Future Trends citizen engagement workshops: privacy notice

The Sustainable Futures team within Welsh Government has commissioned the Internal Research Programme in Knowledge and Analytical Services, Welsh Government to undertake engagement with the general public on their views about the future.

The aim of this engagement is to explore what potential future trends might mean to the people of Wales, so that policy makers can make better decisions which will impact future generations.

As part of this engagement the Internal Research Programme will be gathering information through online group discussions.

The Welsh Government is the data controller for the engagement. The Internal Research Programme will remove personal data before writing up the report and will not provide personally identifiable data to others in Welsh Government unless you ask us to.

The information collected during the project, along with evidence on what might happen in the future in Wales, will be included in a report published on the Welsh Government website.

Your Participation in this engagement is completely voluntary. However your views and experiences are important  to help inform Welsh Government policies.

Personal data we hold and where we get this information

Personal data is defined under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified by reference to an identifier’.

You have been sent an invitation to register your interest because you are a member of a stakeholder group or mailing list. The organisation or team that emailed you hold your contact information. Welsh Government will not receive your contact details from this organisation or team.

In order to participate in the engagement, you will need to register your interest through a registration survey using the survey link provided, and will need to provide an email address which the Internal Research Programme in Welsh Government will use to contact you to invite you to the workshop.

As well as your email address we will also collect the following personal information, through the registration survey so that we can make sure that we invite people to the relevant discussion group:

• Name
• Age
• Gender
• Region of Wales lived in

The following special category personal data will be collected so that we can make sure that we have included views from different groups of people.

• Ethnic group
• Whether you consider yourself to be disabled, have a long-term condition, or face barriers in daily life

Once we receive the registration survey and have allocated you to a group, we will separate the special category data from the other data so it can no longer be linked to you and will only be used for statistical purposes.

The workshop discussions will take place using MS Teams and may be audio recorded and transcribed for operational reasons. This will be made clear before the session begins, and recording will only proceed if all participants agree. If the workshop is recorded, personal data will be removed during transcription, and recordings will be deleted as soon as this process is completed. If discussions are not recorded, personal data will not be included in written notes prepared during or following the workshop.

Data collected via the registration survey will be downloaded and any personal and contact data will be stored securely. Contact data will only be used to invite participants to attend the workshops and once people have been allocated to workshops personal and special category data on age, gender, ethnic group and disability will be separated from the data. This will be stored without identifying information so that it can only be used to monitor the demographic composition of workshops. After this process is complete, personal and contact data will be deleted. This information will not be associated with or linked to the information you provide in the workshop.

If you choose to provide additional personal data as part of the engagement we will try not to identify you from, or link your identity to, the responses you provide.

If you raise a query or complaint and provide personal data requesting a response, the researcher will forward the request only to the relevant official and subsequently delete it from the engagement data.

The lawful basis for using your data

The lawful basis for processing information in this data collection exercise is our public task; that is, exercising our official authority to undertake the core role and functions of the Welsh Government. Some of the data we are collecting are called ‘special category data’ (ethnic group and whether you consider yourself to be disabled, have a long-term condition, or face barriers in daily life) and the lawful basis for processing this information is that it is for statistical or research purposes.

Participation is completely voluntary. Studies such as this are important for the Welsh Government to collect information and actionable evidence about its ability to deliver government priorities. The information collected in this engagement, for example, might be used to:

• understand how trends which might happen in the future could affect people in Wales
• help to plan sustainable services for the future

The security of your personal data

Personal data provided to Welsh Government is held on secure servers, and for this project a folder has been created that has access restricted only to the immediate research team. Your contact details and any personal data you choose to provide will be stored in this restricted folder. The researchers will not provide any personal information when reporting findings to the Sustainable Futures policy team.

Once we have allocated participants to workshops we will separate your information on age, gender, ethnic group and disability and store it separately without your name and contact details.

When conducting surveys, the Welsh Government use a survey software programme called SmartSurvey. We have ensured that SmartSurvey is UK GDPR compliant and meets our expectations in terms of the security of any data collected via the software.

The Welsh Government has procedures to deal with any suspected data security breaches. If a suspected breach occurs, the Welsh Government will notify you and any applicable regulator where we are legally required to do so.

The Internal Research Programme will use the information gathered to produce a report that will be published on the Welsh Government website. This report will not include any information that could be used to identify individual participants.

How long we keep your personal data 

Any personal data not already removed during transcription or anonymisation will be deleted by the Internal Research Programme within three months of the publication of the final report. This includes your contact details any identifiable information from survey responses or workshop recordings.

Individual rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights in relation to the personal information you provide as part of this engagement, specifically you have the right:

• to access a copy of your own data
• for us to rectify inaccuracies in that data
• to object to or restrict processing (in certain circumstances)
• for your data to be ‘erased’ (in certain circumstances)
• to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who is our independent regulator for data protection.

The contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office are:

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Phone: 0303 123 1113

If you have any further questions about how the data provided as part of this study will be used by the Welsh Government or wish to exercise your rights using the UK General Data Protection Regulation, please contact:

Jennifer Velu and Joanne Coates

E-mail address: RhYF.IRP@gov.wales

The Welsh Government’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at: 

Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: DataProtectionOfficer@gov.wales