Privacy Notice
1. Purpose
Arup’s Alumni Network provides a platform for former staff members to connect; stay informed about news, events, engagement and other opportunities from the global Arup community.
The data protection and privacy laws of countries in which Arup Group Limited and its group companies (collectively referred to in this privacy notice as “Arup”) operate (the “Data Protection Laws”) impose legal obligations on the way in which we obtain, record and process personal information for the Alumni network. This notice explains:
- what personal data we collect and for what purposes; and
- your rights in respect of our use of your personal data.
The data controller is Ove Arup & Partners International Ltd (Arup)
Please note that we may modify this notice periodically and/or as necessary to reflect changes in data processing practices or relevant legislation
2. Scope
The notice is applicable to Arup Alumni members and relates to personal information we may access about you as a previous employee (for verification/eligibility purposes), additional data that you provide via the Alumni website, we receive from our website, or you provide to us by any format.
There may be other privacy notices or terms and conditions that apply to certain services we provide or events we run. Please always read these when you participate in these events or register for these services.
This Privacy Notice does not apply to any other portals or sites you might be directed to from our alumni website.
Please also note that this Privacy Policy only applies to the use of your personal information obtained by us in connection with your participation in the Alumni Network. For current employees, further information about how we use your personal information in the context of your employment can be the relevant regional staff privacy notice (Membership of the Alumni Network is not available current employees).
3. Personal data processed
The personal data that we typically process includes
- Your name
- Your e-mail address and contact information
- Any personal data added to profile, submitted and/or published content (where you have permission to include)
- IP address and other online identifiers
- Location data
- Employment data e.g. how long and when you were employed by Arup
- Event attendance, dietary requirements and accessibility requirements e.g. wheelchair access, hearing/induction loop etc
4. How we acquire your personal data
The type of information we use about you depends on how you interact with us. There are different ways in which we may collect your personal information:
- Directly from you, when you provide profile data or other content; and
- Automatically from your interactions with our communications and website
Please see below scenarios to explain this:
If you contact us (e.g. by telephone, e-mail, instant messenger) we may collect your personal data and process it in accordance with this notice. This may include discussing matters with you in relation to an enquiry about our services or events we invited you to, or because you have subscribed to our newsletter or requested a report from us.
If we speak with you via one of our preferred video-conferencing platforms such conversations may be recorded and, in such instances, we may store your personal recorded data as part of that interaction, we will always ask for your consent in this scenario.
If you use our website (alumni.arup.com and any of our microsites), including forms submitted through the website, account sign-ups, surveys or otherwise through the use of cookies, as set in Cookies Policy.
4.1 Personal data provided by Arup Group
We may verify that you are a current or former Arup employee by matching your registration information with data retained within our People systems. This information may typically include, your name, email address, last position, location.
5. How we use your personal data
The purposes for which we are processing your personal data are:
- Inviting you to join the network or confirming your eligibility to join the Arup Alumni network
- Keeping you updated with the latest news about Arup
- Contacting you/Sending notifications to you about potential Arup job opportunities that fit your account profile, based on your contact preferences
- Contacting you/Sending notifications regarding event attendance or contribution based on your contact preferences
- Contacting you if/when your experience and expertise are required by Arup
- Promoting collaborations with other ex - Arup employees and/or users
For research and statistical analysis purposes
- Managing your access and membership to the Network
- Maintaining user preferences.
- Market research activities such as gathering feedback to improve our services and/or responding to any feedback you send us if you’ve asked us to
- User verification and operation of the Site including security measures.
6. Legal basis for processing your personal data
Where you provide consent to be contacted by the Alumni network during the leavers process, we will process your personal email address to send an initial invitation and periodical reminders to encourage you to join the network.
Under current law, certain means of communication can only be used for marketing purposes where you provide consent to receive.
You can update your preferences regarding both the ways in which we can communicate with you, and the types of processing of your personal data that you permit, at any time at by accessing and updating your Alumni profile or contacting us via email at ArupAlumni@arup.com.
In addition to the above, processing of your personal data may be necessary for compliance with our legal and professional obligations to third parties. This includes for example, our professional and contractual duties to the courts and our obligations to regulators (for example reporting data breaches to the Information Commissioner).
We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data to measure and improve the performance of our websites in order to provide you with the best possible visitor experience, adhering to your communication preferences and ensuring your personal data is appropriately protected from misuse by our technical measures, policies and procedures.
7. Sharing your personal data
When you register and set up your profile, your name and the other information you provide will be placed in the Member Directory; your name, profile picture, current and past professional data, degrees, and social media links will be accessible to other members of the Site.
You can choose not to display your contact details once you have created your profile by updating your preferences.
Other than with Site members, we will share your personal information in the following situations.
- Alumni Network Team - The personal data collected via your registration on our website will be seen by our dedicated Alumni network team to provide you with information in relation to the Alumni Network and/or other Arup products and services which we believe will be of interest to you with your consent as described above.
- Website Moderators – May access personal data while moderating discussion boards and similar.
- Marketing and Recruitment Teams - Where you have provided consent to be contacted with news of relevant job or business development/collaboration opportunities
- Service providers - including but not limited to Enterprise Alumni (who host the Site on our behalf) and other service providers who support and maintain our IT infrastructure.
From time to time, we may invite you to events that we run jointly with other organisations. If you register for such an event, then we may share your contact details with that organisation.
We may from time to time use our agents or service providers to assist us in these activities. In these cases, relevant personal data would be provided to and processed by the provider of such services, in accordance with the terms of our contract with them and to the extent appropriate for the performance of that contract.
We do not otherwise share your data for marketing purposes.
If we sell or liquidate all or any part of its business or assets, we may share your information to a third-party acquirer. In that event, any acquirer will be subject to our obligations under this Privacy Policy, and you will have the same rights with respect to your personal information.
8. Cross Border Data Transfers
While the personal information collected from you in connection with your participation in the Alumni Network will be hosted within the European Economic Area, depending on your location, it may be transferred and stored securely outside of the region in which you reside and/or outside of the UK and European Economic Area.
Any transfer of personal information to a location outside of your country of residence will always be subject to the implementation of appropriate safeguards (which may include the use of Standard Contractual Clauses) including within our intra-group agreements, enabling global transfers across the Arup group.
The legal mechanism for transferring personal data to Arup group companies outside of the UK are the EU SCC’s incorporating the UK IDTA, deemed to provide an adequate level of security for reciprocal and inter regional exchanges of personal data.
Additionally, we may use service providers that are based outside of your country of residence; we will ensure that any such service provider complies with strict obligations of confidentiality and security. We will ensure that binding legal agreements and/or appropriate safeguards are in place
9. Retention
When you create an Alumni network profile this will be retained until you delete, or you ask us to delete your profile. We will delete profiles where your registration profile remains incomplete; and/or where our emails are rejected by the email address connected with your profile.
10. Your Rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have a number of important rights. In summary, you have the right to:
- Access your personal data
- Correct any errors in the data that we hold about you
- Request that we delete your personal data subject to certain limitations
- Require -in some circumstances- that we restrict the way we process your personal data or object to its processing.
- Withdraw the consent you provided to process some or all your information, this might result in us not being able to provide you with our services any longer.
Please note that you can unsubscribe from newsletters and communications at any time by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ option at the bottom of our emails. However as one of the main purposes of the network is keeping you informed of Arup’s news, this will impact your user experience. If you're having any issues unsubscribing, please email ArupAlumni@arup.com.
Please note it may take up to 14 days for your request to be fulfilled and you may continue to receive our emails during this period.
11. Contact
If you have any feedback, questions, or concerns about this privacy notice, or how we have used your personal information, please contact us using the contact us link in the footer of the homepage: https://alumni.arup.com/ or email us at ArupAlumni@arup.com
How to complain
If you are not satisfied with our use of your personal information or our response to any request by you to exercise your rights, the General Data Protection Regulation gives you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at the following address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Changes to the Privacy Notice
This privacy notice is published on 22/03/2022 and was updated on 21 March 2025. We might update this policy and these changes will be posted on the alumni platform. Where changes are significant, we may also email you.