Curved Thinking Privacy Notice

This privacy notice describes the personal information we collect, why it is collected, how we use and store it, and how long we keep it. It also sets out your rights regarding any personal information we gather from or about you, and provides you with contact details if you would like to contact us or the Information Commissioners Office.

Why we collect personal information

CurvedThinking carries out research and evaluation work as part of our own business and on behalf of partners and clients. To do this we use information about aspects of the circumstances, characteristics, needs, aspirations, behaviours and opinions of individuals and organisations. We gather information directly from individuals, and are also provided with personal information by partners and clients, which we process on their behalf.

What we collect

We only collect personal information which is legal, and necessary to the research and evaluation service/s we are providing. This may include your name, telephone number, email address and other contact information. It may also include other information about you and/or your circumstances, needs or opinions, for example:

• demographic information such as age, gender, education level and information about your race and ethnicity
• information on your health, disabilities, wellbeing or care needs
• information on your employment circumstances or history
• service use information
• your opinions or observations about things that have happened to you or services or goods you have received
• your household circumstances

We will not collect or process any personal information about you that we do not need in order to deliver our services, and we will not continue to hold this information after we no longer need it.

What we do with it

Our work involves aggregating data about individuals and organisations in order to understand social, health and economic issues. Your name, contact details or any other information which might enable you to be identified will never be shared nor made public beyond ourselves, or our partner organisations formally involved in a particular project, without your explicit consent, unless we are legally obliged to do so. If we want to do this, we will seek your consent separately.  

All the personal information we collect and hold is processed by us, or people working on our behalf, in jurisdictions listed by the EU as compliant with the GDPR regulations as implemented from May 2018 or as subsequently updated.

We have data protection processes in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your personal information. More information can be found in our full data protection policy which is available from john@curvedthinking.com.

We will keep your personal information only for as long as is required, so long as this is compliant with legislation. For example, under European Union law, we are required to keep information gathered for projects supported by EU funds for seven years, after which time it will be destroyed.

The actual length of time we keep records may vary from one service to another so we will inform you about specific details at the point of information gathering.

We may, with your consent, like to store your contact details (for example, your name, address, phone number and email address) for longer than this in order to keep you informed about our work. If this is the case we will seek your consent separately. This information will never be shared with third parties, without your further consent, unless the law or our policies permit it i.e. for safeguarding purposes. You can withdrawer you consent at any time by informing john@curvedthinking.com

Your rights

You have the right to be informed about the personal information we collect and hold about you so we have prepared this notice and may provide additional information when collect information from you. If at any point you believe the information we process about you is incorrect you can request to see this information and even have it corrected or in certain circumstances deleted. In the first instance please talk to your main contact at CurvedThinking, alternatively please contact our Data Protection Lead, John Bell on 01424 871017, at john@curvedthinking.com, or in writing to CurvedThinking, Homestall Oast, The Street, Sedlescombe, East Sussex, TN33 0QD

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Lead, detailed above, who will investigate the matter fully and deal with it in accordance with our data protection policy and complaints policy.

If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are processing your personal information not in accordance with the law, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can call the ICO on 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745, or email the ICO at casework@ico.org.uk

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to enable you to visit other websites of interest easily. However you should note that we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy notice applicable to the website in question.

Personal information processed on behalf of other organisations.

CurvedThinking delivers a broad range of services to individuals and organisations and is committed to ensuring your privacy is protected at all times. Many of the services are managed by separate organisations through a contract with us, for example we deliver projects on behalf of Sussex Community Development Association and the Department for Work and Pensions. In these cases the contractor or funder is usually the main Data Controller and as such have responsibility to inform you about the information they wish us to process on their behalf through the publication of an additional Privacy Notice. We will notify you and share the relevant Privacy Notice with you if this is the case.