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This privacy notice will help you to understand what personal data the IPO collects about you, how the IPO uses this personal data and what rights you have regarding your personal data.

It is important that you read this notice, the Personal Information Charter and any other privacy notice that is provided to you on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing your personal data, so that you are aware of how and why we are using it.

This notice applies to individual persons who are external to the IPO. This notice does not form part of any contract.

Personal data is any information that can be used to identify a living individual, either on its own, or in combination with other pieces of data. Examples of personal data includes your name and address.

Data processing includes the collection, use, publication, and storage of data.

The data controller is the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold, use and process personal information about you.

Purpose and lawful basis for processing

Our purpose for collecting this information varies depending on the nature of our engagement with you:

For events: we collect this information is so we can facilitate the event and provide you with an acceptable service.

For educational competitions and programme: we collect information so we can process applications submitted by schools, home educators, teachers, and parents/guardians. Whether on behalf of individual young people for competitions or on behalf of schools/classes for educational programmes. This allows us to select participants based on relevant criteria and provide ongoing support throughout specific programmes

The lawful basis we rely on for processing your personal data is your consent under article 6(1)(a) of the UK GDPR. When we collect any information about dietary or access requirements we also need your consent (under article 9(2)(a)) as this type of information is classed as special category data.

We may process personal data relying on public task under article 6(1)(e): where we are carrying out a specific task in the public interest or exercising official authority.

From time to time, we may reach out to you to inform you of upcoming events, educational resources, competitions, or programmes that may be of interest to you. For this purpose, the lawful basis we rely on for processing your personal data would be legitimate interest under article 6(1)(f) of the UK GDPR.

What are your rights?

We rely on your consent to process the personal data you give us to facilitate the event. This means you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

For events: If at any point you want to withdraw your consent, please contact ipmasterclass@ipo.gov.uk.

For educational competitions and programmes: If at any point you want to withdraw your consent, please contact crackingideas@ipo.gov.uk

Where we rely on legitimate interests to process your personal data, you have the right to object to this data processing at any time.

If at any point you do not wish to be contacted by us about events that may be of interest to you, please contact ipmasterclass@ipo.gov.uk.

If you do not wish to be contacted about future educational resources, competitions, or programmes, please contact crackingideas@ipo.gov.uk.

If you do that, we’ll update our records immediately to reflect your wishes.

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

• right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information
• right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete
• right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances
• right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
• right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
• right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances

If you make a request to exercise any of these rights, you should contact the Data Protection Team at the IPO; details of which are at the bottom of this notice.  If you contact us, we have one month to respond to you. You do not have to pay anything for exercising your rights.

These are not absolute rights, and the IPO can use its discretion to refuse to comply with these rights if there are legitimate grounds for the processing your personal data which override the interests, rights and freedoms of the individual, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

What we need

The information we collect depends on the nature of our engagement with you:

If you wish to attend one of our events: you will be asked to provide your contact information including your organisation’s name and, if offered a place, information about any dietary requirements or access provisions you may need. We may also ask for payment if there is a charge to attend.

If you wish to apply for one of our educational competitions or programme: we will ask for contact information appropriate to your role and the type of application - whether you are applying on behalf of individual young people for competitions or on behalf of a school/class for educational programmes. For selected participants, we may request additional information necessary for programme delivery.

During the event, we may take photographs which will be posted to our Intellectual Property social media sites. Details on how we process your personal information for IPO Social Media Channels can be found in out Privacy Notice for IPO social media.

Why we need it

We use this information for different purposes:

For events: we use this information to facilitate the event and provide you with an acceptable service. We also need this information so we can respond to you.

For educational competitions and programmes: we use your information to process applications, select participants according to established criteria, and provide appropriate support throughout the programme. Depending on the nature of the application, this may involve supporting individual young people in competitions or entire schools/classes in educational programmes. We also need this information so we can respond to you regarding application status and subsequent programme communications.

What we do with it

How we handle your information depends on the purpose for which it was collected:

For events:

• if you are not successful in securing a place, we will let you know and hold your details on a reserve list in case a place becomes available
• we will ask for information about any dietary/access requirements. We do not share this information in any identifiable way with the caterers, and we delete it after the event.
• we do not publish delegate lists for events
• during events we may use Teams to create interactive live polls, Q&As, and quizzes. We will retain the data from these events to analyse the responses and gauge the success of the event and will be held in line with our retention and disposal policy
• we use Questback when gathering post-event customer satisfaction feedback

For educational competitions and programmes:

• if an application is unsuccessful, we will notify you and will retain your details only for the duration of the application process
• for successful applicants, we will retain your data for the full duration of the programme to facilitate effective delivery and communication regarding programme activities
• some of our education initiatives are delivered in partnership with external organisations. In these cases, your personal data may be shared with these partners solely for the purpose of delivering the programme. Any such data sharing will be conducted in accordance with UK Data Protection legislation, and will be specified clearly at the point of data collection
• if you have opted in to receive marketing communications, we will use your contact details to send you information about future educational resources, competitions, or programmes
• if you have questions specifically about our education initiatives or competitions, or wish to withdraw consent for these programmes, please contact crackingideas@ipo.gov.uk

How long we keep it

Your personal data will be retained in accordance with the IPO’s data retention and disposal policies.  A copy of the policy can be obtained from kim@ipo.gov.uk.

Do we use any data processors?

We may use data processors to help facilitate the events.

Change of purpose

We will process your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it. We may also process your personal data for another purpose that we reasonably consider to be compatible with the original purpose.   

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, where this is required or permitted by law.

Changes to this privacy notice

We may change this privacy notice. In that case, the ‘last updated’ date at the top of this page will also change. Any changes to this privacy policy will apply to you and your data immediately.

How to lodge a complaint

You can contact the IPO’s Data Protection Officer if you:

• have a question about anything in this privacy notice
• think that your personal data has been misused or mishandled

·¡³¾²¹¾±±ô:Ìýdpo@ipo.gov.uk

Address:

The DPO provides independent advice and monitoring of our use of personal information. 

You can also make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator.

Information Commissioner
icocasework@ico.org.uk
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Textphone: 01625 545860
Monday to Friday, 9am to 4:30pm
Find out about call charges