Undergraduate Project Form

All email correspondence sent to this site is treated as a public record and may be retained by us for future consideration.

Email messages may be monitored by our Web and Technology Services support staff for system trouble shooting and maintenance purposes and some emails received by our website support staff may be forwarded to other AUT staff for appropriate action if required. Staff of AUT will not disclose these details to third parties without your consent (unless required by law).

AUT collects and holds personal information in accordance with its obligations under the Privacy Act 2020. Your personal information is collected so that we can provide you with relevant information about our courses and the benefits of studying at AUT.

By providing your email address or mobile phone number and agreeing to the terms of our Privacy Policy you consent to receive email or text message (SMS) communications from AUT, including (but not limited to) events, course information and newsletters. We may share the information with third-party (including leveraging generative AI) for marketing about AUT. We will assess the risks and ensure they meet the obligations of the Privacy Act 2020.

We may also use data you provide to inform our AI assistant via our live chat function in order to help answer your enquiry.

In some cases, we are required to provide you with such communications under New Zealand law (including the Education and Training Act 2020 and the Children’s Act 2014 for example). You cannot opt out of these communications while you have a current application or enrolment with AUT. You will continue to receive them even if you opt out of marketing communications.

You can opt into or out of receiving marketing materials at any time by following the unsubscribe link in the relevant email or by replying to an SMS message alert you have received with ‘STOP’.

You have the right to access and correct personal information and can do this by calling 0800 288 288 during business hours, or contact us via email at one of the following:

• Prospective domestic students: futurestudents@aut.ac.nz
• Prospective international students: internationalstudy@aut.ac.nz
• Applicants and current students: studenthub@aut.ac.nz
• Alumni: alumni@aut.ac.nz

You may request the complete erasure of your personal data from the AUT marketing database. Removal will be agreed to if it does not compromise freedom of expression or the ability to research.

Personal contact information will be automatically removed from the AUT database after a period of no engagement with the AUT website or electronic messages after 240 days.

Data collected in web forms and in social media platforms is held in AUT's central database and used to provide information in the context of which the data was initially collected. It may also be used to provide further information related to the context in which the data was initially collected.

In the event of a data breach AUT will inform the Privacy Commissioner before then informing you.

By agreeing to the terms of the AUT Privacy Policy you consent to the collection, storage and use of your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy and these Terms. You can find our Privacy Policy online. Alternatively, you may contact us on 0800 288 864 and we will make a copy of our Privacy Policy available to you on request.

AUT operates CCTV on its campus which for the purposes of this statement include any Student Accommodation managed by the University located outside of the physical campus). This means information about what individuals are doing on a AUT campus may be collected and held by the AUT.

Information will be stored on AUT files and database(s) or those of its service providers and all reasonable security measures will be maintained. Where a service provider is located outside of New Zealand, personal information held by the University may be transferred outside of New Zealand.

Purposes of CCTV operation

The purpose of collecting information is to:

• Deter criminal activity
• Increase personal safety of staff, students, and other members of the public
• Protect AUT’s property and the property of staff, students and members of the public
• Assist AUT to investigate student and/or staff incidents or those involving members of the public, and
• Assist AUT to manage the campuses and any Student Accommodation that may located outside of the physical campuses.

Disclosure of information held

Information collected may be disclosed to, and published by the NZ Police, if they decide that is desirable in the circumstances. The information collected may be accessed by AUT staff and used for the purposes specified in this statement. Limited information may also be provided to vehicle owners or their authorised agents, to pursue compensation or damages claims (where applicable).  That will be upon proof that they have notified the Police and have received a complaint acknowledgement form.

Access to CCTV information

Individuals identified on CCTV have the right to ask for access to footage about them. AUT will make information held about an individual available to them upon request and in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020, which also describes the conditions under which information may be withheld. Individuals have the right to request correction of personal information held in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy Act 2020.

If an individual wishes to seek access to their personal information, or inquire about the handling of their personal information, contact the Student Privacy Officer. You may need to provide specific details about the nature of your relationship with the University and the information you are seeking so that we can easily locate it for you.

We will respond to your request as soon as reasonably practicable and no later than 20 working days after we receive it.

A majority of the times that an individual is identified on CCTV (and that information is to be provided to the police) is when they are accused of a crime, therefore that information would be available to them via disclosure from police – there is no requirement for AUT to be the third agent in these scenarios. On occasions ‘victims’ may seek CCTV footage, the same criteria as indicated above needs to apply.

AUT has made a commitment to protecting the privacy of users of our AUT App and My AUT (the desktop experience of the AUT App). AUT undertakes to collect and maintain any personal information in a manner consistent with the principles outlined in the Privacy Act 2020.

Like most apps and desktop applications, we monitor usage to help us to make it useful to as many visitors as possible and to map usage trends. To do this we collect some information about users of the App and My AUT, and we may also ask you for information to provide a service to you. Details of what we collect and how it is used are contained in this statement.

We may use available technology to identify the specific areas of our app and My AUT that you visit, and the functions you participate in. This information will be employed for communications, communication automation, business development, and trend analysis. Both PowerBI and Google Analytics are utilised for this purpose.

It's important to note that, when using Google Analytics, our focus is on gaining insights into the overall app/My AUT usage. Importantly, no individual user information is recorded or associated with these analytics. The collected data is used to understand general patterns of app usage, aiding us in ongoing efforts to improve and enhance the overall user experience.

What information we collect

The following information is collected by Auckland University of Technology (“the University”) when you visit the AUT App:

• Your IP address
• The date and time of your visit to the site or app
• Your current AUT App version
• User preferences and settings
• Error Logs
• App Engagement including engagement with announcements, events, video content, pages, features.
• The type of device you are using
• User generated content (e.g., comments, posts, images, bookings, event registrations, survey responses, payments, check-ins, added friends).

This information is collected for the following purposes:

• The University uses this information to aggregate AUT App/My AUT statistics for known and unknown users and measure traffic patterns to, from, and within the App and My AUT; help us to better understand our App/My AUT audience; improve our services to students; and improve stability and performance. We also select certain known users for the purposes of communication.
• Targeting the University’s announcements using user generated content such as check-ins, event registrations, shuttle bus usage.
• Targeting the University’s announcements and events using data collected in other AUT systems including Arion and StarRez.
• Statistical purposes and system administration tasks.

You have a right to access personal information that the University holds about you, subject to any exceptions in the Privacy Act 2020.

You may request the complete erasure of your personal data from the AUT marketing database. Removal will be agreed to if it does not compromise freedom of expression or the ability to research.

Data collected in forms is held in AUT's central database and used to provide information in the context of which the data was initially collected.

In the event of a data breach AUT will inform the Privacy Commissioner before informing you.

By agreeing to the terms of the AUT Privacy Policy you consent to the collection, storage and use of your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy and these Terms. You can find our Privacy Policy online. Alternatively, you may contact us on 0800 288 864 and we will make a copy of our Privacy Policy available to you on request.

Third-party involvement and data storage

As part of our commitment to providing a secure and efficient experience, we store data within the Microsoft Azure cloud, specifically within the AUT Azure Cloud Tenant. This cloud infrastructure is selected for its robust security measures, reliability, and seamless integration with AUT's technological ecosystem.

In addition, to gain insights into user engagement and interaction patterns, we utilise Google Analytics. It is important to emphasise that this service is employed exclusively for engagement analytics, providing valuable information to enhance your experience. No personal or identifiable user data is shared with Google Analytics.

AI assistants at the University

We provide AI assistants – such as the AUT Assistant and Live Chat – to staff and students to assist them with questions and navigate our systems, websites and intranet. These AI assistants use artificial intelligence (including generative AI) and machine learning to provide responses to users and continuously improve.

When you use these AI assistants, your conversations will be connected to your unique identity in the respective AUT systems. This means that we will have an identifiable record of the questions you ask and the responses you receive.

We will only use these conversation records to monitor the effectiveness of the AI assistants, including ensuring that users are provided with accurate answers. We will not use or share these conversation records for any other purpose. This data is not provided to third parties or used for training commercial AI models.

The following information is collected by Auckland University of Technology (“the University”) when you visit our websites:

• Your browser's internet address
• Your server's address
• Your domain name
• Your IP address
• The date and time of your visit to the site
• The pages you accessed and documents downloaded
• Email clicks
• Live chat conversations
• Video engagement
• The previous site visited
• The type of browser you are using, and device
• The username entered if accessing a restricted site.

This information is collected for the following purposes:

• The University uses this information to: aggregate website statistics for known and unknown users and measure traffic patterns to, from, and within this site; help us to better understand our website audience; improve our services to students, and; for targeted marketing and student recruitment purposes. We also select certain known users for the purposes of communication.
• Targeting the University’s advertising using Google Remarketing and Facebook Remarketing (remarketing is a way for us to connect with visitors, based on their past interactions with the University’s website/s).
• Statistical purposes and system administration tasks.

As a result of the University’s use of remarketing (on social media platforms), third party vendors (which include Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram) may use “cookies” to show you ads related to the University as you visit third party sites across the internet.

A cookie is a very small text file that is sent to your browser from our web server and stored on your computer hard drive. The text file is sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies help us to provide the user with a customised experience without their having to remind us of their preferences each time they return to our web pages. Cookies cannot damage files, nor can they read information from the hard drive of a computer. It is possible to disable the acceptance of cookies by your web browser. However, doing so may restrict your ability to access some web pages.

• You may opt out of Google’s uses of cookies by either going to Google’s Ads Settings
• Alternatively you can opt out of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page
• You can choose to opt out of Google Analytics for at any time by changing your ad settings. You can also use the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on so your visits are not tracked into Google Analytics.
• You can opt out of interest-based ads by using the Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out tool or the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out tool.
• To opt out of our use of cookies on the AUT website you can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from websites you visit. Rejecting cookies may result in a loss of some website functionality.

You have a right to access personal information that the University holds about you, subject to any exceptions in the Privacy Act 2020.