Privacy Notice

Introduction

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notices that may be provided on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

The Science Council respects your privacy and looks after the information it holds about you. We hold your information in secure systems. Our staff and volunteers have training in data protection and are bound by Science Council policies. We take appropriate security precautions to prevent your information being lost or falling into the wrong hands. The data you give us is only shared with good reason.

Where we collect personal data, we will only process it:

  • to perform a contract with you, or
  • where we have legitimate interests to process the personal data and they’re not overridden by your rights, or
  • in accordance with a legal obligation, or
  • where we have your consent.

Controller’s contact details

The Science Council is a data controller. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

Our postal address:

Science Council

c/o Fora Space

71 Central Street

London

EC1V 8AB

For general contact please visit our website.

Data Protection Officer’s contact details

You can contact the Data Protection Officer by emailing [email protected]. Please mark the email ‘For the attention of the Data Protection Officer’. Alternatively you can write to us via our postal address. Please mark the letter ‘For the attention of the Data Protection Officer’.

Data protection principles

The UK GDPR sets out seven key principles which state that the personal information we hold about you must be:

  1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
  2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
  3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
  4. Accurate and kept up to date.
  5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
  6. Kept securely.

Your rights

The UK GDPR provides you with a number of rights regarding your personal data. You have the right to request from us access to and rectification or erasure of your personal data, the right to restrict processing, object to processing as well as in certain circumstances the right to data portability.

If you have provided consent for the processing of your data, you have the right (in certain circumstances) to withdraw that consent at any time which will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent was withdrawn.

You may also have the right, in some circumstances to obtain a copy of the personal information in machine readable format.

How do we get information?

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

  • You have visited our website
  • You have made an information request to us.
  • You wish to attend, or have attended, an event.
  • You subscribe to our newsletter.
  • You have applied for a job or volunteering opportunity with us.
  • You have applied for professional registrant with us.

We may receive personal information from our Licensed Bodies and Employer Champions on individuals who have been awarded one of the Science Council’s professional registration awards.

Making a Subject Access Request

When we receive a Subject Access Request (SAR) from you, we will need your contact details and any other information you have given us.

If you are making a request about your personal data or are acting on behalf of someone making such a request, then we’ll ask for information to satisfy us of your identity. If it’s relevant, we’ll also ask for information to show you have authority to act on someone else’s behalf.

We will retain a record of all SAR’s for a period of 3 years from closure of the request. This will include:

  • a copy of the request (the requester’s ID documents do not need to be retained once they have been verified; however, a record of what was provided and who verified it should be)
  • a copy of the information disclosed and any covering letter
  • a copy of any withheld data, alongside an adequate explanation of why the information was withheld.
  • any relevant correspondence relating to the request (including consultations and information searches.

You should send your request to the Data Protection Officer ([email protected]). Please title the email ‘Subject Access Request’ and include your name in the email title.

The lawful bases for processing your information

The lawful basis on which we rely to process information we receive from you is Article 6(1)(a) of the UK GDPR in that you have given consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more of the specific purposes outlined below.

Visitors to our website

We collect some information about you automatically when you visit our website, like your IP address and device type. We use anonymised data to help us improve our website’s functionality and help us get a better understanding of how visitors are using our website and services so that we can continue to provide the best experience possible. All website data is held on Google Analytics, which holds your data for 16 months.

Some information is collected using cookies and similar tracking technologies. If you want to find out more about the types of cookies we use, why, and how you can control them, take a look at our Cookie Policy. You can disable Cookies by modifying the settings in your browser, but this may affect your use of our website.

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Subscribing to our newsletter

Our purpose for collecting your contact details is so we can provide you with a service and let you know about the Science Council’s work. We use Mailchimp to send out our newsletter. You can read about Mailchimp’s privacy policy here. We collect analytics information so we can provide a personalised service, monitor the impact of our work and improve the newsletter.

We ask for your email address, name, and the organisation for which you work. You will receive a confirmation email once you have submitted your details. We use your email address to send you our newsletter which subscribers receive approximately monthly. You have the right to unsubscribe from receiving the newsletter at any time.

Visitors to the office

The Science Council’s office is in a serviced office (Fora Space). If your visit is planned, we will send your name and email to reception before your visit.

Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) is used in the building in which our office is located and is not operated by us, so we are not the controller. It is under the control of our landlord. You can read Fora Space’s Privacy Policy here.

Apply for a job or secondment

You can read our Employee and Applicant Privacy Notice here.

Applying for a volunteering position

You can read our Volunteer Privacy Notice here.

Attend an event, seminar or workshop

When you register to attend a Science Council event, seminar or workshop (in person or online) you are asked to provide us with information such as your name, email address, job title and employer name.

We will use your email address to provide information relating to the workshop and for sending you an evaluation survey following your attendance so that you may give us feedback. This will enable us to improve our services, the content and/or format.

We process information to understand, how many delegates attended, from which job roles, and from which organisations. This data enables us to advise employers how many delegates from their organisation have attended a workshop. At no time will we disclose names and email addresses.

We monitor which attendees go on to make an application for professional registration on the Science Council’s online portal, thereby understanding the effectiveness of the workshops being delivered.

We may take photographs of you and/or film you if attend an event, seminar or workshop. We will seek your explicit consent to us taking photographs of you and/or filming you. We will seek your explicit consent to us publishing photographs or filming we take of you.

Applicants for registration directly through the Science Council

We collect personal information about applicants directly through the application process. We do not hold more information than we need to process your registration and support you in your career.

We do not hold your data longer than we need to. For registrants this is a lifetime record, which extends to 5 years post-mortem.  For successful applicants that apply directly via the Science Council, we depersonalise the information collected from you 12 months after a successful application.  Partially completed applications that have not been updated for 3 months will be withdrawn and we depersonalise the information.

If you are an applicant for professional registration, we will collect the following data from you:

  • Full name
  • Date of birth
  • Email address
  • Gender
  • Home address
  • Telephone number
  • Qualification certificate
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Your current employer and work address
  • Your employer’s contact details (if your employer is paying for your registration)
  • The full name, email and employer of your supporter

We will also collect information to track the progress of apprentices as part in our Technical Pathways programme, including name, course, training provider and employer.

As part of your application process, application data may be disclosed to your employer if they are one of our Employer Champions.  This is to verify your application status.

To progress your application, we will share your application with your supporter.

Details of your application will be available with Science Council staff, volunteer assessors and the Licensed Body for the sole purpose of the assessment process.  Science Council volunteers undergo regular GDPR training and formally acknowledge their duty to respect the confidentiality of information they obtain whilst volunteering for the Science Council and agree not to disclose information after ceasing to be a volunteer for the Science Council.

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to proceed with your application.

Sharing your information

We will not share your information with any third parties for the purposes of direct marketing. We do not transfer any personal data outside of the United Kingdom.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Automated decision-making

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:

  1. Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request a reconsideration.
  2. Where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
  3. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

Your right to complain

We aim to work to the highest professional standards when it comes to processing your personal information. If you have queries or concerns, please contact us at [email protected].

If you remain dissatisfied, you can make a complaint about the way we process your personal information.

Right to withdraw consent

You have the right to withdraw your consent for the processing of your personal data at any time. However this may affect the service that we provide you as we need certain information from you to perform particular services. To withdraw your consent, please contact [email protected]. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.