Privacy Policy

Overview

This privacy notice covers the processing of personal data carried out by the East Sussex Growth Hub and associated services, as required to deliver business support. This includes the East Sussex Growth Hub, all East Sussex Growth Hub funded and part-funded programmes, the East Sussex Growth Hub newsletter, and the relationship to the Business Growth Service. The East Sussex Growth Hub collects other business data. Please note that this privacy notice only covers personal data that is processed by the service.

The East Sussex Growth Hub is managed by East Sussex County Council's Economic Development Team. East Sussex County Council takes data protection seriously. Please be assured that your information will be used appropriately in line with data protection legislation, will be stored securely and will not be processed unless the requirements for fair and lawful processing can be met.

What information is being used?

The East Sussex Growth Hub collects and processes a limited range of personal data about customers in order to provide their service. This is normally limited to name, phone number and contact email address for the business contact. Age bracket and gender are collected for equality and diversity monitoring, both of which are optional. Additional business details are required to receive the service, and a narrative of support will be recorded.

As part of monitoring the reach of our services we will ask for special category data – ethnicity and health data for equality and diversity monitoring. This information is optional and is not a requirement of receiving the service.

All other Growth Hub funded and part-funded business support programmes require the same personal details.

For those opting into marketing emails an email address is required.

How will your information be used?

For those who are registering for marketing emails including the newsletter, your email address will allow the East Sussex Growth Hub to contact you with relevant information including a newsletter. The newsletter is managed by e-shot™ who have their own privacy notice (e-shot website).

For those referred to the East Sussex Growth Hub service by the Business Growth Service, your contact details will be transferred with your consent. This data transfer is managed by the Business Growth Service who have their own privacy notice (Gov.UK website).

The personal data of East Sussex Growth Hub navigation or support recipients will be used to enable the delivery of a service for operational reasons (such as to provide ongoing support where necessary and collect feedback on the service via email). It is also required to evidence service delivery to our funder: the Department for Business and Trade (DBT).

The use of the business’s information by DBT may include matching to other data sources to understand more about organisations like yours and general patterns and trends, although the business’s data will not be published or referred to in a way which identifies any individual or business.

Personal and special category data will be used to understand the reach of our services and promote equality and diversity.

We aim to maintain high standards, adopt best practice for our record keeping and regularly check and report on how we are doing. Your information is never sold for direct marketing purposes.

Our staff are trained to handle your information correctly and protect your confidentiality and privacy.

Your information is processed in the UK or in a country with an Adequacy Agreement (Information Commissioner's Office website) with the UK.

What is the legal basis for processing your information?

Your data is processed under Article 6(1)(e) and Article 9(2)(g) (Schedule 1, Part 2(8)) in order to ensure equality of opportunity and treatment.

Your consent will be requested to process your data to receive support from the East Sussex Growth Hub under articles 6(1)(a) and 9(2)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulations. Additional consent will be requested for joining any East Sussex Growth Hub funded and part-funded programmes due to the additional data sharing this involves.

Consent will also be requested and maintained separately for email marketing.

If recipients no longer wish to receive our service and withdraw consent, we are still required to report all existing data to our funders and do so under Article 6(1)(e) and 9(2)(g) as a task carried out in the exercise of our official authority. Once reporting has been completed data will be deleted and no longer used.

How long will your information be kept for?

Personal data will normally be held for 10 years, as per East Sussex Growth Hub's retention schedule. For more information on how long information is retained please see the East Sussex County Council retention schedule.

For marketing recipients, your data will be held until you unsubscribe. This can be done through the newsletter itself.

Sharing your information

The East Sussex Growth Hub service is a funded service and therefore it is necessary that we share the details you provide to us with our funders – the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) – for research and evaluation purposes. This is a condition of using the fully-funded service and processing is necessary under Article 6(1)(e) as a task carried out in the exercise of our authority in order to be able to supply this service.

We may also share the details you provide us with our delivery partners and your local authority economic development team, where you have given us permission to do so.

Any sharing of personal data is always done:

on a case-by-case basis
using the minimum personal data necessary
with the appropriate security controls in place
in line with legislation

Information is only shared with those agencies and bodies who have a "need to know" or where you have consented to the sharing of your personal data to such persons.

We may use the information we hold about you to assist in the detection and prevention of crime or fraud. We may also share this information with other bodies that inspect and manage public funds.

Use of third-party organisations

East Sussex County Council may share your information with trusted external organisations to process your data on our behalf.

In order to provide this service, we need to share your data with the programme’s funder – the Department for Business and Trade (DBT).

Any organisation commissioned by the Council will be under contractual obligation to comply with data protection legislation.

Your rights

Under data protection legislation you have the right:

to be informed why, where and how we use your information
to ask for access to your information
to ask for your information to be corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete
to ask for your information to be deleted or removed where there is no need for us to continue processing it
to ask us to restrict the use of your information
to ask us to copy or transfer your information from one IT system to another in a safe and secure way, without impacting the quality of the information
to object to how your information is used
to challenge any decisions made without human intervention (automated decision making)

Please visit Data Subject Rights (East Sussex County Council website) for further details.

How to find out more or complain

Should you have any further queries on the uses of your information, please speak directly to our service.

Email: East Sussex Growth Hub
Post: East Sussex Growth Hub, Economic Development Team (West-C), East Sussex County Council, County Hall, St Anne’s Crescent, Lewes BN7 1UE

To complain about the use of your information, please contact East Sussex County Council.

Email: Customer Services Team or Data Protection Officer
Website: Customer feedback and complaints (East Sussex County Council website)

You can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for further information or to make a complaint.

Phone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate)
Website: ICO Contact Us or ICO Complaints (Information Commissioner's Office website)
Post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF