Privacy Policy - The Forge

THE FORGE ENTERTAINMENT LIMITED (“The Company”)

PRIVACY NOTICE – PEOPLE

Who does this Privacy Notice apply to?

This Privacy Notice applies to all our People.

“People” for the purposes of this Privacy Notice include the following:

Job applicants and candidates (whether provided through a recruitment or talent agency or whether received by us direct);
Individuals who express interest in working for, or who are approached to work with, the Company or any of our associated or group companies;
Individuals who we are speaking to about potentially taking part in or working on one of our productions;
Students, work placements, interns, trainees or volunteers working with the Company or with any of our associated or group companies;
Employees, workers (including agency workers), consultants, freelancers and officers employed or engaged by the Company (including former employees, workers, consultants, freelancers and officers);
People who we contract to work on our productions or to provide services to us, which includes but is not limited to talent, cast, crew, contributors and all those working in production roles or production support roles, which includes designers, production assistants, camera crew, chaperones for children etc and all those working on-screen be it as extras or featured performers, as well as voiceover artists. Where we use children on our productions, this privacy notice will also apply to that child or, if that child is under 13, we will issue this Privacy Notice to a person with parental responsibility for that child.
Members of the public who may visit us or contact us from time to time.

When we refer to our People in this Notice, we will say “you” or “your”. When we refer to the Company, we will say either “the Company”, “we” “our” or “us”.

What is the purpose of this Privacy Notice?

The Company is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

This Privacy Notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) (in the case of both, as amended from time to time).

It applies to all our People as defined above.

The Company is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this Privacy Notice.

This Privacy Notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract for services or engagement. We may update this Privacy Notice at any time.

It is important that you read this Privacy Notice, when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

The Company’s contact details

The Company’s contact details are:

The Forge Entertainment Limited (company number 08968737), The Forge, 2^ndFloor, The Zeppelin Building, 59-61 Farringdon Road, London, EC1M 3JB. Telephone number: 020 8104 2200.

Our registered office is: Shepherds Building Central, Charecroft Way, London, England, W14 0EE.

For all data protection enquiries, please contact our Company Manager in the first instance who is Annelise Unitt and she can be contacted by email on: anneliseunitt@theforgeentertainment.co.uk

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
Accurate and kept up to date.
Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
Kept securely.

The kind of information we hold about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

We may also process criminal offence data in certain circumstances and when relevant to do so (see below).

We will generally collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you. Precisely what information we collect about you will vary dependant on your role and our level of communication with you so not all of the information below will apply to all People at all times. The general information we may collect and process may include:

If you are applying for a role, we may collect information from you, your agent/talent or recruitment consultant which might include your CV or portfolio, application details, references;
If you are applying for an on-screen or voiceover role we may collect images, video or audio of you;
Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
Date of birth.
Gender
Marital status and dependants.
Next of kin and emergency contact information.
National Insurance number.
Passports and right to work documents.
Employment status details.
Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information.
Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information.
Start date.
Location of employment or workplace.
Copy of driving licence or passport, if relevant to your job role, or if used for ID purposes.
Employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, training records and professional memberships).
Compensation history.
Performance information.
Disciplinary and grievance information.
CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means.
Information about your use of our information and communications systems (e.g. computers, electronic devices, internet, email, messaging, use of apps, telephone and mobile phones).
Photographs, images, audio and video when used on our productions or on our website or part of any security arrangements we have in place.
Social media use if contravening our policies and procedures.
Information contained in any licence (or application for such licence) for productions where we work with children
Parent or carer contact details, when working with children
Equal Opportunities data and monitoring
Information regarding vaccination status (where dealing with epidemics/pandemics or other public health issues) and information regarding testing and other related health data;

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:

Information about your racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
Membership with BECTU or other trade unions.
Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records (and including vaccination and testing data where relevant where there is an epidemic/pandemic or other instance of serious public health concern).
Results of drug or alcohol searches or testing (when relevant) or testing for viruses where there is an epidemic/pandemic or serious public health concern.
Genetic information and biometric data (if applicable).
Results of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks (when relevant).

Legal grounds for processing your personal information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you;
Where we need to comply with a legal obligation;
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. Our legitimate interests are those of an employer and commercial business and specifically that of an independent drama production company.

In some situations we may seek your consent for processing your personal data. However, consent will only be relied on in rare and exceptional circumstances and we will specifically request this from you in writing, if we need your consent. We may also process your personal data in emergency situations to protect your vital interests. In some circumstances, we will process personal data because it is in the public interest to do so. In most situations however, we will rely on the 3 mentioned legal conditions above for the processing of the majority of your personal data.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. Special Categories of information are information which relates to the following: racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic/biometric data, health, sex life or sexual orientation.

In so far as your personal information amounts to special categories of personal data, in addition to the normal legal basis for processing such information, we will most likely use your personal information in the following additional circumstances:

In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent;
Where it is necessary for the purposes of carrying out obligations and exercising rights under employment (including but not limited to complying with our health and safety duties), social security and social protection law and in line with our data protection policy;
Where it is necessary to protect your vital interests (in emergency situations);
Where the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (such as equal opportunities monitoring or the protection against virus transmission in the event of an epidemic/pandemic);
Where the processing is necessary for the purposes of occupational medicine, medical diagnosis or for the assessment of your working capacity on health grounds etc pursuant to a contract with a health professional.
Where the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Use of criminal offence data

Criminal offence data means any personal information which relates to an individual’s criminal convictions or offences or other security concerns.

If you are engaged to work on a production that may involve contact with children or vulnerable adults or if you are appointed as a Chaperone to children involved in a production, we will ask you to submit to a criminal record check using the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). These checks are administered by agents (normally UCheck, First Floor, Chiltern House, Sigford Road, Marsh Barton, Exeter, EX2 8NL). We are provided with the results of the DBS check and this will determine whether we can engage you on a specific production or not.

The legal grounds for processing Criminal Offence data include:

Where it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations, and specifically our obligations under employment law;
Where it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (e.g. the need to safeguard children and vulnerable adults).

Situations in which we will use your personal information

In this section we use asterisks (e.g. [*] or [**] or [***]) to indicate which legal basis we rely on when processing different types of information (as we indicate below).

We need all the categories of information in the list above primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you [*] and to enable us to comply with legal obligations [**]. In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties [***], provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

Making a decision about your recruitment, appointment or engagement * and *** which will include obtaining references from your referees.
Determining the terms on which you work for us * and ** and ***.
Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK **.
Monitoring your attendance at work or on productions * and ** and ***
Paying you * and, if you are an employee, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions ** (which will include obtaining bank account details from you).
Providing benefits to you if you are an employee.*
Liaising with your pension provider if this forms part of your contractual benefits or you are eligible for auto-enrolment. *
Administering the contract we have entered into with you.* and ** and ***
Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing ***.
Conducting performance reviews/appraisals, managing performance and determining performance requirements.***
Making decisions about salary reviews and compensation. * and ** and ***
Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions.***
Gathering evidence and making decisions for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings.** and ***
Making decisions about your continued employment or engagement.** and ***
Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship.** and ***
Education, training and development requirements.** and ***
Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or others, including accidents at work. ** and ***
Ascertaining your fitness to work and considerations of reasonable adjustments ** and *** (we will in addition rely on special category additional conditions 2 and 5 above)
Managing sickness absence. * and ** and *** (we will in addition rely on special category additional conditions 2 and 5 above)
Complying with health and safety obligations or managing the transmission of viruses in an epidemic/pandemic or other instance of serious public health concern.** (and special category additional condition 2 above)
To prevent fraud ** and ***.
Viewing images, audio and visual images of talent or prospective talent to ensure that we engage with the best people for our productions. ***
To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies and other policies.** and ***
To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution.** and ***
Equal opportunities monitoring and reporting equality and diversity information.** and *** (and special category additional conditions 2 and 4 above)
Criminal Offence data ** (and special category additional conditions 2 and 4).

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 use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

We will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or family related leaves, to comply with employment and other laws.
We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits. This will include but will not be limited to managing risks associated with epidemics/pandemics or other instances of serious public health concern.
We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, health, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.
We will use trade union membership information to pay trade union premiums, register the status of a protected employee and to comply with employment law obligations.
We will use criminal offence data in limited circumstances for checking your eligibility to work with children when we are required to undertake safeguarding checks.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you or providing a benefit), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our People).

Change of purpose

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.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent to process personal data generally. In particular, we do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us. In most, if not all circumstances, we will not rely on consent as a basis of processing your personal data.

Automated decision-making

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

Data sharing

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the group.

We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We may want to transfer your personal information outside the UK in limited circumstances but will let you know if we do and the safeguards we will put in place (please see our Data Protection Policy as to measures we will put in place when transferring such data).

If we do transfer your data to any third party, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we (or the third party) have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

“Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents). The following third-party service providers process personal information about you for the following purposes:

Your personal data may be disclosed to our employees or freelancers working on productions, for production, broadcasting, distribution, marketing, administrative and management purposes;
If you have an on-screen role, disclosure of footage, images or audio recordings of you as part of the broadcasting, distribution and marketing of our production, or to allow us to credit your role;
Our external accountants and payroll processors (who are subject to a professional duty of confidentiality);
Insurance companies – various;
Our external lawyers (where such information is subject to legal professional privilege and/or is subject to their professional duty of confidentiality);
Our bank;
Broadcasters – various for the purposes of sharing our productions and ideas or for equality and diversity reporting;
Agents – various to enable us to engage the best talent and People;
External financiers to finance our productions or growth as a business;
IT company to manage our IT systems;
Pension providers/regulators for pension/regulatory purposes;
HMRC – to account for tax and national insurance contributions;
Writers – to share our ideas and in relation to existing or future productions.
DBS Agents – normally UCheck, First Floor, Chiltern House, Sigford Road, Marsh Barton, Exeter, EX2 8NL – for administering DBS checks on our behalf.

How secure is my information with third-party service providers?

All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Transferring information outside the UK

In connection with our business and for production, broadcasting, distribution, administrative, management, marketing and legal purposes, we may transfer your personal data outside the UK. When we do, we will ensure that any transfer is lawful and that there are appropriate security arrangements in place and we will ensure that we follow the UK GDPR requirements when doing so.

For more information about the circumstances in which personal data may be transferred outside the UK, please see our Data Protection Policy, a copy of which can be obtained from Annelise Unitt, the Company Manager.

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

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.

We also operate a detailed Data Security Policy which is reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that the personal data we hold remains safe and secure.

Data retention

How long will you use my information for?

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, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements and other criteria as is relevant. We also take into account the limitation periods applicable for making any claims against us which features in our decision-making on retention.

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 you are no longer an employee, worker or contractor of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our policies.

Some personal data, such as production footage and credit information, we will keep indefinitely as we have an ongoing legitimate interest in retaining the product.

For more details regarding the retention periods we use for the retention of personal data, please see our Retention of Personal Data and Schedules, a copy of which can be obtained from Annelise Unitt, Company Manager.

Your individual rights

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
Request erasure of your personal information. In limited circumstances, this enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact Annelise Unitt, Company Manager using the Company contact details above.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any other individual rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other individual rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where we have relied on your consent for the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose (which will be rare), you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact Annelise Unitt, Company Manager at the address indicated above. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Person responsible for data protection in our Company

Annelise Unitt, Company Manager oversees compliance with this Privacy Notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact Annelise Unitt using the Company contact information above. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

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.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact Annelise Unitt, Company Manager.