Guidance

Civil Service Inclusive Practice privacy notice

Updated 8 May 2025

This notice sets out how we will use your personal data, and your rights. It is made under Articles 13 and/or 14 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Your data

The Civil Service Inclusive Practice team maintains a network of individuals and teams working to progress equality, diversity and inclusion from across all government departments, Devolved Administrations, Non-Ministerial Departments, Agencies and Non-Ministerial Public Bodies.

This network also exists on the Knowledge Hub platform and will be entitled the ‘CSDI Hub’.

Purpose

The purposes for which we are processing your personal data are:

• to maintain a list of network members
• to provide groups on Knowledge Hub that will allow only CSDI Hub members to access, share, discuss, blog and collaborate on documents, events and information
• to operate a mailing list for members to contact one another and to create their own practitioner profiles, blogs and message boards
• to circulate content in text, video and audio form, including workforce and UK statistics, news items, research and reports training, presentations, webinars and legal guidance in the public domain
• to invite members to meetings and events and to circulate related minutes and information as appropriate
• to seek insight on key areas of HR policy, impact assessments, process and/or practice, for example via regular network meetings, surveys, working groups and discussion forums
• to share career resources including development, job descriptions, coaching, mentoring, shadowing and guidance to support the capability of diversity and inclusion practitioners across the Civil Service.

The data

We will process the following personal data to maintain a list of members and operate the network: name, department/organisation, job title/role and email. Where we share minutes of meetings this data may include names, opinions and job titles.

We will also collect data on your use of the Knowledge Hub website via web analytics and process any additional personal information that you choose to post to the network including profile images.

We will use the following personal data to operate our mailing list: email address, employer, name, interaction with emails, IP address, and inferred geo-location.

If you so choose, when completing your Knowledge Hub profile you will have the opportunity to also share your social media addresses, telephone number, interests and skills. This, along with your name, email and employer will be viewable by other Knowledge Hub CSDI group members or anyone else you choose to connect with on Knowledge Hub.

Surveys will collect personal information, including your name, email address and the staff network or organisation you are representing, as well as your opinions.

Legal basis of processing

For operating a list of members, running the Knowledge Hub network, conducting surveys and gathering insight and for the mailing list the legal basis for processing your personal data is:

Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. In this case that is the Civil Service Inclusive Practice function to promote equality, diversity and inclusion across the Civil Service through its network of diversity and inclusion practitioners.

For web analytics or posted images and additional information volunteered we rely on your consent.

Sensitive personal data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.

We do not collect sensitive personal information, but if you volunteer it (e.g. in a forum post, a blog, published meeting minutes, in a survey or in the completion of your Knowledge Hub profile) our legal basis for processing your sensitive personal data is because you consent to us doing so.

Recipients

Some of your personal data will be shared with CSDI Hub network members when you join or interact on the Knowledge Hub platform.

Your personal data will be shared by us with Knowledge Hub who operate the collaboration platform.

As your personal data will be stored on our IT infrastructure it will also be shared with our data processors who provide email, and document management and storage services.

Your personal data will also be shared with our survey suppliers - Smart Survey and Google Forms.

Retention

Your personal data will be kept by us for as long as you wish to be a member of the group or network or on our mailing list.

If someone notifies us that they are leaving the Civil Service, or that equality, diversity and inclusion is no longer part of their role, the administrator will remove them from the mailing list within one month of us being notified.

Where a message is undeliverable on more than one occasion that individual will be removed from the mailing list.

Members can delete their Knowledge Hub account or request that their account be deleted, Knowledge Hub states that any personal data will be permanently deleted within 24 hours of this action.

In addition, inactive accounts are deactivated after a period of six months and are deleted if they remain inactive for a further six months (i.e. a total of 12 months). A deactivated account can be reactivated at the users request. Once an account has been deleted the user must reapply to join Knowledge Hub.

If someone leaves the Civil Service, or if equality, diversity and inclusion is no longer part of their role, but does not close their account, then the administrators of the CSDI Hub network will remove them within one month of us being notified.

Survey data in an identifiable formal will be held until any consultation is closed and any follow up activity complete, this will be no longer than 12 months. After that any data or insight retained will not be held in an identifiable format.

Your rights

You have the right to request information about how your personal data is processed, and to request a copy of that personal data.

You have the right to request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay.

You have the right to request that any incomplete personal data are completed, including by means of a supplementary statement.

You may have the right to request that your personal data be erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed.

You have the right in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested) to request that the processing of your personal data is restricted. This may particularly be the case for diversity and inclusion practitioners working in the intelligence services.

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data.

Where the personal data is processed on the basis of consent:

You have the right to withdraw consent to the processing of your personal data at any time.

You have the right to request a copy of any personal data you have provided, and for this to be provided in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

International transfers

Data shared with Knowledge Hub and Smart Survey will be stored in the UK.

Web analytics information may be transferred and stored securely outside the European Union. Where that is the case it will be subject to equivalent legal protection through an adequacy decision, reliance on Standard Contractual Clauses, or reliance on a UK International Data Transfer Agreement.

As your personal data is stored on our corporate IT infrastructure, and shared with our data processors, it may be transferred and stored securely outside the European Union. Where that is the case it will be subject to equivalent legal protection through an adequacy decision, reliance on Standard Contractual Clauses, or reliance on a UK International Data Transfer Agreement.

Data shared with our mailing list management supplier may be transferred and stored securely outside the European Union. Where that is the case it will be subject to equivalent legal protection through an adequacy decision, reliance on Standard Contractual Clauses, or reliance on a UK International Data Transfer Agreement.

Contact details

Knowledge Hub is the data controller for information provided to create an account on Knowledge Hub. The Cabinet Office and Knowledge Hub are joint controllers for any personal data used in the CSDI Hub network.

Cabinet Office is the data controller for use of data to operate a separate list of CSDI Hub network members held on their IT, and for operation of the mailing list.

The contact details for the Cabinet Office are:

Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS

or 0207 276 1234, or publiccorrespondence@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

The contact details for the Cabinet Office’s Data Protection Officer are:

Stephen Jones
Data Protection Officer
Cabinet Office
Room 405
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS

or dpo@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

The Data Protection Officer provides independent advice and monitoring of Cabinet Office’s use of personal information.

Complaints

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may wish to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

or 0303 123 1113, or casework@ico.org.uk

Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.