Privacy Notice

Thank you for visiting our website.

Foresight Research (‘Foresight’, 'us', 'we') understands the importance of protecting and respecting your privacy.

Foresight is, what is called, a 'data controller', which means that under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we are responsible for ensuring that your personal data is processed in accordance with the Data Protection Laws.

About this privacy notice

This privacy notice applies to our privacy practices for this website. It sets out the basis on which we process any personal data obtained from you via this website. If you wish to understand more about how your personal data would be processed in the context of participating in the research programme, please refer to the privacy notice that is contained with the Research Informed Consent Form.

Please read this notice carefully to understand how we process your personal data and your rights in relation to that processing.

The notice covers:

  • What personal data we collect;
  • What we do with that personal data;
  • Whom your personal data may be shared with;
  • Your rights in relation to your personal data.

Extra help - If you would like this notice in another format such as audio or braille, please contact us.

How you can contact us

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy notice are welcomed and should be addressed to DPO@foresightresearch.org 

What personal data is collected about you

We collect and process the personal data that you give us, when it is received from third parties, and that we obtain when you visit this website. 

  • You give us personal data by filling in forms on this website or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or in person. The personal data you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number.
  • Personal data we receive from third parties. We may receive personal data about you from third parties, including Google Analytics. We also work with third parties (including, for example, sub-contractors in technical and delivery services, search information providers or profiling agencies) and may receive personal data about you from them.
  • We use cookies to collect information about you whenever you visit our website and have not declined cookies via the cookie banner that is present when you visit the website. If you do not decline such cookies, some of this data will be aggregated or statistical, which means that we will not be able to identify you individually, but some of it, particularly when combined with other data, could constitute personal data.

How do we use your personal data?

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  • you have given us consent,
  • we need to perform a contract we are about to enter into, or have entered into, with you,
  • where it is necessary for our or a third party’s legitimate interests, and your interests and rights do not override those interests, or
  • where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

We retain your personal data for as long as is reasonably or legally necessary for the purposes listed above. For further information about our approach to data retention please contact us via DPO@foresightresearch.org. 

Purposes for which we use the information you give to us

We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. For each purpose, we are required to confirm the ‘legal basis’, which is justifiable legal reason under data protection legislation, that allows us to use your information, as follows:

Purpose for which we will use the information you provided us:

  1. To respond to your enquiries made through our website.
  2. To enable you to sign up to email updates about Foresight.
  3. To notify you about changes to our website terms or this privacy policy.
  4. To administer our website and for internal operations including the use of cookies.
  5. To invite you with information about events, such as seminars, workshops, conferences and dinners that you have requested.

The legal basis for each of the above:

  1. We will only process your data as far as necessary for our legitimate interest to respond to your request for information.
  2. You consent to providing us with your personal information for this purpose.
  3. It will be necessary for our legitimate interests to ensure that you are aware of our current terms and conditions.
  4. It will be necessary for our legitimate interests to ensure that you receive the best experience possible when accessing and using our website.
  5. You have consented to us providing you with information for this purpose.

How we may disclose or share your personal data

We may share your personal data with such of our staff that need to know it to fulfil our obligations to you and their responsibilities to Foresight.

We may also share your personal data with selected third parties including:

  • our suppliers and sub-contractors (including IT support, pay roll, pension providers, legal advisers, storage and printing services).
  • analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.
  • our outsourced IT and web hosting services providers.
  • to a regulator where we are required to do so by law. For example, to HMRC or the Charity Commission.

Note that we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of us, our customers, or others. This sharing of personal data includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Where we store your personal data

Some of the data that we collect from you may be transferred to third parties (for example, web hosting services or cloud providers) who will store the data at a destination outside the United Kingdom.

If we share your data with third parties as set out above, your personal data may be transferred to, and stored at or processed by staff operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA). In this instance, we will ensure that your privacy rights are protected by a contract containing materially the same obligations as we have to you and protecting your Personal Data.

How we keep your personal data secure

We use technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data - for example we use secure connections on our website to ensure that your website is encrypted. This means that we convert your data into a computer code, which will make it harder for hackers to access your data on our website.

While we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal data, you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that are transferred from you or to you via the internet.

If you want further information about how we are keeping your data secure, or have any particular concerns about your information, please contact us at DPO@foresightresearch.org 

Working with us to keep personal data secure - Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

How long we will store your personal information

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitive of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

The length of time that we will store your data will depend on the ‘legal basis’ for why we are using that data, as follows:

The legal basis:      

  1. Where we use/store your data because it is necessary for our legitimate business interests
  2. Where we use/store your data because you have given us your specific, informed and unambiguous consent.
  3. Where we use/store your data because it is necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

The length of time for each of the above:

  1. We will use/store your data for as long as it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, or such earlier time as you ask us to stop. However, if we can demonstrate the reason why we are using/storing your data is more important than your interests, rights and freedoms, then we will be allowed to continue to use/store your data for as long as it is necessary for our legitimate business interests.
  2. We will use/store your data until you ask us to stop.
  3. We will use/store your data for as long as it is necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations.

Third party links

Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

Your rights

You have a number of rights afforded to you under data protection laws that relate to the personal data processed by us, as follows:

  • request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  • request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data in certain circumstances. You may also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).  There may be instances where we cannot delete your data due to a legal obligation to retain, or where it may negatively affect the study.  If this is the case, we will respond to keep you informed.
  • object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. Please be advised that there may be restrictions to this right, but we will keep you informed if this is the case.
  • request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.  Again, in certain circumstances, it may not be possible to restrict processing where that data is critical to the study.  If this is the case, we will respond to keep you informed.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us via DPO@foresightresearch.org. We will respond to any rights that you exercise within a month of receiving your request, unless the request is particularly complex, in which case we will respond within three months.

Right to complain

We will always endeavour to respond and resolve any concerns or complaints that you may have, however, if you are not satisfied with the way that your personal data have been processed, or how we have responded to your queries or requests, you have the right to contact the UK Information Commissioners Office via https://ico.org.uk.

Changes to our privacy policy and this privacy notice

We may amend our privacy policy and this notice from time to time. Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this website. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.