Accessing your information

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) you have the right to access your personal data.

This right is not absolute and will apply differently depending on the circumstances of each request.

Further information about your rights is available from the :

Making a request

If you wish to request a copy of your personal data, please use the form below:

If you are submitting a request on behalf of someone else, please use:

Alternatively, you can email your request to dataprotection@manchester.ac.uk.

Helping us find your information

To help us locate your personal data and respond efficiently, please provide as much relevant detail as possible about the specific information you are seeking. This helps us carry out targeted and proportionate searches and means we are more likely to identify the information relevant to your request in a timely manner.

Where applicable, this may include:

  • If you are/were a student: your School, course and year(s) of study
  • If you are/were a member of staff: your Department and line manager(s)
  • The specific subject matter, incident or issue you are interested in
  • A reasonable date range (requests covering very long periods may not be proportionate)
  • Limited key staff who may hold any relevant information

Subject access rights apply only to your personal data. Requests must be reasonable, proportionate and focused on particular areas of interest.

We cannot conduct open-ended searches across all systems or communications 'just in case' information exists. Broad, speculative or excessive requests may need to be narrowed in line with data protection law.

If your request is unclear or too broad, we may ask you to clarify or refine it before proceeding.

Requests involving emails and communications

Many requests relate to email correspondence. It is important to understand that we cannot carry out automated searches across all staff email accounts or other communication systems (such as Teams or similar platforms).

Emails and other communication records are unstructured and do not use consistent identifiers, meaning automated searches would return large amounts of irrelevant information. Not all mentions of your name in these records will constitute your personal data.

For these reasons, searches of emails and other communications must be manual, targeted and proportionate, based on the information you provide.

To help us locate relevant information, please ensure your request clearly sets out who may hold the information, what it relates to, and when it was created.

Please be aware that we will need to contact relevant staff directly for any information they hold about you.

Further guidance is available: