Identity and contact details of the Data Controller
Kent County Council is the Data Controller for the KMGH, which complies with the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018 and is registered as a ‘Data Controller’ (Reg. No. Z5297748).
Kent Invicta Chamber in delivering the KMGH collects data for this service on behalf of KCC, is also a registered Data Controller (Reg No. Z5483912) for it’s own activities and therefore complies with UK GDPR.
What personal data do we collect from you?
- contact name and address details including post code and local authority located in (both individuals and businesses), position within the business
- contact details including phone numbers and email addresses (both individuals and businesses)
- age bracket, gender, ethnicity and disability status for equality and diversity monitoring, all of which are optional
- business name, business registration date, legal status and ownership details
- description of the business, maturity of the business, sector and SIC code
- website address
- reason for contacting the Growth Hub, how you heard about the Growth Hub / source of referral
- companies house number, VAT registration number, HMRC unique taxpayer reference (UTR), HMRC employers PAYE reference number
- evidence of eligibility as an SME to receive support, including current and projected turnover and number of employees
- Subsidies received during the last 3 (three) fiscal years if required for Subsidy Control compliance.
- For certain funded opportunities, data to demonstrate Gross Value Added (i.e. annual sales, net profitability, depreciation costs, employment costs, tangible fixed assets and the number of employees) in the most recent, completed fiscal year and forecast for the current financial year
How we use your personal information
KMGH collects and uses your personal information to provide services to you, including some statutory services. Your personal information may be shared with KCC departments or with external partners and agencies involved in delivering services on KMGH’s behalf.
KMGH does not disclose or share sensitive or confidential information without your explicit consent except in a small number of situations where disclosure is required by law, or where we have good reason to believe that failing to do so would put you or someone else at risk.
You may decide you do not wish your personal information to be collected or shared or may set conditions on our use of it. In such cases we may not be able to provide you with the service you require or may only be able to provide it in a limited way. There are occasions where we have a statutory obligation to collect or use personal information. KMGH may use ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and age information (i.e. equalities data) to compile statistics in order to comply with equality legislation and assist in planning and service provision. Such data does not identify individuals or affect your entitlement to services.
KMGH, as a KCC provision, must protect public funds and may use personal information and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. To achieve this, information may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds including the Audit Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police. KMGH reserves the right to monitor and record electronic communications (website, email and telephone conversations). There are a number of reasons why we may do this; staff training, records of conversations or detection, investigation and prevention of crime. KMGH will inform you if your call is being recorded or monitored.
Reasons we collect and use your personal information
As outlined in Article (6) and Article (9) of the UK GDPR, the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal information, following your verbal consent are:
- Article (6) (1) (a) – we rely on your consent to enable us to provide you with the KMGH service.
- Article (9) (2) (a) – we are required to collect equality information as part of service delivery, and such data is shared with the Department of Business & Trade.
You may withdraw your consent at any time. If you do withdraw your consent no further personal information will be collected and the existing personal information shall only be retained in accordance with the KCC’s data protection policy.
Third parties
KMGH does not pass personal data to third parties for marketing, sales or any other commercial purposes without your prior explicit consent. Your personal information may be processed by external parties, based in the UK, acting on our behalf in order to provide with one or more KMGH services. This includes but is not limited to the provision of live chat on our website.
Email
Emails that we send to you or you send to us may be retained as a record of contact and your email address stored for future use in accordance with our record retention schedule.
If KMGH needs to email sensitive or confidential information to you, we will perform checks to verify the correct email address and may take additional security measures. If sending us such information we recommend using our secure online forms where provided, or the postal service.
Website
The KMGH website does not store or capture personal information of users with general public access, but does log the IP address of a visitor. Anonymous information about page visits is collected using Google Analytics.
KMGH does not use small text files on your device called cookies for the general running of its website but does use them to sometimes place cookies make this website easier to use. This enables requested services (e.g. payments) and to improve things by:
- Remembering the things, you’ve chosen while on our website, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you visit a new page.
- Remembering data, you’ve given (for example, your address) so you don’t need to keep entering it.
- Measuring how you use the website so we can make sure it meets your needs.
We will also use Remarketing which is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous internet behaviour. Retargeting tags online users by including a pixel within the webpage or email, which sets a cookie (explained within our cookie policy) in the user’s browser. Once the cookie is set, we can show ads (often display ads) to that user elsewhere on the internet via an ad exchange.
Our cookies are not used to identify you personally. They’re just here to make the site work better for you. You can manage and/or delete these files as you wish and you can be disable cookies by changing the settings on your computer browser, but you may need to re-enter information at times. To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit AboutCookies.org.
By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device. We do not use the type of cookies that collect information about your visitation of other websites what other websites you visit (often referred to as privacy intrusive cookies).
Where our website links to external resources or websites, these may add their own cookies. These are outside our control and we cannot be held liable for them.
How long your personal data will be kept
Your data will be retained for the duration of the Growth Hub service, should the Growth Hub service cease, your data will be deleted. Live data will be kept on the system for three years. After three years, the data will be archived and stored for a further three years.
Your Rights
Under the UK GDPR, you have rights which you can exercise free of charge that allow you to:
- know what we are doing with your information and why we are doing it
- ask to see what information we hold about you (subject access request)
- ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
- object to direct marketing
- make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office
- withdraw your consent at any time.
Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:
- ask us to delete information we hold about you
- have your information transferred electronically to yourself or to another organisation
- object to decisions being made that significantly affect you
- object to how we are using your information
- stop us using your information in certain ways.
We will always seek to comply with your request however we may be required to hold or use your information to comply with legal duties. Please note, your request may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you.
For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the UK GDPR.
If you would like to exercise a right, please contact KCC’s Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.
