Context and overview

Introduction

Valuepreneurship needs to gather and use certain information about individuals.

These can include customers, suppliers, business contacts, employees and other people the organisation has a relationship with or may need to contact.

This policy describes how this personal data must be collected, handled and stored to meet the company’s data protection standards — and to comply with the law.

Valuepreneurship is a wholly owned brand of The Real Potential (TRP) and this policy applies to both. Henceforth in this document Valuepreneurship shall deem to include and equally refer to TRP.

Why this policy exists

This data protection policy ensures that Valuepreneurship :

  • Complies with data protection law and follow good practice
  • Protects the rights of staff, customers and partners
  • Is open about how it stores and processes individuals’ data
  • Protects itself from the risks of a data breach
Data protection law

The Data Protection Act 1998 describes how organisations — including Valuepreneurship — must collect, handle and store personal information.

These rules apply regardless of whether data is stored electronically, on paper or on other materials.

To comply with the law, personal information must be collected and used fairly, stored safely and not disclosed unlawfully.

The Data Protection Act is underpinned by eight important principles. These say that personal data must:

  • Be processed fairly and lawfully
  • Be obtained only for specific, lawful purposes
  • Be adequate, relevant and not excessive
  • Be accurate and kept up to date
  • Not be held for any longer than necessary
  • Processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects
  • Be protected in appropriate ways
  • Not be transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA), unless that country or territory also ensures an adequate level of protection

People, risks and responsibilities

Policy scope

This policy applies to:

  • The head office of Valuepreneurship
  • All sites of Valuepreneurship
  • All staff and volunteers of Valuepreneurship
  • All contractors, suppliers and other people working on behalf of Valuepreneurship

It applies to all data that the company holds relating to identifiable individuals, even if that information technically falls outside of the Data Protection Act 1998. This can include:

  • Names of individuals
  • Postal addresses
  • Email addresses
  • Telephone numbers
  • …plus any other information relating to individuals
Data protection risks

This policy helps to protect Valuepreneurship from some very real data security risks, including:

  • Breaches of confidentiality. For instance, information being given out inappropriately.
  • Failing to offer choice. For instance, all individuals should be free to choose how the company uses data relating to them.
  • Reputational damage. For instance, the company could suffer if hackers
    successfully gained access to sensitive data.
Responsibilities

Everyone who works for or with Valuepreneurship has responsibility for ensuring data is collected, stored and handled appropriately.

Each team that handles personal data must ensure that it is handled and processed in line with this policy and data protection principles.

However, these people have key areas of responsibility:

  • The Board of Directors is ultimately responsible for ensuring that Valuepreneurship meets its legal obligations.
  • The Founder/Head of Valuepreneurship, Sanjeev Loomba is responsible for:
    • Reviewing all data protection procedures and related policies.
    • Arranging data protection training and advice for the people covered by this policy.
    • Handling data protection questions from staff and anyone else covered by this policy.
    • Checking and approving any contracts or agreements with third parties that may handle the company’s sensitive data.
    • Ensuring all systems, services and equipment used for storing data meet acceptable security standards.
    • Evaluating any third-party services the company is considering using to store or process data. For instance, cloud computing services.
    • Approving any data protection statements attached to communications such as emails and letters.
  • The Head of Programs and admin, Ritu Iyer, is responsible for:
    • Securing, managing and processing data in accordance with the procedures and policies set.
    • Dealing with requests from individuals to see the data Valuepreneurship holds about them (also called ‘subject access requests’).
    • Proposing and implementing changes / improvements to data protection and management.
    • Addressing any data protection queries from external parties.
    • Where necessary, working with other staff to ensure all initiatives abide by data protection principles.
General staff guidelines
  • The only people able to access data covered by this policy should be those
    who need it for their work.
  • Data should not be shared informally. When access to confidential information is required, employees can request it from their line managers.
  • Valuepreneurship will provide training to all employees to help them understand their responsibilities when handling data.
  • Employees should keep all data secure, by taking sensible precautions and following the guidelines below
  • In particular, strong passwords must be used and they should never be shared.
  • Personal data should not be disclosed to unauthorised people, either within the company or externally.
  • Data should be regularly reviewed and updated if it is found to be out of date. If no longer required, it should be deleted and disposed of.
  • Employees should request help from their manager if they are unsure about any aspect of data protection.
Data storage

These rules describe how and where data should be safely stored. When personal data is stored on paper, it should be kept in a secure place where unauthorised people cannot see it.

These guidelines also apply to data that is usually stored electronically but has been printed out for some reason:

  • When not required, the paper or files should be kept in a locked drawer or filing cabinet.
  • Employees should make sure paper and printouts are not left where unauthorised people could see them, like on a printer.
  • Data printouts should be shredded and disposed of securely when no longer required.

When data is stored electronically, it must be protected from unauthorised access, accidental deletion and malicious hacking attempts:

  • Data should be protected by strong passwords that are changed regularly and never shared between employees.
  • If data is stored on removable media (like a CD or DVD), these should be kept locked away securely when not being used.
  • Data should only be stored on designated approved devices or cloud computing services.
  • Data should be backed up frequently. Those backups should be tested regularly, in line with the company’s standard backup procedures.
  • Data should never be saved directly to unapproved laptops or other mobile devices like tablets or smartphones.
Data use

When personal data is accessed and used it can be at the greatest risk of loss, corruption or theft:

  • When working with personal data, employees should ensure the screens of their computers are always locked when left unattended.
  • Data must be encrypted before being transferred electronically.
  • Personal data should never be transferred outside of the European Economic Area except to internal departments of Valuepreneurship where the employees have
    been fully trained, resources such as laptops, cloud storage etc. have been approved and provided by the head office and all measures adhere to Valuepreneurship’s
    standards of Data Protection.
  • Employees should not save copies of personal data to their own computers. Always access and update the central copy of any data.
Data accuracy

The law requires Valuepreneurship to take reasonable steps to ensure data is kept accurate and up to date.

The more important it is that the personal data is accurate, the greater the effort Valuepreneurship should put into ensuring its accuracy.

It is the responsibility of all employees who work with data to take reasonable steps to ensure it is kept as accurate and up to date as possible.

  • Data will be held in as few places as necessary. Staff should not create any unnecessary additional data sets.
  • Staff should take every opportunity to ensure data is updated. For instance, by confirming a customer’s details when they call.
  • Valuepreneurship will make it easy for data subjects to update the information Valuepreneurship holds about them.
  • Data should be updated as inaccuracies are discovered. For instance, if a customer can no longer be reached on their stored telephone number, it should be removed from the database.
Subject access requests

All individuals who are the subject of personal data held by Valuepreneurship are entitled to:

  • Ask what information the company holds about them and why.
  • Be informed how to keep it up to date.
  • Be informed how the company is meeting its data protection obligations.

If an individual contacts the company requesting this information, this is called a subject access request.

Subject access requests from individuals should be made by email, addressed to the data controller at ritu@valuepreneurship.com The data controller can supply a standard request form, although individuals do not have to use this.

The data controller will always verify the identity of anyone making a subject access request before handing over any information.

Disclosing data for other reasons

In certain circumstances, the Data Protection Act allows personal data to be disclosed to law enforcement agencies without the consent of the data subject.

Under these circumstances, Valuepreneurship will disclose requested data. However, the data controller will ensure the request is legitimate, seeking assistance from the board and from the company’s legal advisers where necessary.

Providing information

Valuepreneurship aims to ensure that individuals are aware that their data is being processed, and that they understand:

  • How the data is being used
  • How to exercise their rights
Privacy Policy

Valuepreneurship will use personal information members, visitors, contractors or clients supply to it under this agreement for a number of purposes, including marketing and communicating, billing and internal analysis of its business processes, processing personal profiling information for client training and coaching.

The processing of your personal information is subject to the terms of this policy.

If you do not wish us to collect your information, please do not submit it to us.

Nothing stated in this Privacy Policy can be construed as to derogate from the Valuepreneurship of Use, and all stipulations herein will only be in addition to those of Valuepreneurship Terms of Use.

Valuepreneurship may change and update the terms of this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we decide to change our Privacy Policy materially, we will post prior notice of those changes on an email so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. In addition, Valuepreneurship will post the revised Privacy Policy here with an updated effective date.

The Identifiable Information That You Provide Us – If you register as a member, we will need your personal information (e.g. Business: Your business name, business logo, business owner/head signatory, business address, phone numbers, business description, website, social media handles, company number, VAT category, sector. Personal: Business members: email addresses, gender, age, profile picture, job role, social media handles) to analyse our business
performance, trends, identify Valuepreneurship audience and for marketing and billing, and communications purposes.

The Identifiable Information That You Upload – Your uploaded content may include personal information. Please use caution and do not upload personal information of others without their consent. The uploaded content is not available to others.

What Do We Do with Identifiable Information? – We send updates, newsletters, produce reports, help trainees and coaches to progress, maintain and develop our workspace.

Information we obtain from third parties.

Although we do not disclose your personal information to any third party (except as set out in this notice), we do receive data which is indirectly made up from your personal information, from software services such as Google Analytics and others. No such information is identifiable to you.

Affiliate information

This is information given to us by you in your capacity as an affiliate (or reseller) of us or a customer or client of ours. Such information is retained for business use only. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship. It is not used for any other purpose. We expect any affiliate to agree to reciprocate this policy. As an exception to this, we have the right to disclose your first name and URL of your affiliate connection to other affiliates and to any other person or organisation, on and off site. The reason is solely to enable us to mention winners and others whose performance as an affiliate is in some way outstanding.

Sharing Identifiable Information with Others – We do not sell, rent, or lease your personally identifiable information. We may share your identifiable information with service providers and other third parties, if necessary, to fulfil the purposes for collecting the information, provided that any such third party will commit to protect your privacy as required under the applicable law and this policy.

Aggregated and Analytical Information – We may use standard analytics tools. The privacy practices of these tools are subject to their own privacy policies and cookies.

Your Choice – You may opt-out of our mailing lists

Accessing Your Personal Information – At any time, you may contact us and request to see your identifiable information and verify the accuracy of the data.

Data Retention – We retain data as needed, to provide the Service and for legitimate and lawful purposes.

Transfer of Data Outside Your Territory – We may store and process information in various sites throughout the globe, including in sites operated and maintained by cloud based service providers.

Cookies – We use cookies on our website to make it easier for you to browse information.

Information Security – We implement systems, applications and procedures to secure your personal information, to minimize the risks of theft, damage, loss of information, or unauthorized access or use of information.

If you wish to remove yourself from our mailing list please send ritu@valuepreneurship.com an email with the subject “REMOVE”