Our Privacy Policy

Government Exchange is firmly committed to protecting your privacy and being transparent about the data we handle. We design our company policies, systems and practices to safeguard your personal information.

Government Exchange is an independent research organisation which seeks to promote effective policymaking and good governance through enhanced interaction between Parliaments, governments and other stakeholders in society.

We are registered as Government Exchange t/a International Centre for Parliamentary Studies Ltd in England and Wales, under the company number 07379667, and our registered address is 253 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8QT, United Kingdom.

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information held by Government Exchange as a data controller. It explains what information we collect about you, how we’ll use that information, who we’ll share it with, the circumstances when we’ll share it and what steps we’ll take to make sure it stays private and secure. It continues to apply even if your agreement with us ends.

You should read this policy carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data. It’s also important that you understand your rights and how to act on them.

If you do not agree to this Privacy Notice then you should not use our website and should unsubscribe from all correspondence using the unsubscribe link in our emails.

The majority of personal data we hold is collected on our behalf by a third party called Centre for Policy Research (CPR). Details of this company and the agreement between us are provided in section 7.

We also collect personal data from you directly (by phone, email or in person) and from the public domain. We also generate personal data internally.

The information that we may receive from CPR:

• Contact details e.g. name, organisation, job title, work email address, work contact number, personal email address, personal contact number
• Consent to be contacted regarding our events, consent for communication to be recorded

The information that you may provide to us:

• Contact details e.g. name, organisation, job title, work email address, work contact number, personal email address, personal contact number
• Professional details e.g. CV, certifications, work history
• Identification details e.g. passport or visa information
• Payment details e.g. credit card or debit card details
• Personal conditions or preferences e.g. disabilities, food allergies

The information we may collect about you:

• Contact details e.g. name, organisation, job title, work email address, work contact number, personal email address, personal contact number
• Identifying data e.g. name, user-name, unique identifiers, photos
• Professional details e.g. CV, certifications, work history
• Device information e.g. details relating to a device a person uses such as IP address, MAC address, browsing fingerprint

The information that we may generate about you:

• Authentication details e.g. passwords, PINs, logins
• Communication details e.g. telephone recordings, voice email, email correspondence
• Transactional details e.g. purchases, spending, income

Government Exchange will only use your information where we have a lawful condition and purpose for using it.

These conditions include where we:

• have your consent to use it
• believe you have a legitimate interest for us to use it
• need to process the information to carry out an agreement we have with you
• need to process the information to comply with a legal obligation
• believe the use of your information as described is in the public interest
• need to use your information for insurance purposes
• need to establish or defend our legal rights

The purpose of using your information may include the following:

• Research purposes — we engage with a variety of stakeholders in order to provide balanced and valuable conferences and training. Researching individuals to contribute is a key part of what we do.
• Marketing purposes — again, we want to reach out to as many stakeholders as possible to enrich the discussions we host. Emailing and calling individuals to raise awareness of our conferences and training programmes is essential.
• Sales purposes — we have a small sales team who provide packages for those companies and organisations that wish to sponsor our events. Emailing and calling is the best way for us to see if companies are interested in using our platform.
• Registration purposes — we may need to process your registration for our services.
• Identification purposes — we may need to identify you when you visit our website to assist you with logging in.
• Feedback purposes — we may want to contact you for feedback and comments on the events that we run.
• Processing payment purposes — we may need to take your payment details to process payments.
• Legal requirements — we will need to retain certain details in line with relevant legislation and law relating to data protection, fraud or to defend our legal rights.

Where we use your personal data for ‘business to business’ marketing purposes, we will rely on ‘legitimate interest’. Examples of this would be contacting you at your place of work using a phone number or email address that you use for work purposes to let you and your organisation know about our events.

Where we use your personal data for ‘business to individual’ marketing purposes, we will rely on ‘consent’. That is, we will request and record your explicit granular consent. Examples of this would be contacting you at your home using an email address that you use for personal purposes to let you know about our events.

We will put in place measures to determine whether we are engaging with you as a business or as an individual. If for any reason you believe we have not determined this correctly, please notify us using the contact details in section 14.

The third parties that Government Exchange may share your data with are listed exhaustively in this section. The companies listed are our data processors. All the companies listed are compliant with the DPA and GDPR. When we engage with these companies the same obligations as established in this policy will be imposed on them by way of a contract. This contractual agreement will also entitle us to regularly check that their data handling processes are in line with the agreement.

• i. International Centre for Parliamentary Studies Ltd, registered in England and Wales, registered number 07379667, registered address 253 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8QT, United Kingdom.
• ii. Public Policy Exchange Ltd, registered in England and Wales, registered number 07350384, registered address 253 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8QT, United Kingdom.
• iii. Centre for Policy Research (Mauritius) Ltd, registered by The Corporate and Business Registration Department of Mauritius, number 085816, registered address 4th Floor TM Building, 26 Pope Hennessy Street, Port Louis. As outlined above in section 4, CPR collects data on our behalf.

In order to carry out the services you select, Government Exchange, as an event organiser, may use your data accordingly:

You have a number of rights in relation to the information we hold about you. These rights include:

• the right to access all the information we hold on you
• in some circumstances, the right to withdraw your consent for us to process your personal data
• in some circumstances, the right to receive certain information you have provided us with in an electronic format and/or request us to transfer that information to a third party of your choice
• the right to rectify your information if it is inaccurate or incomplete
• in some circumstances, the right to request that we erase your information
• the right to object to, and to request that we restrict, our processing of your information in some circumstances

To exercise any of these rights please contact the details provided at the end of this document in section 14.

We keep your information in line with our data retention policy; this will vary depending on what type of personal data it is. For example, financial data will be kept for at least 5 years, to enable us to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. With personal details such as contact details, if there was no engagement between us and you for 2 years we would seek your consent to keep it on our systems for any longer. We would not keep any personal data for longer than is necessary, or for so long that there would no longer be any legitimate reason to keep it.

We use a range of measures to keep your information safe and secure. These measures include industry standard encryption, access rights and controls, and other forms of industry standard security practices. We require our staff and any third parties who carry out any work on our behalf to comply with appropriate compliance standards, including obligations to protect any information and applying appropriate measures, for the use and transfer of information.

Our website uses cookies to distinguish visitors. This helps us to provide a better user experience when the website is browsed. Cookies also allow us to assess how our visitors use the website and their journey through it, and we use this information to improve its functionality.

By using and browsing the Government Exchange websites you are giving consent for cookies to be used according to our policy. If you do not consent to cookies being used, you can block or restrict any of the cookies through your browser settings or refrain from using the website.

Details of the cookies we use, their names and why we use them are outlined below.

We keep this privacy notice under review and may make changes to it from time to time. If we do make any changes then this document will be updated on all the platforms on which it is available.

Please ensure that you notify us of any changes to your information at any point. You should also regularly check this document in case changes have been made to our policy as outlined in section 12. If you do not agree to this privacy notice then you should refrain from engaging with our services or from visiting our websites.

If you have any queries regarding this policy, or would like to know more about your rights under GDPR, or want to exercise any of your rights under GDPR, please contact our GDPR Compliance Team.