Data Privacy Notice for Prospective Students

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This Notice describes St. John’s University (“St. John’s”) practices with respect to the collection, use, storage, and disclosure (“processing”) of Personal Information covered by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation about students enrolled at St. John’s or accessing services provided at a St. John’s location. This Notice applies to the St. John’s location at 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, New York 11439 as well as to its affiliated campuses in Rome, Italy, Paris, France, Staten Island, New York, and New York, New York, and global studies programs (such as the program affiliation with Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland (collectively “St. John’s,” “us” or “our”). Global studies programs refers to any St. John’s sponsored student international travel programs (including global programs that do not include an academic/study component). All students (referred to below as “you” or “your”) should carefully read the provisions of this Privacy Notice.

“Personal Information,” as used in this Notice, means any information that can be used to identify you, whether directly or indirectly, including by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to your physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity. 

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You can contact St. John’s Office of General Counsel with any questions about this notice, our data collection practices, or your rights:  

St. John’s University
Attn: Joshua Hurwit, Associate General Counsel and Data Protection Officer
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, New York 11439

This general notice may be supplemented by additional notices at the point of any data collection. If you have specific questions about any of the data processing activities described in this or any other notice, please contact the individual identified above.

We process the information we collect from you directly, either during our communications with you about St. John’s or as part of your application to St. John’s. In addition to submitting an application directly to us, you may submit an application through the Common Application.

During the application process, certain information is required in order for St. John’s to process your application. We will mark that information as “Required” or “Mandatory.” Failure to complete a required field may result in your application being denied or your ineligibility for financial aid.

In addition, we collect the following kinds of information about you from third parties:

  • Your contact and demographic information, including publically available information, which we collect from third parties who provide us information about prospective students who may be interested in attending St. John’s.
  • Any criminal convictions or offenses, which we collect from third parties who provide us with such information.
  • Specific personal background and health details, which we collect from third parties.
  • Information about your prior educational history, which collect from other educational institutions (or from our own records in the event of a re-enrollment or enrollment for a different degree). Information about you provided by commercial and non-commercial vendors that we contract with.

We process your Personal Information to recruit prospective students, evaluate applications for admission to St. John’s, evaluate your eligibility for financial aid, communicate with you about St. John’s and your application, and, if you are admitted to St. John’s, to award you financial aid and to enroll you in St. John’s programs if you choose to attend. We also use this data to:

  • administer programs and make decisions about course offerings,
  • file required reports with applicable governmental authorities,
  • award financial aid,
  • facilitate class diversity
  • administer our programs and provide appropriately tailored services, including student health services, financial aid, and research and reporting activities,
  • monitor trends within incoming classes,
  • report application and admission statistics to appropriate publications,
  • plan course offerings,
  • verify identity,
  • ensure that the university is prepared for emergencies, and
  • enforce St. John’s policies and applicable laws.

We combine the data that we collect in order to provide these functions.

We have the following legal basis for processing the information you provide us in your application or that we collect about you during the application process.

We have a legitimate interest in recruiting and admitting qualified applicants, complying with laws and regulations that govern our conduct in the countries where we operate, and administering St. John’s and its programs in an efficient, ethical, and appropriate manner. We process all the information we collect from or about you to meet these purposes. You can obtain additional information about the legitimate interests we have in processing your information by contacting the Office of General Counsel.

Once you have accepted an offer of admission from us, we may also be required to process your Personal Information to complete a contract that you have entered into with us, including to be admitted to a program, or receive financial aid, housing, or another service from us. You can obtain additional information regarding processing we do to enter into contracts with you by contacting the Office of General Counsel.

We may also be required to process your Personal Information to comply with laws applicable in the European Union or its member states.

You can obtain additional information about the processing we do to comply with applicable laws by contacting the Office of General Counsel.

In the case of Sensitive Personal Information (which includes information about your health, race, ethnicity, national origin, criminal convictions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, and trade union membership), we process information either (i) because we have your consent to do so or (ii) because we are required to process the information to comply with applicable laws. For example, we are required to process sensitive data to comply with U.S. Federal law, New York state law, and New York City law.

You can obtain more information about these laws by contacting the Office of General Counsel. When we process your Sensitive Personal Information on the basis of your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time by contacting the Office of General Counsel. If you withdraw your consent, we may still be required to process your Sensitive Personal Information to comply with applicable law, but we will explain to you at the time your consent is withdrawn what processing activities will continue for legal compliance purposes.

Finally, we process your Personal Information for purposes compatible with those already described, including for the purposes of conducting scientific, statistical, or historical research or for the purpose of creating archives in the public interest. Where possible, we do not use identifiable information for these purposes, or we take steps, including making use of pseudonymous data, to limit the amount of Personal Information we use in our research or archives.

Your Personal Information will be received and processed by St. John’s employees and personnel, including third parties who provide services to St. John’s in connection with the purposes of processing described above. We share your Personal Information with our service providers only when they have agreed to process your Personal Information only to provide services to us and have agreed to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized use, access, or disclosure. We provide Personal Information to partner universities for group travel and collaborative events, research partners, printers and mailing houses, college board members, and the National Student Clearinghouse. You may contact the Office of General Counsel to learn more about the categories of service providers to whom your data is disclosed.

We also disclose your information to government authorities as required by laws the regulate immigration, tax, national security, and criminal activity.

St. John’s is headquartered in the United States with global studies programs in the EU. We transfer your data to the United States and to the countries where we operate Global Studies Programs. St. John’s offers study abroad programs in Rome, Italy; Paris, France; and Limerick, Ireland.  If you apply to one of our Global Studies Program your data will be sent to both our main US campus in Queens to the applicable Global Study location when we evaluate your application for enrollment.

St. John’s has executed Standard Contractual Clauses, as approved by the European Commission. These clauses permit St. John’s to transfer data from the EU to third countries, including the United States. If you would like to receive a copy of St. John’s Standard Contractual Clauses, you can contact the Office of General Counsel. 

We keep data about prospective applicants for no less than 7 years, and data about applicants for no less than 7 years. If you are accepted to and enroll at St. John’s, then we retain your data throughout your period of enrollment and for a period of no less than 30 years thereafter. We may be required by law to retain your information for a longer period, for example, if we need to comply with a subpoena.  If you have any questions, you may contact the Office of General Counsel.

You have the right to the following information regarding St. John’s processing of your Personal Information:

  • the purposes of the processing,
  • the categories of Personal Information concerned,
  • the recipients or categories of recipients to whom the Personal Information have been or will be disclosed,
  • where possible, the envisaged period for which the Personal Information will be stored, or, if not possible, the criteria used to determine that period.

This Privacy Statement is intended to provide this information. Any questions about these details may be directed to the Office of General Counsel.

You also have the following additional rights with respect to your Personal Information:

  • The right to request access to the Personal Information that St. John’s has about you, as well as the right to request rectification of any data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • The right to request a copy of your Personal Information in electronic format so that you can transmit the data to third parties, or to request that St. John’s directly transfer your Personal Information to one or more third parties.
  • The right to object to the processing of your Personal Information for marketing and other purposes.
  • The right to erasure of your Personal Information when it is no longer needed for the purposes for which you provided it, as well as the right to restriction of processing of your Personal Information to certain limited purposes where erasure is not possible.
  • The right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority where you believe that your rights have been violated.