At CLOSER, we are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what we do with it. We comply with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) with regard to the collection, processing, storage and disclosure of personal information.
What does CLOSER’s privacy policy do?
Our privacy policy explains how we will use any data that you share with us. We are legally required to tell you how we will use this information and give you the opportunity to tell us not to use your information in that way.
Who are we?
CLOSER, the home of longitudinal research, is the interdisciplinary partnership of leading social and biomedical longitudinal population studies, the UK Data Service and The British Library.
Our mission is to increase the visibility, use and impact of longitudinal population studies, data and research to ensure that longitudinal evidence is used to address the health, social, economic and environmental challenges facing the UK, now and in the future.
Any references to ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ in this privacy policy refer to CLOSER. We are based at the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, University College London (UCL). You can read more about UCL’s general privacy policy on its website. In relation to any data you provide us, we are known as the ‘data controller’.
If you would like to make a complaint about our handling of your data, please contact UCL’s Data Protection Officer.
Information we provide to third parties
Signing up to receive CLOSER newsletters
We manage a mailing list of people who have subscribed to one or more of our CLOSER e-newsletters. We currently offer five different types of newsletter for people to choose from. They are:
- Longitudinal News
- Blog alerts
- Policy alerts
- Twitter highlights
- Shortcuts
You can find out more about the different types of newsletters we offer on our sign up page.
When you sign up to receive one or more of our newsletters, you will be asked to provide certain information including your name, email address, job title, organisation and your newsletter preferences. This information is collected via an online sign up page on our website and on the CLOSER Learning Hub. Information submitted via the online sign up form is securely stored on the relevant website management system. The information is password protected and is only accessible to CLOSER employees.
Every email campaign we send includes an option for you to unsubscribe from future notifications or update your newsletter preferences and contact details. There is no obligation for you to provide a reason for unsubscribing to our mailing list.
We use a third party – currently Mailchimp – to help us manage our mailing lists and distribute email campaigns. You can read more about Mailchimp’s privacy policy on its website.
Your information will also be stored securely on our contact database and on MailChimp. The database is password protected and accessible only to CLOSER employees.
The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change your address or believe any of the information we hold concerning you is out of date, please email closer@ucl.ac.uk
Registering for a CLOSER event
We regularly run training workshops, conferences and seminars for a wide range of audiences including new and experienced data users, policymakers and the third sector.
When you register to attend one of our events, you will be asked to provide certain information. This includes your name and email address, as well as information about your occupation and research interests.
Depending on the event you sign up to, we may also ask you to let us know about any dietary or accessibility requirements you may have. This information is used to help us ensure our events are as inclusive as possible.
You may also be asked if you would like your personal details including your name, email address and organisation included in a delegate list to be distributed as hard copies at the event. We produce delegate lists to help facilitate discussion and networking for event attendees. There is no obligation for you to agree to share your information in this way, and if you change your mind at any time, you can notify closer@ucl.ac.uk to have your details removed.
We use a third party – currently Eventbrite – to manage our event registrations and collect this information. You can read more about Eventbrite’s privacy policy on its website.
We will use the information you provide during the registration process to keep you up to date with the latest event details, and to follow up with you once the event has ended. It is likely we will send you materials from the event such as presentation slides and/or reports. We may also invite you to take part in a post-event feedback survey which may ask if you would like to receive email notifications about future relevant events.
Collecting your feedback on our events
We use an online survey tool – currently Qualtrics – to collect your feedback following a CLOSER event you attended. We use this information to help us evaluate and improve our events. You can read more about Qualtrics’ privacy policy on its website.
We also store information collected from event registration forms and feedback surveys securely on our internal server. It is password protected and accessible only to CLOSER employees. We use this information to evaluate our event programme as a whole, and to plan our future activities. This information is also used for internal reporting purposes, and to inform our funders of the reach and success of our events. Only aggregate information is provided for reporting purposes, and no individual or identifying information is included in our reports.
Your trust and privacy is very important to us. We will never sell or give your personal information to any other organisations.
Updating the information we hold on you
As an individual, you have a right under the GDPR to update or amend the information we hold about you, to ask us to remove your personal information from our records and to obtain information from us, including a description of the data that we hold on you. For more information about this please contact UCL’s Data Protection Officer.
If you would like to complain about our handling of your data, contact UCL’s Data Protection Officer.