Guidance

Privacy notice for Equality Hub user research

Published 18 October 2022

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).

Purpose

The Equality Hub Team is a multidisciplinary team that includes developers, user researchers, content designers, service and delivery managers, data analysts and policy specialists. The purpose for which we are processing your personal data is to better understand the digital service being researched. We want to understand this so we can develop and improve our service, and improve its accessibility.

The data

We will collect and hold the following personal data.

For potential and actual research participants:

• name
• organisation
• job title
• email address
• phone number

For actual research participants:

In some cases, we collect audio or video recordings and opinions. We may also collect health or disability information to meet reasonable adjustments, and health or disability and ethnicity data as part of our research to assess impacts on different groups.

Lawful bases for processing

Any data you provide is done so voluntarily. But where you do choose to provide data, our legal basis for processing your personal data is that 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.

If we make an audio or video recording, we will only do so with 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. The legal bases for processing your sensitive personal data are:

• processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department

• exercise of a function conferred on a person by an enactment (public sector equality duty)

• processing is of data concerning ethnicity, religious or philosophical belief, health including disability or sexual orientation, and it is necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between groups of people with a view to enabling such equality to be promoted or maintained (public sector equality duty)

• it is necessary for the purposes of performing or exercising our obligations or rights as the controller, or the data subject’s obligations or rights, under employment law, social security law or the law relating to social protection (reasonable adjustments)

Recipients

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

If we have recruited you through a market research company, then some limited data may be shared with that company in order to organise your participation, but we will not share your research data.

Retention

Your personal data will be kept by us in identifiable form for two years from the date of collection.

Where you did not provide your personal data: Your personal data were obtained by us from the market research agency that recruited you.

Your rights

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

You have the right to request information about how your personal data are 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 have the right to request that your personal data are 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.

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes.

In relation to audio and video recordings and images:

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

As your personal data is stored on our IT infrastructure, and shared with our data processors, it may be transferred and stored securely outside the UK. Where that is the case it will be subject to equivalent legal protection through the use of Model Contract Clauses.

Contact details

The data controller for your personal data is the Cabinet Office. The contact details for the data controller are:

Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall, London
SW1A 2AS

Public Enquiries: Online Contact Form

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

The contact details for the data controller’s Data Protection Officer are: dpo@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Complaints

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may 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
0303 123 1113
casework@ico.org.uk

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