Guidance

Privacy notice for personal data processed when administering funding support to businesses (IP)

Updated 14 November 2024

This privacy notice will help you to understand what personal data the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) collects about you, how it is used, where this is shared and what rights you have regarding your personal data.

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

This notice applies to individual persons who are external to the IPO. This notice does not form part of any contract. This notice can be updated at any time, and we will inform you if this occurs.

Personal data is any information that can be used to identify a living individual, either on its own, or in combination with other pieces of data. Examples of personal data includes your name and your address.

Data processing includes the collection, use, publication, sharing and storage of data.

The Intellectual Property Office is responsible for implementing the national framework governing intellectual property rights (IPRs) and for promoting the UK’s interests in the development of the international Intellectual Property Rights system. Its functions aim and objectives are set out in the Intellectual Property Office Framework Document. One of which is to provide a better understanding of the role Intellectual Property plays in the UK economy, providing evidence-based guidance to business on managing and exploiting their intellectual property.

The data controller is the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) per article 4 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1. The purpose of processing your data

The IPO processes your personal data for the purposes of providing funding support to businesses to help them manage and commercialise their Intellectual Property and to perform tasks related to exercising its authority as the UK’s Intellectual Property Office.

2. The lawful basis for processing your data

The IPO processes your personal data for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of the official authority given to it, per Article 6(1)(e) of the UKGDPR.

3. Your rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

• right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information

• right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete

• right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances

• right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances

• right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances

• right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances

If you make a request to exercise any of these rights, you should contact the Data Protection Team at the IPO; details of which are at the bottom of this notice.  If you contact us, we have one month to respond to you. You do not have to pay anything for exercising your rights.

These are not absolute rights, and the IPO can use its discretion to refuse to comply with these rights if there are legitimate grounds for the processing your personal data which override the interests, rights and freedoms of the individual, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

4. If you do not provide your personal data

If you do not provide all the requested personal data, then the IPO may not be able to provide the support you are applying for.

5. Data transfers

Your personal data is shared under lawful agreements with partner organisations to help deliver our funding support schemes. It may be shared within IPO to perform tasks relating to its responsibility as the official UK government body for Intellectual Property and with other government departments where it is legal to do so.

We will share your data if we are required to do so by law - for example, by court order, or to prevent fraud or other crime.

Your personal data may be used for research or analysis purposes. Your personal data may also be used by our auditors to assess our compliance with standards and regulations. Your personal data is shared using secure transfer methods and will not be transferred to any additional third parties and will not be processed outside of the UK. The IPO has assured the data safeguarding measures of all organisations with which your personal data is shared.

6. How long we keep your personal data

Your personal data will be retained in accordance with the IPO’s data retention and disposal policies.  A copy of our policies can be obtained by emailing kim@ipo.gov.uk.

7. The use of automated decision making

Your personal data is not used in any automated decision making (a decision made solely by automated means without any human involvement) or profiling (automated processing of personal data to evaluate certain conditions about an individual).

8. Change of purpose

We will process your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it. We may also process your personal data for another purpose that we reasonably consider to be compatible with the original purpose.   

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, where this is required or permitted by law.

9. Changes to this privacy notice

We may change this privacy notice. In that case, the ‘last updated’ date at the top of this page will also change. Any changes to this privacy policy will apply to you and your data immediately.

10. Contact us or make a complaint

You can contact the IPO’s Data Protection Officer if you:

• have a question about anything in this privacy notice
• think that your personal data has been misused or mishandled

Email: dpo@ipo.gov.uk

Address:

Data Protection Officer Intellectual Property Office

Concept House

Cardiff Road

Newport

South Wales

NP10 8QQ

The DPO provides independent advice and monitoring of our use of personal information.