Privacy policy

Our relationship with our alumni, friends and supporters, is of great importance. We value the generous support of those who are committed to helping us promote our academic mission and build our global reputation.

As a controller of personal data relating to our alumni, friends and supporters we are committed to maintaining the high standards that you would expect from Imperial in terms of how we respect and care for your personal information.

This Privacy Notice describes how Imperial collects, holds and uses the personal data that we process in the course of our work around alumni relations, events, fundraising and charitable giving. This data processing is mainly carried out by the Advancement Division, but other Imperial departments also contribute to it.

This Privacy Notice should be read in conjunction with any other relevant information that Imperial may provide to you from time to time regarding how your data is used. Data relating to Advancement events will also be processed in line with Imperial’s Events Privacy Notice.

Information we collect from you

Much of the information that we hold for Advancement purposes is obtained directly from you. The ways we collect your personal information directly include:

• contact detail update forms
• donation forms
• event registrations
• in person

If you are a student, or studied at Imperial, some of your personal information is routinely transferred from your student record to the university's alumni database. Personal information collected from you by other university departments or Imperial College Union may also be used for Advancement purposes, depending on the circumstances under which it is collected.

Information we may collect from elsewhere

If we lose touch with you and we believe you wish to hear from us, we may use external sources and data agencies, such as the Royal Mail’s National Change of Address Update database, to update your contact details. This allows us to continue to communicate with you about the range of events and activities that may interest you. If you would prefer that we did not update your contact details in this way, please let us know using the details in the ‘Contact us’ section below.

If you interact with Imperial through a third party, such as by making a donation via an online giving page or attending a reunion organised by an alumnus, then they may provide us with information about you.

If we believe you may be interested in becoming more involved with Imperial, we may gather additional information from external sources as described further in the ‘Research and donor identification’ section below.

We may collect and store some or all of the below types of personal information.

Biographical information:

• Name, gender, nationality and date of birth
• Professional activities and employment, including work contact details
• Links to organisations such as businesses and business networks, trusts and foundations
• Education history at Imperial
• Education history at other schools or universities
• Information from media articles
• Information publicly shared
• Personal interests, including memberships of associations, club and societies
• Marital status and name of spouse

Contact and communications information:

• Name, address, email address and telephone number
• Links to social media accounts
• Communication preferences, including any consents to and opt-outs from specific types of communication, including Telephone Preference Service details

Financial information:

• Donation history, including gift amount, purpose, date, method of payment and cheque numbers or other payment references
• Bank account number, name and sort code for processing Direct Debits
• Credit or debit card details provided directly to us in the process of making a gift. Note that credit and debit card payments made using our online forms are processed by our payment processing supplier according to their terms and conditions – they are not processed directly by Imperial
• Tax status and Gift Aid declaration information
• Details of other financial transactions with Imperial, such as event tickets purchased 
• Our assessment of ability and willingness of you to make donations, including assessments of wealth
• Donations you have made to other organisations

Interaction with Imperial:

• Attendance at events
• Use of Imperial facilities such as the Alumni Visitor Centre and library services
• Records of meetings, conversations and correspondence we have had with you
• Website activity and interaction with emails we send
• Relationships with other Imperial alumni, donors and friends
• Volunteering activity for Imperial, including alumni volunteering and volunteering directly with departments
• Student club and society affiliations and other connections with Imperial

Sensitive personal information

We may also collect and store the following sensitive personal information, also known as ‘special category data’, but only with your consent and when it is relevant to your relationship with Imperial.

• Information relating to disability, if it has been provided for a specific purpose, such as event planning
• Information relating to dietary requirements, if it has been provided for a specific purpose
• Sensitive information shared with us, which may have been shared at a meeting with an Imperial representative, or as a contribution to a profile or a news story. This includes information about your health and political affiliations

Alumni, friends and supporters:

• Providing information about our work and our activities. This might include sending Imperial news and research updates, department and university e-newsletters, invitations to events and details of volunteering opportunities. Such information might also include content about the Imperial’s charitable mission
• Providing services, and information about services, such as access to events and facilities on campus including the Alumni Visitor Centre, alumni email accounts, Imperial Plexus online alumni accounts, Imperial’s campus libraries and careers services, Imperial elective courses and Imperial gym membership
• Conducting surveys, focus groups and other research
• Supporting an international network of over seventy alumni associations that provide opportunities for alumni to network in their local area and connect around academic or other shared interests. This support may include sending communications on behalf of alumni associations and/or networks
• Administrative purposes, such as recording registration for, or attendance at, an event
• Internal record keeping, including the management of any feedback or complaint
• Monitoring the impact of our communications and other activities, such as measuring email open rates or analysing the uptake of our events programme

Gift accounting and stewardship:

• Processing and recording donations
• Transferring information regarding Gift Aid claims to HM Revenue and Customs
• Acknowledging donors, and those who have pledged a legacy gift, in Imperial’s online and printed lists of supporters
• Providing updates on the use and impact of donations Imperial has received
• Offering membership of our donor circles to those who make a particularly significant contribution to Imperial

Fundraising:

• Furthering our charitable objectives, including helping us to raise money. Requests for donations will always be made in accordance with our Fundraising Promise
• Research to gain a better understanding of our supporters, inform our fundraising strategy and enable us to target our communications more effectively and appropriately. See the ‘Research and donor identification’ section below for more detail

Research and donor identification

There are a number of activities we may undertake using personal information to help us to better understand our supporters and potential supporters. This will help us to:

• ensure that our communications are relevant and appropriate
• assess the likelihood of individuals making donations to Imperial, as well as their ability to do so

We may combine information provided to us with biographical and financial information from external sources. This information may come from company resources and publications, news media, aggregators of publicly available information, and social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). It may also come from personal contacts, leads or recommendations. Our sources are all carefully evaluated to ensure that it is reasonable for us to use them for this purpose. A list of sources, which changes from time to time, is available on request.

Much of the support we receive comes from our existing alumni, friends and supporters. However, we also seek to identify other individuals who we believe will be interested in developing a relationship with Imperial. We do this through referrals from Imperial contacts such as academics, clinicians or other supporters, and through research using the external sources as noted previously.

We use automated and manual processes to link information together. This allows us to direct our activities most effectively, such as by identifying individuals we think are most likely to welcome further communications from Imperial.

If you would rather that we do not undertake this activity using your personal information, please let us know using the details in the ‘Contact us’ section below.

We will only process your personal information when the law allows us to, taking account of personal privacy choices and individuals’ reasonable expectations. Most of Imperial’s core education and research activities rely on public task as the lawful basis for processing of personal information. Advancement relies on different lawful bases.

We consider that Imperial has a strong and legitimate interest in keeping up our relationship with our community and others who may be interested in the work of Imperial. We aim to build a vibrant, engaged community, to support Imperial’s charitable aims, and to help safeguard its future.

Legitimate interests is the lawful basis we rely on for all processing of personal information, except in specific circumstances where the following lawful bases are relied upon:

• Consent / Explicit Consent
  • Where special category data is provided by an individual for a particular purpose, we will only act upon your explicit consent to process such information;
  • When sending certain electronic marketing materials consent is required to satisfy data protection legislation.

• Legal obligation
  • Where we are required by law to retain certain information for a particular period of time or to share information with a particular authority; for example, payment details or Gift Aid details relating to a donation;
  • Carrying out anti-money laundering checks;
  • Sharing information with the Graduate Outcomes survey.

• Performance of a contract
  • Where the processing of personal data is required for Imperial to fulfil its obligations under a contract; for example when administering an event that individuals have purchased tickets for.

We may disclose personal information to third party service providers who support us in our work. For example, suppliers of printing and mailing services, email communication services or web services, and suppliers who help us carry out any of the activities described above, including research and donor identification. Our third-party service providers are required to enter into data processing agreements with us where they are processing personal data on our behalf. We only permit third parties to process personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our policies.

From time to time personal information may be shared with other external organisations. Such information sharing will take place when it is necessary for Imperial’s legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, but this will always be weighed against the individual’s rights, interests and expectations. These organisations will process personal information in line with their own privacy notices, and may include:

• Alumni associations, including the City and Guilds College Association and Royal College of Mines Association
• The Imperial College Foundation in the USA
• Imperial College Union
• Organisations that conduct independent surveys in relation to our courses for their rankings or guides, such as the Financial Times Masters in Finance Ranking
• Organisations or individuals we collaborate with on joint activities, such as events and reunions
• Suppliers who support us in our work, for instance in undertaking research and donor identification or due diligence

We will also share your personal information with third parties if we are legally required to do so. We will never sell your personal information.

Where our data sharing involves transferring your personal information outside the UK and European Economic Area (EEA) we put contracts in place, with additional protections, to ensure that your information is secure and protected.

Due diligence

Before accepting significant donations, we are required to conduct due diligence with regard to the donor. This includes reviewing publicly available information relating to criminal convictions and offences. Due diligence is conducted in accordance with Imperial’s Gift Acceptance Policy. We may also carry out due diligence in advance of other interactions that pose an ethical or reputational risk to Imperial, such as volunteering activity.

We are committed to holding and processing your personal information securely, in line with Imperial’s Data Protection Policy and any relevant legislation. Personal information is held digitally on secure servers, with access restricted to trained, authorised personnel. We aim to minimise the amount of personal information we process physically. Where it is necessary to hold physical copies of personal information it is stored in secure, restricted locations and destroyed securely when no longer needed. In the event of a suspected data security breach, we will notify you and any applicable regulator, where we are legally required to do so.

We will only hold personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including any legal, accounting, or reporting purposes. Imperial’s Retention Schedule details how long we will hold different types of information.

Imperial considers its relationship with its alumni to be lifelong, so we maintain a minimum record of each alumnus indefinitely. For alumni information that doesn’t link to your period of study at Imperial, and for other individuals, the length of time we hold your personal information will depend on the nature of the information and the nature of our relationship with you. If you let us know that you no longer wish to remain in contact, we will keep a record of that fact and will delete any information about you for which we no longer have a purpose or lawful basis.

You have rights under data protection law, including the right to:

• Request a copy of the information we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct or complete the information we hold about you
• Ask us to erase your personal information
• Ask us to stop processing your personal information in particular ways, or altogether
• Withdraw consent you have provided at any time
• Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

Requests can be made using the contact details in the ‘Contact us’ section below. Sometimes we will have a lawful basis to continue processing your personal information, even if you request otherwise. We will always inform you of the actions we take in response to your request, and our justification if we refuse any part of it.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, or would like us to update your personal information, please contact the Advancement Division using the details below.

For Alumni

Alumni Engagement Team

Level 1, MediaWorks
191 Wood Lane
London, W12 7FP

+44 (0)20 7594 6138

alumni@imperial.ac.uk 

For Non-Alumni

Advancement Update
Imperial College London
Level 1, MediaWorks
191 Wood Lane
London, W12 7FP

advancement.update@imperial.ac.uk 

Alumni can also use our online forms to update contact details and communication preferences at any time.

Imperial College London has appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee compliance with data protection legislation. If you have any questions about data protection at Imperial or would like to exercise any of your rights under data protection legislation, please contact the Data Protection Officer using the details below.

Data Protection Officer
Imperial College London
Faculty Building Level 4
South Kensington Campus
London, SW7 2AZ

+44 (0)20 7594 3502
dpo@imperial.ac.uk

We may amend this Privacy Notice from time to time, and a current version is always available on our web pages. Any significant changes to this notice or to the way we treat your personal information will be communicated online, or by contacting you directly through the most appropriate means.

Advancement Division, 2 March 2026, version 4.0