving back to/volunteering for UM 
• Contact preferences which you can change via this form

You can share your data via this form. 

We will adjust your address in our database if you have used PostNL's relocation service and have indicated that your change of address could be communicated to UM. If you have forgotten to tell us about your change in address and the current residents inform us of this, we will process this in our database. This way your mail will not be sent to the wrong address again. We will inform you via email about the change in address.

We will adjust your e-mail address if we receive an automatic reply after sending an e-mail, stating that you are using a new e-mail address.

What other information we process in the alumni database and why

• Registration and attendance at alumni events. We do this to keep track of the statistics of the event, to be able to not send you a reminder for the event if you are already registered or have canceled your registration and to be able to send you an evaluation form about the event.
• The moment and content of contact via e-mail, telephone or via social media. We do this to be able to coordinate future contact with you.
• The content and timing of voluntary work for UM. This also includes donations to the Limburg University Fund, which is affiliated with us. We do this for our statistics and to be able to approach you again if necessary.

Purposes
The UM Alumni Office processes the above personal data for the following purposes:

• Appropriately salution to alumni (we use unique personal identifiers such as names and language preferences). Click here if you want to change your contact name. 
• Write to the correct group of alumni (for example when we aim to send an e-mail to alumni from a specific faculty)
• Invite alumni to services of the AO
  • Network meetings
  • Life Long Development
  • Giving back
• Informing alumni about developments within UM and alumni via newsletters such as the AO Newsletter, LAW.next (Faculty of Law), Maastricht Law Messages (Faculty of Law), Talkin' Business (School of Business and Economics), MPP Quarterly (Master Public Public Policy and Human Development) or via the UMagazine
• Supplying statistics for prospective students and parties within the UM
• Conducting alumni surveys by the Research Center for Education and the Labor Market (ROA) (better known as the UM scanner) and the National Alumni Enquete (NAE)
• Fundraising for the University Fund Limburg

Legal basis
The legal basis for processing your personal data is the "legitimate interest"; we need this information to be able to carry out our activities (see above purposes). We are legally obliged to keep some of your personal data, for example to be able to demonstrate that you have obtained a diploma at UM.

Recipients of personal data
The AO may share your data with external parties; We have concluded a processing agreement with them in which we set requirements for the handling and protection of your data. It concerns:

• The ROA: annually they receive the contact details of alumni who obtained a doctoral or master's degree 5 or 10 years ago for the purpose of an alumni survey
• The NAE: annually they receive from the AO the contact details of alumni who obtained a master's degree 1.5 years ago for the purpose of an alumni survey
• The University Fund Limburg: annually they receive the contact details of alumni aged 45 and older to raise funds

Do you want to unsubscribe from alumni surveys of the ROA and the NAE or from contact with the Limburg University Fund? Then click here.

Within UM, the AO staff, the faculty alumni coordinators and their student employees have access to your data. Moreover, we may provide your data to the editorials of the newsletters mentioned in 'Purposes'. 

The AO does not provide your personal data to other persons, companies or institutions, except if this is necessary for the performance of our public task or if we are legally obliged to do so (for example, if the police require this in the event of a suspicion of a crime).

Security
We take security measures to limit misuse of and unauthorized access to personal data. In this way we ensure that only the necessary persons have access to your data, that access to the data is protected and that our security measures are regularly checked. In addition, we use secure connections for the secure transfer of your data.

Retention periods
Personal data is not kept for longer than is necessary to achieve the purpose of the processing or to comply with a legal obligation.

Your rights
Under European privacy legislation (General Data Protection Regulation) you have a number of rights with regard to your personal data. You have the right to:

• Delete your personal data from our the alumni database. However, we are legally obliged to keep some of your personal data, for example to be able to demonstrate that you have obtained a diploma at UM.
• View your personal data. You can do this via the alumni portal. No portal account yet? Send a request to alumni@maastrichtuniversity.nl with your first and last name, date of birth and place of birth.
• Correct your personal data which you can do this via this form or via the alumni portal
• Object to the processing of your personal data where there is a "legitimate interest" as the legal basis
• Submit a complaint to the Dutch Data Protection Authority.

Contact details
Do you have a question or complaint about this privacy statement? Please send an e-mail to alumni@maastrichtuniversity.nl. 

You can contact the UM Data Protection Officer directly via fg@maastrichtuniversity.nl. It is also possible to send a letter to the address below.

University of Maastricht
attn. Data Protection Officer
PO Box 616
6200 MD Maastricht