The Evidence
Quarter Data Privacy
Notice

This Privacy Notice was last updated in April 2022.

1. Introduction

The Evidence Quarter (“The EQ”, “EQ”, “we”, “our”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of the personal data we collect about you (“you/your”). We don’t do anything with your personal data that you wouldn’t expect, and we process it as we would expect others to process our personal data.

This Privacy Notice is to inform you of how we use your personal data when you interact with us. When we do this, we are the Data Controller. We have identified the categories with which you may belong. There is further explanation below.

1. EQ Member
2. Affiliate EQ Member
3. Non-EQ Member
4. Office Visitor
5. Website Visitor
6. Prospective EQ Employee or Intern

EQ Member & Affiliate EQ Member

An EQ Member is an individual employed in an organisation that has paid to be a member of The Evidence Quarter and is based at the EQ offices. An Affiliate EQ Member is the same although the organisation is not based at the EQ offices.

Non-EQ Member

A non-EQ-member can be defined as an individual who has registered interest in receiving notifications about the EQ and may have attended an event held by the EQ although is not employed at an organisation that is based in the EQ offices or within an EQ Affiliate Organisation. 

Office Visitor

Any visitors to the EQ offices which the EQ may or may not be directly aware of although will have the ability to be aware via building management, EQ internal security arrangements and due to the EQ office being open plan. An Office Visitor may also be an Affiliate EQ Member or a Non-EQ Member.

Website Visitor

Any visitors to the What Works Network website in which EQ webpages are embedded. The EQ manages the What Works Network website (https://www.whatworksnetwork.org.uk/).

Prospective EQ Employee or Intern 

When you apply for a job at the EQ or for an internship within an EQ member organisation. If you were successful we shall supply you with a separate Employee/Internship Privacy Notice.

Please review the sections that are relevant to yourself within each part of this this Privacy Notice within which we outline what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we collect it, where we get it from, what we do with it, our lawful basis for using it, how we store it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, what rights you have, how to complain and how to contact us. 

This Privacy Notice does not create any contractual rights or obligations. We may change this privacy notice from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on the website or by contacting you directly.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or any Data Protection related matters relevant to The EQ you can send an email to our Data Protection Officer: dpo@theevidencequarter.com 

2. Our contact details

Name: The Evidence Quarter

Address: Evidence Quarter, 4th Floor, Albany House, Petty France, London, SW1H 9EA

E-mail: info-eq@theevidencequarter.com

3. What personal information we collect

EQ Member, Affiliate EQ Member & Non-EQ Member

• Name(s), Email Address, Phone number
• Job Title, occupation, place of work, employer
• Information captured in emails, surveys and communications
• Opinions you have expressed to us which are relevant to a project objective
• Publicly available personal information (e.g. from websites and social media platforms) including social media handles and publicly expressed content
• Videos of you where you are in the background when you attend an in-person event we are recording
• Videos of you where you are acting as a speaker for our work or being interviewed on camera as an attendee of an event The EQ is holding
• Accessibility and/or dietary needs/preferences which may include relevant special categories of information (“Health Data”)
• Special categories of information where you become ill (“Health Data”)
• Payment details managed by a third party payment provider (when appropriate)

Also see Office Visitors if you are an Affiliate EQ Member or Non-EQ Member.

Office Visitors

To accommodate your visit to our offices we will process the following categories of personal data:

• Name(s), Email Address, Phone number
• Job Title, occupation, place of work, employer
• Information that may aid accessibility needs including any relevant special categories of information (“Health Data”)
• Reason for visiting
• Information recorded in interviews we may have with you
• Time of entry and exit, and duration of visit
• Recorded footage of you (where we are video recording a live event)
• CCTV footage of you

Website Visitor

When you visit our website, we will collect the following information about you:

• Information about the device used to access our website, your visits and use of the website including your IP address, internet log information, location, browser type and version, referrer and activity, and details of visitor behaviour patterns
• We record your activity and preferences when visiting our website through the use of cookies (see “Cookies”, below)
• IP address, operating system and browser information

Prospective EQ Employee or Intern

Where you have applied for a job, work experience or internship with us we will collect:

• contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses
• copies of driving licence, passport, birth certificates and proof of current address, such as bank statements and council tax bills
• evidence of how you meet the requirements of the job, work experience or internship, including CVs and references
• evidence of your right to work in the UK and immigration status
• diversity and equal opportunities monitoring information – this can include information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, disability and other ‘special category data’ information about your health, including any medical needs or conditions
• other information required for some applications
• if you contact us regarding your application, a record of that correspondence
• details of your use of our recruitment tools and services, such as your candidate profile and alerts for vacancies the status of your application and updates on how it moves forward
• Most of the personal information we process for our communications work is provided to us directly by you

We may also collect, store and use the “special categories” of more sensitive personal information including:

• Information about your physical or mental health, or disability status.
• Information about your health and medical conditions for health and safety reporting purposes.
• Criminal records information.

4. Why we collect your information and what we use it for

EQ Member & Affiliate EQ Member

• To provide you access to the EQ Hub: An intranet facility for employees of EQ member organisations to remain up to date with EQ news and events, book EQ meeting rooms, notify facilities management of individual attendance in line the EQ Covid Policy, create forums, access EQ branding collateral, and access the contact details of all employees in EQ Member and Affiliate EQ Member organisations.
• To allow you to be searchable by the other EQ Member and Affiliate EQ Member organisations within The EQ Hub, for the encouragement of collaboration in the context of research being conducted for the betterment of society.
• To provide you with support (which may or may not be requested) from EQ Employees including but not limited to facilities management, data protection, events management and IT needs.
• To inform you of office closures.
• To identify and to respond to you, where you have made a data subject rights request to us such as, but not limited to, an opt-out request, a Data Subject Access Request and/or a Right to be Forgotten Request.
• To invite you to voluntarily conduct an interview, workshop or focus group with you as a participant, which may or may not be recorded, and do so where you have provided permission.
• To contact you to participate in an interview, and/or a workshop, and/or a focus group session as part of a project or piece of research another EQ Member or Affiliate EQ Member organisation is conducting.
• To transcribe the audio captured from any recorded interviews, workshops or focus groups we have with you as a participant.

EQ Member, Affiliate EQ Member & Non-EQ Member

• To send you information about online and offline events.
• To invite you to attend and/or register you for an online or offline event.
• To manage your data in context of an event which may mean taking payment, alerting you to issues, reviewing your application to the event and sending you updates about the event.
• To add you to The EQ list of sector related stakeholders once you have registered for an event, to receive communication from us or registered an interest from another source.
• To send you our newsletter and relevant ad hoc updates including latest news, blogs, programme updates, research projects or calls by EQ Member and Affiliate EQ Member organisations, relevant research publications, event details, recruitment and funding opportunities.
• To gather and use survey answers which you have completed.
• To identify if you are a relevant sector stakeholder from publicly available information on websites and social media accounts when you have signed up to an event.
• To gather opinion on the work and activities we are conducting.
• To identify you in our data lists and take any required actions where we have received a data subject rights request from you
• To use in promotional collateral and material as still images or videos where we have either sought your permission to do so or you have verbally agreed to have an ad hoc photo taken or to participate in an on-camera interview at an EQ event you are attending (you may appear in the background and be recognisable)
• To allow for accessibility and dietary needs/requirements at our events (“Health Data”)

If you no longer want to receive marketing communications from us, you can unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time by please clicking the unsubscribe link, at the bottom of our emails or by emailing info-eq@theevidencequarter.com detailing your name and email address, and indicating that this is in relation to unsubscribing marketing communications.

Office Visitor

When you visit the EQ offices we will use your personal information to register you at the reception of our building who will log entry and exit times as part of building security measures. 

You may be asked to write your name and further details into a visitors’ book by building entrance staff and you will be captured on CCTV cameras during your visit which is also for security and monitoring purposes.

Your personal information will be limited to those who you would expect to know of your visit and where you voluntarily interact with other employees of EQ Members whom you meet, or other event attendees. 

Your personal information will also be stored in an electronic calendar application and used as a lookup to understand arrival and departure times and to identify when you last visited. 

Should you be visiting for an event at our offices we may produce name badges for ease of identification by ourselves and others in attendance, and we may make a video recording (filming) of the event where you may be in the background. We may ask you to be in the foreground of a video recording of an event i.e. conduct an ad hoc interview with you or record you asking a question to a panel member.

You are under no obligation to be in the foreground of any filming we do at an event, and we will inform you of recording taking place so you are able to move to a location where you do not appear in the background of any filming should you not wish. 

Please do let us know either before, during or after a filmed event if you no longer wish to be recognised within a recording and we shall endeavour to remove or obscure the image so you would not be identifiable on any recordings we have made.

Website Visitor

The personal information we collect when you visit our website goes toward helping us:

• To monitor the website and keep it secure, it helps us understand how we might improve the website through numbers of visits, visitor patterns and behaviour.
• Promote and develop services and grow our organisation.
• Run our organisation, provide administration and IT services, ensure network security, and prevent fraud.
• Collect information to understand more about our stakeholders’ interests and preferences and to inform our marketing strategy.
• To keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our organisation, and to inform our marketing strategies.
• To add you to communications activities lists where you have indicated your consent for us to do so.
• Answer any enquiries you submit to us via the website.

Cookies we use tell us how you use the site and what pages you have visited. 

Prospective EQ Employee or Intern

We use you information in the recruitment process for employment, work experience or internship at The EQ in the following ways:

• To reply to you about the position you have applied for or inquired about
• To approach you as a good fit for employment, work experience or internship
• To check you are the right candidate for the role
• To move your application forward including making changes in applicant tracking systems or dedicated recruitment-based software and websites
• To receive a reference from a sectoral relevant individual where they have gained permission from you to be introduced to us
• To send you notifications for other job, work experience or internship vacancies
• To inform you about the status of your application
• To invite you to participate in relevant surveys, questionnaires, research projects and events where your profile has been identified relevant to research work, we are conducting (we will never share or sell your personal data and we will never include you in research participation where we have not gained your permission to do so)
• With permission, retain your personal information for longer statutory requirements where you have not been successful but would like the opportunity to invite you to apply again in the future

We maintain a reserve list of candidates who met our requirements but were not successful in securing the specific post they applied for. We’ll ask for your permission to be added to this list. We will refer to the list when other roles are advertised and will contact you if you match the role. We will ask for your permission before putting you forward for the role.

If you are successfully recruited, we will upload your details to our HR system. We will also share your data for statistical analysis (it will be anonymised first) if we are required to do so by law – for example, by court order, or to prevent fraud or other crime.

5. Collecting your personal information

EQ Member & Affiliate EQ Member 

We shall collect your personal information from the EQ Member or Affiliate EQ Member organisation that employs you upon your employment and from yourself when you communicate directly with us including information you voluntarily add to the EQ Hub.

Non-EQ Member 

• From yourself when you complete a form on the What Works Network website or third-party events management website (e.g. EventBrite).
• From yourself when you make contact with us via email or social media platforms requesting information or to be notified about events we are holding.
• From yourself when we meet you at an internal or external event and you have allowed us to capture your personal information or more personal information at the internal or external event.
• When you attend an event at the EQ office you may be asked to write your personal information on a name badge/sticker and you may be filmed, should we be recording the event.
• From yourself when you communicate directly with us.

• When you register or sign up for the EQ mailing list, events, newsletters or publications on our website or via direct contact from yourself
• When you complete an EQ survey which may be on the What Works Network website, a link we have sent you in an email or direct message, a link to a survey that has been sent on our behalf via an email or other industry newsletter or forum, or a link to the survey from an external website or social media platform
• When we communicate with you for direct feedback, which may be via email, direct message, unified communications or social media platform
• From events location/space service providers to accommodate for any needs or requirements.
• When we record you at an event either foreground or background depending on the circumstances of the recording taking place (we will also provide a Privacy Notice at the event’s location).
• If relevant, when we take payment from you.

We use third party providers to deliver our e-newsletters, manage event registrations and sign-ups, edit and possibly transcribe recorded footage and to take payments where required. These third parties gather further personal information on behalf of The EQ in conjunction with their services to The EQ. 

We also gather statistics around email opening, clicks, event attendance, engagement levels and events management using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our communications work.

The EQ maintains Data Processing Agreements with all third-party providers where personal data is being collected and processed on The EQ’s behalf.

Office Visitor

Office visitor information will be collected via email from yourself or the individual that has arranged your visit on your behalf or via a third party which we will pass on to building management so they can communicate your arrival to us. Your personal information will also be collected from you when you add your details to a building management visitors book.

If you are visiting the The EQ offices to attend an event please see Non-EQ Members above. 

Website Visitor

We collect data about you from your device and via third-party website analytics services such as Google Analytics and cookies (see below) when you visit our website. We do not make, and do not allow our Google Analytics settings to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.

This website includes embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.) from other websites and links to external websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow other parties to collect or share data about you. 

Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. We do not control these external websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit. 

Cookies

As you interact with our website, we automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies to enhance your experience of our website.

Our website uses cookies for collecting user information which may include IP address, operating system and browser information. We use persistent cookies to track returning visitors. They expire after 12 months and enable us to compare website traffic from month to month.

Cookies are text files, which identify a user’s computer to our servers. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. You can learn more about cookies by visiting http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

You can manage and delete cookies through your web browser. Each browser manages cookies differently, but you can learn more about cookie settings in the most common browsers using the links below:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari for Mac
• Safari for iOS
• Edge
• Internet Explorer

You can also prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics by using the Google Opt-out Browser Add-on, available at this link.

Prospective EQ Employee or Intern

We have gathered your information in one or more of the following ways:

• Via publicly available sources such as social media where we have identified you as an individual we would like to approach you as a good fit for employment, work experience or internship at The EQ.
• From a reference of a sectoral relevant individual where they have gained permission from you to be introduced to us.
• From a Higher Education Provider (HEP) such as a college or University who has recommended you to us.
• From a current or former employee of the EQ, an EQ Member or Affiliate EQ Member organisation where they held a previously established relationship with you and sharing your personal information with The EQ would not be unexpected.
• From yourself via a recruitment web advert we have developed which may also mean we have received your personal data via a recruitment platform or website.
• From a recruiter, recruitment agency or other applicant tracking system or recruitment website.
• From yourself when you have participated in a survey or questionnaire as a research participant and we have identified you as a potential candidate for employment, work experience or internship at The EQ.
• From yourself where you have responded to an advert on our website, completed our contact us page on our website or sent an unsolicited prospective email to us.
• We also use platforms such as LinkedIn, Indeed, CV Library and others where we may have identified you as a potential candidate for employment, work experience or internship at The EQ.
• From publicly available websites and social media platforms.
• From former employers and people named by candidates as references.
• Where relevant, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
• If relevant to the role, Government departments or other relevant and related institutions.

6. Our lawful basis for using your data

EQ Member, Affiliate EQ Member & Non-EQ Member 

• Obligations of a Contract: Processing your personal information in accordance with a contract we have with you or the organisation you work for;
• Legal Bases: Complying with applicable law with regard to personal data necessary to satisfy our legal and regulatory obligations, including with regard to public health and workplace safety, and when applicable to conduct security checks;
• Legitimate Interest: In the processing of your personal information in relation to EQ activities, monitoring and management.
• Consent: We may rely on the consent that you provide us at the point of collection of your personal data to use such information for the purposes outlined herein. For example, you may have agreed to receive marketing materials such as our electronic newsletters (you are able to opt-out or unsubscribe at any time).

Office Visitor

We process the personal information of visitors to our offices based on the legitimate interest of the data controller (The EQ).

Website Visitor

We process the personal information of visitors to our website based on our legitimate interest as the data controller. 

We request your consent for adding your personal information to our marketing activity lists where you have provided your information via a form on our website. You are able to opt-out of receiving communications from us by emailing us on dpo@theevidencequarter.com or by selecting the ‘unsubscribe’ preference we include on each marketing email we send.

We also request consent for the use of cookies when you first visit the What Works Network website. You can opt to refuse cookies that are not necessary, and you are able to update cookie collection preferences through browser settings (see Cookies in Section 5).

Prospective EQ Employee or Intern

We process personal data throughout the recruitment application process based on different legal bases:

• Contract: Processing your data is necessary to move your application forward before signing a contract of work. This concerns employment or pre-employment checks.
• Legal Bases: Complying with applicable law with regard to personal data necessary to satisfy our legal and regulatory obligations, including with regard to public health and workplace safety, entitlement to work and when applicable security checks.
• Legitimate Interest: Evaluating your application and to manage our relationship with you, to ensure that we recruit appropriate employees, and to evaluate and maintain the efficacy of our recruiting process more generally. We will also process your personal data to invite you to participate in projects which may be, or similar to, surveys, questionnaires, events, interviews or other research projects where the work we are conducting is for societal benefit.
• Consent: If we offer you the opportunity to participate in our optional recruiting programs or if we collect sensitive personal data for legally permitted purposes other than compliance with our legal obligations regarding public health and workplace safety. We will ask for consent from you where you are not successful, and we want to retain your personal information for longer than 6 months. Also, for us to send you surveys, questionnaires, information about events, interviews or other research project opportunities where the work we are conducting is for societal benefit.

7. Security, Storage and Sharing of your data

We take the security of your information very seriously and have put physical, technical, operational, and administrative strategies, controls and measures in place to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use or disclosure as required by law and in accordance with accepted good industry practice. We will always keep these under review to make sure that the measures we have implemented remain appropriate.

We use Google Workspace & Google Cloud Platform for the secure storage of personal information processed by us. Through the use of Google services the organisation is able to provide a high level of security around the storage of highly sensitive personal data which is captured within a high variety of our activities. You can find further security and compliance information in the Google Compliance Resource Centre, Privacy Resource Centre and the Google Cloud & the GDPR pages.

Your personal data may also be stored with specific third-party services for the minimum period necessary to perform activities with your personal information. Each third-party is subject to contractual and security reviews to ensure adequate and comparative levels of security, we’d expect for ourselves, is provided for the data they process on our behalf. 

The types of third-party providers we use include:

• Building Management services
• Transcription services
• Mass email services
• Communications providers
• Survey platform services
• Client Relationship Management services
• Website services and platform providers
• IT services organisations

We may also share your personal information with our professional advisers including our lawyers and auditors where it is strictly necessary. It is possible that we may be required to share your data to comply with applicable laws or with valid legal processes, such as in response to a court order.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded by implementing at least one of the following safeguards:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the UK (the UK also recognises the European Commission list of adequate countries. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of Personal Data in non-EU countries)
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK. For further details, see UK International Data Transfer Agreements. We will also assess in-country standards as part of this process.

Where data is likely to be shared outside the UK to a country without appropriate safeguards comparable to those offered by the UK GDPR and UK Data Protection Act 2018 we shall inform you of the reasons for these requirements and the supplementary measures to maintain the security around your data we have implemented.

8. How long we keep your data

We will only keep personal information for as long as it is needed to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected.

EQ Member & Affiliate EQ Member & Non-EQ Member

Where you are part of an organisation that is an EQ Member where the organisation is located in The EQ offices we shall retain your personal information for as long as the organisation is located in The EQ offices or you have left the organisation. Where you are part of an organisation that is an Affiliate EQ Member we shall remove your data upon the organisation’s instructions or when we are notified you have left the organisation.

If you have provided consent for us to use your information for our communications work, we will retain your information until you withdraw that consent. Where we have not relied on consent for the processing of your information, where you indicate to us you no longer wish for us to retain your information, we will delete your information.

If you attend one of our events, we will use your information for the purpose of the event and will only contact you for any other purpose if you have said we can. We will retain your personal information collected for the purpose of the event for 3 years for evaluation and organisation development purposes to help us understand our audience and reach, and to improve future events.

We review all of The EQ’s activities lists containing personal information on an annual basis and delete, update or request confirmation of accuracy of data and/or preferences where appropriate or required. 

Office Visitor

Your personal information shall be retained within digital email calendars and subject to archiving processes conducted on an ad hoc basis. Name badges will be destroyed when you leave the premises. The ID that is requested to be shown at the building front desk is for verification purposes only and we don’t record this information. 

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) operates inside and outside the building for security purposes. The information is viewed by the building security company on a live feed and may be recorded at the discretion of the provision of security services supplied by the building we occupy.

When we provide you Wi-Fi on site for the use of visitors. We’ll provide you with the login details. We record the device address and will automatically allocate you an IP address whilst on site. We also log traffic information in the form of sites visited, duration and date sent/received. This information is retained for a reasonable period of time to monitor the security of Wi-Fi use when onsite.

We sometimes record audio and video of training sessions delivered by external training providers. We don’t do this without the prior agreement of the training provider and no recordings are shared outside of the EQ. Training recordings will be deleted when they are of no subsequent use to EQ and its staff.

Website Visitor

Depending on your reason for visiting the website and how you decide to interact with our website will determine the amount of time we retain your personal information outlined above. You are able to delete Cookies (please see section 5).

Prospective EQ Employee or Intern

We will store your information for the duration of the recruitment process. Where you have not been successful, we shall retain your personal data for up to 6 months in accordance with the UK Limitation Act 1980. We will only retain your personal data longer than 6 months where we have gained your permission to do so. 

If you have been successful in the recruitment process, we will provide you with an Employee/Intern Privacy Notice outlining the retention period of your personal information.

9. Your data protection rights

You have the following rights in respect of your personal data:

• Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
• Your 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.
• Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances including where we are processing your data based on consent.
• Your 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.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at dpo@theevidencequarter.com if you wish to make a request.

10. How to Complain

We kindly request you allow us the opportunity to address your complaints when they arise.

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us by contacting dpo@theevidencequarter.com or info-eq@theevidencequarter.com 

You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) using the details below if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Contact us

If you have any questions, or wish to exercise any of your rights, then you can contact:

Organisation: The Evidence Quarter

Address: Albany House, Westminster, SW1H 9EA

E-mail: info-EQ@theevidencequarter.com

Alternatively, you can email us at dpo@theevidencequarter.com 

Changes to this privacy notice

We may update this notice (and any supplemental privacy notice), from time to time as shown below. We will notify you of the changes where required by applicable law to do so.

Last modified 12 April 2022.