Privacy policy
This website belongs to Seeds for Growth - you can find our full details below. This privacy policy explains how Seeds for Growth uses personal information we collect via this site. We are committed to protecting your privacy and we take all reasonable precautions to safeguard personal information. This website contains links to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.
​
1. What information we collect
​
Sign-up details
If you register or sign up for events, newsletters, or publications on the site, we will ask you for personal information such as your name, email address, occupation, and other contact details such as a contact phone number.
​
Job application details
If you apply online for a job at Seeds for Growth, we will collect information about you and your experience through that application process.
​
Other application details (e.g. for services or funding)
If you submit a tender to provide any services, apply for funding or support from Seeds for Growth, or enter a challenge prize, or register to attend one of our events, we may ask for more detailed information which we will use to process your application and you will be asked to agree to specific terms and conditions at the time of making the application.
​
Feedback and surveys
We may also ask you for feedback about Seeds for Growth or to complete surveys.
​
Research
If you agree to collaborate with us in relation to any research, we are conducting we will ask you for your name and contact details, occupation and may ask for further information about you as may be relevant to the particular research you are participating in.
​
Online activity
When you use our website, we obtain information about the device from which you accessed it, your visits and use of the website including your IP address, location, browser type and version, referrer, and activity. We record your activity and preferences when visiting the site through the use of cookies (see "Cookies" below).
​
Your posts and communications
If you post content or communicate via the site, we may also ask for your name, occupation, and the organisation for which you may work. We also store and monitor your content and communications.
​
Purchases
If you purchase event tickets or publications via the website, we will collect your name, organisation details, email and postal address, telephone number and payment details.
​
2. What do we do with information we collect and what is our legal basis for this?
​
Third party processors
As is indicated below, we may use third party platforms and processors to deliver newsletters, process applications, event registrations, tickets or publication sales, payments, surveys, and any request to update your data contact preferences. In using these third parties we are pursuing our legitimate interest to use third party technology to achieve greater efficiency within our organisation. To balance our interests against yours, we have taken steps to ensure these third parties maintain appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your personal information secure.
​
Sign-up details
If you sign-up for us to send you newsletters, publications and other information about Seeds for Growth, our partners, and activities (see “Marketing” section below), we will use your personal information to send these to you. Our legal basis for doing this is your consent. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, as explained in the “Marketing” section below. If you are given the opportunity to sign-up, register for an event, or programme, or to create a personal profile through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn will make your email address registered to your social media account available to Seeds for Growth, and Seeds for Growth will use the email address to enable you to log in to the particular platform. Our legitimate interest in doing this is the use of third party platforms for business efficiency and ease of registration for users.
​
Events
If you register to attend one of our events, we will use your personal information to process your application to attend the event, take payment, if any, for our administration and management of the event and to send you any updates or information regarding the event. Our legal basis for doing so is to fulfil the agreement with you for your attendance.
​
Purchases
If you buy a ticket for an event or make a purchase via the website, we will use the information provided to fulfil your order. We use third party systems to process your purchase and take payment. The payment processing organisation will be the data controller of your information for the purpose of processing the transaction and may process your information outside of the EEA. Please read the terms and conditions before completing your purchase and making payment.
​
Job application details
We will use your personal information to process your application. We undertake this processing because it is necessary to fully assess your application, and if successful, to take steps to enter into a contract with you (this is our legal basis for the processing).
​
If you apply for a job at Seeds for Growth
So that we can monitor the effectiveness of our Equal Opportunities Policy, when you apply for a position at Seeds for Growth, you will be asked to complete an Equal Opportunities Monitoring form; however, it is not a requirement of the job application process, and you may decline to do so. The information you provide in this form is used for monitoring purposes only and remains strictly confidential. It is stored in an anonymised form and not matched with an applicant’s identity. The Equal Opportunities Monitoring form is not used during any stage of the shortlisting or selection process. Our legal basis for processing this information is your explicit consent. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time – if you would like to do this, please just follow the steps explained in the “Marketing” section below.
​
If you are successful in your application, we will provide further information about how we will continue to process your personal information during the course of your employment.
​
Other application details
We will use your personal information to process applications you make via the site. We undertake this processing because it is necessary to fully assess your application, and if successful, to take steps to enter into an agreement with you (this is our legal basis for the processing).
​
If you tender to provide any services, or apply for funding or support, enter one of our prizes, you may be directed to another platform to process these applications. Some of these platforms may be managed by third parties other than Seeds for Growth, and further details will be given to you when you start the application. Please ensure you read the terms and conditions of those platforms when making any such applications, as when you submit an application you will be agreeing to the terms and conditions of those platforms. However, we remain the controller of your personal information in this arrangement – these third parties only process your personal information in line with our instructions
​
Feedback and surveys
If you agree to give us feedback or complete a survey, we will use the information to improve our work and activities. If you agree to participate in any survey that will form part of any research project, we will tell you at the time you take part how your information will be used for the particular research project or programme, and how long it will be kept for.
​
Research
If you agree to take part in any research, we will use your information for the purpose of that research project or programme. Full details of how your personal information will be used will be given to you at the time you agree to participate; this could include to inform the development of a new prize, project, programme or other initiative, being incorporated into reports or other research outcomes, and may include being publicly displayed on web pages relating to the particular research project or programme.
​
Online activity
The information that we obtain about your device helps us to monitor the website and keep it secure. The cookies we use tell us how you use the site and what pages you have visited. In pursuing these activities, we use our legitimate interest of monitoring and improving the performance of the site, and its security, to help us understand more about our customer’s interests and preferences and to inform our marketing strategy. Some of these cookies are used for remarketing purposes and, if you agree, will be used to send you tailored advertisements. For more information, see “Cookies” below.
​
Posts and Communications
If you post any comments on the website, any personal information you agree to provide will be displayed publicly on the website along with your comments. In pursuing these activities, we are pursuing our legitimate interests to understand more about our contacts’ use of social media, and this will then inform our marketing strategy.
​
For all kinds of information collected:
Please make sure that any personal details you provide are accurate and up to date and let us know about any changes. Please get consent first before giving us anyone else’s information. The nature of Seeds for Growth’s work means we often work in partnership with other organisations, however, we will not share your information with any other organisation unless we have your permission first, unless we have a legitimate interest to do so (see section 5 below). We may also use your information to carry out analysis and research to improve our publications, events and activities, customise our website and its content to your particular preferences, notify you of any changes to our website or to our activities that may affect you, to prevent and detect fraud and abuse, and to protect other users. However, you choose to engage with or support Seeds for Growth, we may retain your information for our own legitimate business interests for statistical analysis purposes, in order to review, develop and improve our business activities. In this situation, we will only keep any personal information if it is necessary to do so, and will always put in place appropriate safeguards, including where anonymising or minimising the data retained.
​
3. How long we keep your information for
​
General principle
We will only keep any personal information that you provide to us for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which you gave us the information and we will securely delete information when it is no longer needed for that purpose, as explained in more detail below.
​
Events 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 business development purposes to help us understand our audience and reach, and to improve future events.
​
Purchases If you buy a ticket for one of our events or purchase publications via this site or via Seeds for Growth’s Shopify Shop, we will also keep your information on our customer database and to tell you about future similar events or publications available for sale. If you do not wish us to contact, you about future events or publications for sale please let us know by writing to us or emailing us at the at the contact details below.
​
Consent We keep records of consent, and any withdrawal of consent, on our files for as long as your personal information is being used in-line with that consent and for a period of 6 years after the consent is withdrawn (unless otherwise requested by you).
​
Job application details If you apply for a job or send us a CV, we will keep your details on file for 6 months from the end of the recruitment process. After that point, your application or CV will be destroyed. However, if you are successful in your application, then the information you provide during the application process will be retained by us as part of your employee file for the duration of your employment plus 6 years following the end of your employment.
​
Other application details If you tender to provide any services, or apply for funding or support, or enter one of our prizes, and you are successful, then we will keep your information for 6 years after the associated agreement has come to an end, or if the agreement was executed as a deed for 12 years. If the project or initiative has any external funding or support, we may need to retain your information for a longer period to fulfil our obligations under those agreements, in which case we will tell you that at the time of application.
​
If you are unsuccessful in a tender to supply services or you are unsuccessful in an application for funding, support or a prize entry, once the process has ended we will retain your information for 3 years for evaluation and business development purposes, and to provide you with future opportunities to apply for similar opportunities, funding and support, or prizes in the future. If you do not wish us to contact you about future opportunities, please let us know by writing to use or emailing us at the at the contact details below.
​
Research
If you agree to take part in any research your personal information will be kept for as long as it is of value to Seeds for Growth and the wider research community, and for as long as may be specified by any external research funder, patent law, legislative and other regulatory requirements. Research data shall be reviewed at least every 5 years to consider its continued value to Seeds for Growth, and personal data anonymised or pseudonymised where possible, unless to do so would affect the integrity of the research data and/or its outcomes, or its future value.
​
To the extent that Personal Data arising from any research is embodied within a research report or other research outcome, it will be retained in perpetuity as part of the published materials. Research that supports the development of a prize, project, programme, publication, or other research outcome, shall be kept for at least 5 years beyond publication or any other research outcome has been completed. If the research is funded or the subject of any other contract, your personal data may be kept for 6 years after the end of the contract or longer if the contract or funding agreement specifies, which could be up to 12 years after the contract ends.
​
Posts and communications Any information that you post on the website shall only be kept and displayed for such time as the subject matter to which is relates is publicly displayed.
Processing for statistical analysis purposes This type of processing will only be undertaken whilst we retain your personal information in line with the principles explained above.
​
4. Marketing
If you sign up to our mailing list, we will use your details to keep you informed about latest news, blogs, programme updates, research, publications, event details, jobs, and funding opportunities, and may request feedback, including our annual audience survey.
​
5. Who else has access to your information
We may share your information within the Seeds for Growth group of companies, for the purposes of managing the event, grant, or activity. Seeds for Growth currently provides all support and services for its subsidiary companies, therefore, our legal basis for sharing your information is to pursue the legitimate interests of shared resources and management reporting between the companies within the group. Comments, blogs, and other information which you post on the site are displayed publicly and can be viewed by other users. Please be careful when disclosing personal information which may identify you or anyone else. We may disclose your personal information to law enforcement agencies if required by law (in which case our legal basis for doing this is for compliance with a legal obligation), or to protect or defend ourselves or others against illegal or harmful activities (in which case, our legal basis for doing this is the pursuit of these legitimate interests).
​
6. Cookies
This site uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites you visit. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to site owners. Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through browser settings. This site uses cookies that are strictly necessary to enable you to move around the site or to provide certain basic features, such as logging into secure areas. The site also uses performance cookies which collect information about how you use the site, such as how you are referred to it and how long you stay on certain pages. This information is aggregated and therefore anonymous and is used to improve the performance of the site. If you want, you can block cookies by changing the settings on your browser. Please note that some of the features of the site may not work if you choose to block cookies.
​
7. Security
We take steps to protect your personal information and follow procedures designed to minimise unauthorised access or disclosure of your information. If you have a password for an account on this site, please keep this safe and do not share it with anyone else. You are responsible for all activity on your account and must contact us immediately if you are aware of any unauthorised use of your password or other security breach.
​
8. Contacting us exercising your right and complaints
You are legally entitled to know what personal information we hold about you and how that information is processed, which includes the right to:
-
know what information we hold about you
-
ask us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold
-
ask us to delete your personal information
-
ask us to stop using your personal information or restrict how we can use it, for example if you feel it is inaccurate or no longer needs to be used by Seeds for Growth
-
object to us using of your personal information
-
object to any automated decision making that we may do using your personal information
​
If you wish to know what information we hold about you, or wish to exercise any of your other rights as detailed above, or have any complaint about how we are using your personal information, then please email us using hello@seedsforgrowth.org.uk or write to us at 12 Cannon Workshops, Cannon Drive, London E14 4AS and provide enough information to identify yourself (e.g. name and address or any registration details).
If our information is incorrect or out of date, please provide us with information to update it. If you want us to delete, restrict or stop using any information we hold about you, please explain the reasons why you are asking this. If you are unhappy with how we are using your information, again please explain to us the reasons and we will investigate the matter.
You can also write to the same address if you have a complaint about this policy. If you are unhappy with how any data rights request or complaint has dealt with you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner.
​
9. Changes to the privacy policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes that relate to information we already hold about you, where practicable. You should check this policy occasionally to ensure you are aware of the most recent version that will apply each time you access this website.