WHO WE ARE
Physics Partners is an educational charity providing hands-on training and support for non-specialist and newly qualified physics teachers in state secondary schools. We have a small team working virtually and a team of around 50 freelance trainers based across the UK, primarily England, delivering face-to-face and online training to trainee and qualified physics teachers and technicians, including non-specialists.
ABOUT OUR POLICY
Physics Partners is committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about the information we hold. The purpose of this privacy policy is to clearly set out how we collect, use, and store your personal information (any information that identifies or could identify you). We collect information that allows us to communicate effectively with you, fundraise more efficiently and provide you with the best possible experience through our website and communications.
WHEN & HOW DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA?
We collect your information when you give it to us directly or indirectly.
DIRECTLY: You may give us your personal information when you interact with us before, during or after a training session you attend, when you become a trainer, Trustee, or employee, when you donate to us, or when you communicate directly with a member of the Physics Partners team.
We use the following platforms to collect data directly:
Google Forms: We use Google Forms primarily to collect pre and post event data, such as confidence questionnaires and training evaluations.
Cademy: We use Cademy as our online ticketing platform for all workshop and training bookings.
WordPress: We host our website on WordPress. You can browse our website without revealing any personal information. If you decide to contact us via the “Contact Us” facility on the website, donate, or register for an account, then we will collect personal data.
Mailchimp: Our email marketing is sent out via Mailchimp, so if you have given us permission to contact you via email then this data is stored here.
Sage: Our payroll system for employees is Sage, so personal and sensitive data (financial) is saved here.
Barclays: We use Barclays bank for our company account and payments to trainers and suppliers are processed through this account. Financial data is therefore stored here.
INDIRECTLY:
If you have given permission to third parties to give us your data, we will sometimes receive information about you from them. For example, when you sign up to training organised by a third party, such as the ASE training sessions, or donate via a fundraising organisation or platform (for example Trustfunding.org.uk). Social media sites like Facebook, WhatsApp and Google can also share your data with third parties, including us, depending on the settings you have chosen on those sites.
We want to make sure we tailor our communications to you. To do this we may sometimes use information about your resources, positions of responsibility in the public, private and third sector, location, charitable interests, and likelihood to give, personal interests and any other relevant information to help us tailor communications and make sure we get in touch with the right invites and suggestions. We collect information we can find on publicly available and free sources for this purpose, like Companies House, newspaper, magazine, and internet articles. We always check that our resources are reliable and verified.
When we work with third party suppliers or customers, we collect limited contact details for key staff at that supplier or customer. These are only used for managing our business relationship with that supplier or customer.
WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
We gather data to ensure our communications are appropriate and tailored to you and your specific interest or role in our activities. We ensure the data we collect is adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for its purpose.
When you interact with us either in person, on-line or at an event, we may collect any of the following:
- your name, so that we can process the booking.
- email address, so we can email you about your booking, and contact you in the future if you give consent.
- postal address, so that we can contact you by mail, if we have your consent.
- phone number, so we can contact you by phone, if we have your consent.
- workplace name and address, so we can send you tailored information and to help us understand our reach.
- contact preferences, so we know if and how you would like to be contacted by us.
We may also collect information on the donations you make, specific details on the interaction you have with us or training/events you partake in.
If you are a trainer, then we will need to complete an Enhanced DBS Check (as part of our safeguarding procedures), and this requires your date of birth. For trainers we also require bank account details for remuneration.
PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEOGRAPHY
If you come to an event, meeting, or workshop that we run, we may take photos of you to be used for promotional activities both online (e.g., social media and our website), and offline (e.g., event flyers) or for information documents, e.g., updates to our funders, our Annual Report etc. The legal basis we use for this is legitimate consent. We will make you aware that photos are being taken ahead of the event, and will have a notice at the event, so you can ask not to be photographed or videoed.
HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?
We will use your data to:
- Deal with your enquiries or requests.
- Process and acknowledge donations.
- Keep a record of any interaction with us.
- Undertake administrative purposes, for example informing you about training opportunities.
- Provide updates on our work.
- Analyse and improve our website, services, products, or information.
- Process a job application.
- Keep you up to date regarding any legal and compliance obligations. applicable to Physics Partners.
- Help us to investigate any complaints or other enquiries you raise.
- Provide you with access to parts of the Physics Partners website, for example to our experiments database.
- Inform you about Physics Partners events or events that Physics Partners believes may interest you, if you have opted into receiving relevant marketing communications.
In some rare cases we may contact you based on legitimate interest. In this case, we will always ask if you want to opt-in to future communications from us.
WHO HAS ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION?
Your personal information may be accessed by Physics Partners staff, trustees, and volunteers, as required. All staff, freelance trainers, trustees, and volunteers undertake annual meaningful and mandatory data protection training refresh to ensure they are up to date with the data protection legislation. Access is regularly reviewed, and all partners will only act under our instruction, within a contractual relationship and not use data for their own purposes. When you sign-up to a training session the trainer for that session will have access to your data via our online booking system (Cademy), however they will only contact you via this platform and are not permitted to extract that data from the system.
In certain rare situations, it may be necessary for us to share your personal data with a third party so they can give us advice or services to carry out our charitable objectives. In such circumstances, we always make sure that we have a robust legal agreement in place with our third-party suppliers, which obliges them to only use your information on our instructions and in accordance with the law. We will never sell your data to third parties or another organisation.
We will only disclose your personal information without your consent when it is required for us to do so by law, such as to authorised agencies or government authorities. We would need to share what you tell us with someone if:
- we believe your life, or someone else’s life is in danger.
- you tell us that you or someone else is being, or is at risk of being abused by another person.
- it is necessary to prevent or detect a crime.
- we are required to do so under a court order.
HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE?
We have appropriate measures and precautions in place to ensure we protect and look after your personal data. All staff are trained in data protection and understand the importance of always keeping your personal data safe.
At Physics Partners we recognise that the security of passing data through the internet cannot be guaranteed. Whilst we strive to ensure protection of any data you transmit to us, you do so at your own risk. However, once we receive your data, we make every effort to guarantee its security, in both our own systems and that shared with organisations performing operations on our behalf.
We have ensured that all the platforms where we collect and/or store data adhere to the GDPR legislation and either store the data within the European Economic Area (EEA), or outside of the EEA in accordance with the Privacy Shield Framework and Principles and/or the Standard Contractual Clauses.
HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION FOR?
We hold your data for as long as needed to meet any financial or legal obligations or until it is no longer relevant or necessary for the use originally intended. In line with our data retention policy, if we have not heard from you for 6 years then we will delete your data.
If you wish to no longer hear from us, we will retain the minimum information required to ensure we do not contact you in the future and to store any historic financial transactions you have made to us.
WHAT IS OUR LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING YOUR PERSONAL DATA?
A lawful basis is required for all organisations to legally collect and use personal data under data protection laws. The types of lawful basis relevant to the type of work that Physics Partners carries out, include:
- Individual consent – sending marketing communications.
- A contractual relationship (for example to provide you with a service that you have purchased from us.
- Legal Obligation – processing necessary for compliance with a legal obligation (where consent may not have been given) – seeking a gift aid declaration for example.
- Legitimate interest – includes contacting you with regards to a legal obligation (as above), and use of your personal data in the fulfilment of our training obligations. In this instance we will use and process your data as long as it is fair and does not adversely impact your rights as an individual or where there is an imbalance of the interests of both parties involved. We also use legitimate interest for photography and videography, as outlined above.
HOW CAN YOU CHANGE YOUR INFORMATION AND HOW CAN YOU ACCESS IT?
It is important to Physics Partners that you are happy with the way we are communicating with you. If for any reason you are not, please contact info@physicspartners.com to change your contact preferences.
Please note that if you tell us you no longer want to hear from us for marketing purposes, we may still contact you for administrative purposes, such as any donations you make, administering our training activities or resolving a query.
Under data protection legislation, you have a number of rights with regards to your access to the data we hold on you.
- If you believe our record of you to be incorrect, please get in touch to ask us to update this.
- If you wish to request the information we hold on you by requesting a subject access request (SAR), please get in touch using the details above and we will send it to you in writing. Your request will be processed immediately but please allow up to 30 days to receive the data.
- You have the right to ask us to stop using your personal data, for example in a situation where you feel it is no longer needed for the reason you initially provided it or disagree about its accuracy or the legitimate interest to which we are processing it.
- You have the right to be forgotten, for example have your personal data deleted or transferred to another organisation (data portability). In this instance we will need to keep limited information to ensure that you are not contacted in the future and for the minimum period required for any financial obligation related to a donation you may have made.
In all circumstances you will be asked to provide proof of identity before we can share or amend any personal data. If you have any concerns about the way we are using your data please get in touch using details provided below. You are also entitled to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
WHEN WILL WE UPDATE THIS NOTICE?
This policy was last updated on 17th October 2024. The policy will be reviewed annually. Any significant changes will be made clear on our website, or you will be contacted if these directly affect you.
HOW TO CONTACT US?
Should you require any further information with regards to our privacy policy, how to change your contact preferences or amend any of the data we hold on you please contact us via info@physicspartners.com. We are more than happy to provide further information or an explanation about any of our practices.
To download a copy of this policy, click here.