Privacy Policy

Personal information submitted to Signify is only used to contact you regarding Signify activities. Information about visitors to the Signify website domain is automatically logged for the purposes of statistical analysis.

Such information includes:

  • the IP address from which you visit

  • referral address

  • browser type

  • operating system

  • other technical information

  • your email address is not automatically logged without your knowledge.

We will not distribute, sell, trade or rent your personal information to third parties. Signfy may provide aggregate statistics about our website’s users, traffic patterns and related site information to reputable third-parties. Such statistical information will not include personally identifying information.

Signify follows the relevant legal requirements and takes all reasonable precautions to safeguard personal information.

1.    INTRODUCTION

Signify is committed to protecting your privacy and security. This policy explains how and why we use your personal data, to ensure you remain informed and in control of your information.

You can decide not to receive communications or change how we contact you at any time. If you wish to do so please contact us by emailing contact@signify.ai or writing to us at 1st Floor Gallery Court, 28 Arcadia Avenue, N3 2FG, London, England.

We will never sell your personal data, and will only ever share it with organisations we work with where necessary and if its privacy and security are guaranteed.

Questions?

Any questions you have in relation to this policy or how we use your personal data should be sent to contact@signify.ai for the attention of Signify Data Team.

2.  ABOUT US

Your personal data (i.e. any information which identifies you, or which can be identified as relating to you personally) will be collected and used by Signify Group Limited (Signify), UK company registration no: 10814854, 1st Floor Gallery Court, 28 Arcadia Avenue, N3 2FG, London, England. 

3.  THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Personal data you provide

We collect data you provide to us. This includes information you give when signing up to our occasional newsletter or communicating with us. For example:

  • personal details (name, job title, organisation and email) when you sign up to our newsletter and / or events.

  • details of Signify events you have attended.

Sensitive personal data

We do not normally collect or store sensitive personal data (such as information relating to health, beliefs or political affiliation) about those signed up to Signify’s newsletter. However, there are some situations where this will occur (e.g. if you have an accident at one of our events). If this does occur, we’ll take extra care to ensure your privacy rights are protected.

Accidents or incidents

If an accident or incident occurs on our property, at one of our events or involving one of our staff then we’ll keep a record of this (which may include personal data and sensitive personal data).

4.  HOW WE USE INFORMATION

We only ever use your personal data with your consent, or where it is necessary in order to:

  • enter into, or perform, a contract with you;

  • comply with a legal duty;

  • protect your vital interests;

  • for our own (or a third party’s) lawful interests, provided your rights don’t override these.

Whatever the case, we’ll only use your information for the purpose or purposes it was collected for (or else for closely related purposes).

Administration

We use personal data for administrative purposes (i.e. on our research and events programmes). This includes:

  • maintaining databases of those signed up to our newsletter;

  • fulfilling orders for goods or services (whether placed online, over the phone or in person);

  • helping us respect your choices and preferences (e.g. if you ask not to receive marketing material, we’ll keep a record of this).

5.    DISCLOSING AND SHARING DATA

Your personal data – which may include your name, organisation, position, and email address may be held by our newsletter processing service. This, along with contact information is currently processed internally. We will notify anyone who has contacted us or asked to receive newsletter updates in the event of a change.

Occasionally, where we partner with other organisations, we may also share information with them (for example, if you register to attend an event being jointly organised by us and another organisation). We’ll only share information when necessary and we will never share your contact information (e.g. email or telephone).

 

6.    MARKETING

Signify will ask for individuals to “opt-in” for most communications. This includes all our marketing communications (the term marketing is broadly defined and covers information shared in our newsletter.)

We use personal data to communicate with people, to promote Signify. This includes keeping you up to date with information from Signify on our research, events, news, job opportunities and other information relating to our work.

You can decide not to receive communications or change how we contact you at any time. If you wish to do so please contact us by emailing contact@signify.ai.

What does ‘marketing’ mean?

Marketing does not just mean offering things for sale, but also includes news and information about:

  • our research and work, including details of recent reports or blogs;

  • our events and activities; and

  • job opportunities.

When you receive a communication, we may collect information about how you respond to or interact with that communication, and this may affect how we communicate with you in future.

 

7.  HOW WE PROTECT DATA

We employ a variety of physical and technical measures to keep your data safe and to prevent unauthorised access to, or use or disclosure of your personal information. 

Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). We have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data.

Of course, we cannot guarantee the security of your home computer or the internet, and any online communications (e.g. information provided by email or our website) are at the user’s own risk.

 

8.  STORAGE

Where we store information

Signify’s operations are based in England and we store our data within the European Union.

How long we store information

We will only use and store information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. How long information will be stored for depends on the information in question and what it is being used for. For example, if you ask us not to send you marketing emails, we will stop storing your emails for marketing purposes (though we’ll keep a record of your preference not to be emailed).

We continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required. We never store payment card information.

 

9. KEEPING YOU IN CONTROL

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal data. Part of this is making sure you understand your legal rights, which are as follows:

  • the right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal data and, if we do, to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as subject access request);

  • the right to have your data erased (though this will not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason);

  • the right to have inaccurate data rectified;

  • the right to object to your data being used for marketing or profiling; and

  • where technically feasible, you have the right to personal data you have provided to us which we process automatically on the basis of your consent or the performance of a contract. This information will be provided in a common electronic format.

Please keep in mind that there are exceptions to the rights above and, though we will always try to respond to your satisfaction, there may be situations where we are unable to do so.

If you would like further information on your rights or wish to exercise them, please contact us by emailing contact@signify.ai.

Complaints

You can complain to Signify directly by contacting our Data Team using the details set out above.

If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK. Details of how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk

 

10. COOKIES AND LINKS TO OTHER SITES

Cookies

We use cookies on our website. Cookies files are downloaded to a device when certain websites are accessed by users, allowing the website to identify that user on subsequent visits.

The only cookies in use on our site are for Google Analytics. Google Analytics are tools employed by organisations to help them understand how visitors engage with their website, so improvements can be made. Google Analytics collects information anonymously – and reports overall trends, without disclosing information on individual visitors. By using our site you are consenting to saving and sending us this data. You can opt out of Google Analytics – which will not affect how you visit our site. Further information on this can be found here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Our website uses local storage strictly for system administration to provide you with the best possible experience – used in order to create reports relating to web traffic and user preferences. This includes: your IP address; details of which web browser or operating system was used; and information on how you use the site.

Links to other sites

Our website contains hyperlinks to many other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites.

If an external website requests personal information from you (e.g. in connection with an order for goods or services), the information you provide will not be covered by the Signify’s Privacy Policy. We suggest you read the privacy policy of any website before providing any personal information.

 

11.  CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We’ll amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurately reflects how and why we use your personal data. The current version of our Privacy Policy will always be posted on our website.

Note on compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation as pertaining to use of social media data within Signify research and work.

Signify often conducts research which involves the collection and analysis of publicly available data from social media platforms.  Much of this data, including usernames, is considered personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In order to ensure this data is processed lawfully and transparently, the following procedures are followed by Signify.

  • All data collected from social media platforms is accessed through the official application programming interface (API) of that platform (or a licenced provider), and stored and used in compliance with that API’s terms of service.

  • Data is only collected from platforms for which users have provided clear consent, as defined in Article 4(11) of the GDPR, to provide that platform with published data

  • Signify often applies techniques in artificial intelligence to social media data, in order to conduct research on this data. As we have throughout our history as a research centre, we ensure that the reasons for applying these techniques, the methodology used to analyse data, and the conclusions drawn from our analysis are presented clearly and fully in each report. This includes publishing detailed accuracy scores for any machine learning algorithms applied as part of the research.

  • This data is securely stored on a monitored server, accessible only to Signify staff, and encrypted in transit. In the event that a data breach is discovered, Signify will act swiftly to ensure that damage from this breach is minimised, including informing relevant supervisory authorities and acting to identify and resolve any security issues allowing the breach.

  • Data collected from social media sites is not stored for longer than is necessary to complete each project

  • In order to respect the rights of data controllers to maintain control of their personal data, Signify will remove from any dataset personal data pertaining to an individual who requests such deletion. This includes taking reasonable measures to ensure that content deleted from social media platforms is also removed from datasets used by Signify. 

  • Signify does not publish any personal data collected during its research, nor is personal data shared with third parties external to Signify or transferred out of the UK, without the explicit consent of the data subject. Any data published or shared with a third party is aggregated, anonymised or altered to prevent identification a natural person.

  • Where quotes from social media users are published in reports, these quotes are bowdlerised – altered in a way which preserves meaning but prevents retroactive identification of the original post through e.g an online search. An occasional exception to this policy is observed when the user is publically known to the extent that they would not reasonably expect their social media posts to be private. It should be noted here that the GDPR only applies to natural persons, and not companies or organisations. 

  • The above is caveated where there is clear public interest or evidence of criminality in which case we will pass data to the relevant law enforcement. 


This Privacy Policy was last updated on 01.01.2024