Privacy notice for the E19 Innovation Retreat

About this notice

This privacy notice is for individuals applying for our Innovation Retreat. It describes how we collect and use personal information about you before, during and after your attendance at the retreat.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using your information.

Who we are

The  Innovation Retreat is a lead by a partnership between The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Manchester Metropolitan University, and is funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).

The GMCA is the lead authority for the Innovation Retreat and the UKSPF. It has overall accountability for how the fund is administered in the city region.

The GMCA are the “data controllers”. This means that they are responsible for deciding how they hold and use personal information about you. They are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

Manchester Metropolitan University (the University) is the processor for any personal information you provided when registering to the Innovation Retreat programme. This information is provided to the University by GMCA.

What information does the E19 Innovation Retreat collect?

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. There are also special categories of more sensitive personal data, which require a higher level of protection.

The types of information we hold about you include:

  • personal contact details, such as your name, title, address, telephone numbers, email address, information from due diligence checks, for example directorships and other relevant business interests
  • date of birth and gender (where applicable, for example for start-up support)
  • evidence of your nationality and eligibility to work/start-up a business in the UK (where applicable, for example for start-up support)
  • recordings of your attendance and participation in our online/virtual meetings and sessions
  • information about the requested business support needs and potential provision and assistance suggested to/agreed with you
  • correspondence with or about you, for example letters to you about the start-up/business support requested/provided about/through our projects
  • your national insurance number (where applicable)
  • information about your use of our information and communications systems
  • photographs for use in marketing

We may also hold the following categories of more sensitive personal information: equality monitoring information such as information about your marital status, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion or belief.

Most of the information we hold about you will have been provided by you, but some may come from other external sources and intermediaries, such as referrals from the Growth Hub, chambers of commerce and local enterprise partnerships.

The purposes of the processing/why does the E19 Innovation Retreat process personal data?

This section includes an explanation of our lawful basis for processing. The University needs to process your personal data to:

  • determine your eligibility and operate selection processes for those applying
  • facilitate your attendance at our Innovation Retreat, including any necessary reasonable adjustment arrangements
  • provide teaching, training and business support services
  • make funding claims to funders supporting the Innovation Retreat programme
  • conduct equality monitoring activities
  • maintain accurate and up-to-date records and contact details
  • operate and keep a record of support provided through and funded by its project
  • promote other UKSPF-funded services and events which we think will be of interest to you
  • provide referrals, where applicable and appropriate, to other business support agencies we believe could help you and your business
  • maintain contact with you to ascertain the impact and results of the support provided
  • obtain feedback and conduct evaluations to enable the development and improvement of our projects (current and new)

As a public authority acting in the public interest, we primarily rely upon the public task lawful bases to use your personal data for these purposes. Furthermore, as we enter into a contractual relationship via the offer letter, we process this information with a view to entering into a contract with you and the performance of that contract.

Where we promote other funded services to you or make referrals of your personal data to other business support agencies, we rely upon the legitimate interests lawful basis. You can opt out of this processing at any time by contacting [contact info]).

Where we process special categories of personal information, such as those relating to your ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, disability or gender identity, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring, a task carried out in the substantial public interest.

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds, which justify our use of your personal information.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however we will notify you if this position changes.

Recipients/who has access to data?

Your information may be shared with:

  • project delivery partners and stakeholders, including the GMCA, the Growth Hub and local authorities 
  • programme funders, including the UKSPF

We will only disclose information about you to other third parties with your consent, if we are legally obliged to do so or there are other exceptional circumstances. The E19 Innovation Retreat project also shares data with third parties that process data on its behalf, for example consultants and auditors.

We do not send your personal data outside the European Economic Area. If this changes in the future, you will be notified of this and the safeguards in place to protect the security of your data.

How does the E19 Innovation Retreat Project protect data?

The E19 Innovation Retreat takes the security of your data very seriously and has internal policies and controls in place to try and ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties. All accessing your information are bound by a duty of confidentiality. For more information, please see the University’s Data Protection Policy.

Where the E19 Innovation Retreat or the University asks third parties to process data on its behalf, for example consultants or evaluators, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and must ensure that they have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to keep the data secure.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention/how long does the E19 Innovation Retreat and University keep data?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, contractual or reporting requirements.

Your personal data will be stored throughout your involvement with the E19 Innovation Retreat project, and for a period afterwards. Due to funding requirements all ESIF-funded projects will need to be retained until at least 31 December 2035or until notified by Government that records can be destroyed.

In some circumstances, we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once project records are no longer required contractually and/or for statutory purposes we will securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our data retention policy.

What if you choose not to provide personal data?

Certain information, such as contact details, your eligibility to work in the UK etc. are required to allow the E19 Innovation Retreat project to enter into a contractual relationship with you as project funding streams have eligibility criteria that must be complied with.

You have certain obligations under your beneficiary contract to provide the E19 Innovation Retreat Project with data. This includes, for example, to ascertain eligibility to access funding support and previous state aid awards.

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Data subject rights

As a data subject, under data protection legislation, you have various rights in relation to your personal data. You can:

  • request access to your own data by making an access request – this enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and check that we are lawfully processing it
  • request that we correct any inaccuracies in the data that we hold about you
  • request that we erase your personal data where we are not entitled by law to process it or it is no longer needed for the purpose it was collected
  • request that processing of your data is restricted – this enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it
  • object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on our legitimate interests and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground
  • request the transfer of your personal information to another party

In most situations we will not rely on your consent as a lawful basis for processing your data. If we do request your consent to process your data for a specific purpose, you are under no obligation to provide it and you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing before your consent was withdrawn.

If you wish to make an access request or assert any of the rights detailed above, please contact the Data Protection Officer using the contact details below.

Right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as the supervisory authority in respect of the processing of your personal data.

We encourage you to expend our internal complaints procedure through our initial contact and the University Data Protection Officer, prior to contacting the ICO.

You can contact the ICO at:

Contacting us

For questions or concerns about this privacy notice or how we store and use your personal information, in the first instance please contact Christopher Taylor.

The University’s Data Protection Officer can also be contacted at:

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.