Who we are

Asylum Research Centre (ARC) is committed to protecting and respecting the privacy of visitors to its website, and anyone else whose personal information we come in touch with through the work we undertake.

This policy sets out when and why we collect your personal information, how we store it and for how long, and how we handle your personal data.

The Privacy Policy will be reviewed annually but might be updated when and if the need arises. This version was created in July 2022.

Information we may collect from you

The table below sets out when and why we may collect data from you and for how long we will hold it.

WhenWhyHow long for?
Information that you provide by subscribing to our mailing list on our site www.asylumresearchcentre.org. The information you provide to us may include your name, organisation, and e-mail address.We use this information to:

– Inform you about ARC’s publications, news, recruitment

– Email you for administrative reasons e.g. if we revise this policy

– Email you to check you are happy with the services we provide to you; or

– To check we hold the correct records for you

Indefinitely unless you email us to opt-out
Information we receive through your legal representative via email when they instruct us for a case-specific country report. This will include your date of birth, gender, country of origin, ethnicity and details about your asylum case. We will not ask for other personal details and will refer to your case by reference number provided by your legal representative.

If your legal representative shares with us supporting documents this will include your name.

Legal representatives which have or may have access to (additional) personal data from you will be expected to adhere to all obligations imposed by the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) or any other related national legislation pertaining to data protection. It is recommended that you consult their privacy policy to that effect. ARC is in no way liable for the way information is collected and stored by these third parties.

We use this information to:

– Research a tailored country report in relation to your asylum claim

Case-specific country reports will be kept indefinitely

(Note: The reports include your reference number as provided by your legal representative; the name of your legal representative’s firm, your country of origin, and gender (and where relevant to your claim, your sexual orientation), but no other personal details).

Instructions we receive from your legal representative will be destroyed as soon as the requested report has been completed.

Any supporting documentation sent by your legal representative (e.g. Reason for Refusal Letters; court determinations etc.) will be destroyed as soon as the requested report has been completed.

Information we collect through our various research projects. These could take the forms of, but are not limited to, interviews, questionnaires, evaluation forms, surveys, case file reviews etc which may include your name, organisation and contact detailsWe use this information to:

– Fulfil our obligations with regards to a specific commission, research project etc.

Any such data will be kept for 3 years or for the full duration of the research project – whatever is longer.
Information we collect as part of our administrative work e.g. emails, to compile invoices, apply for tender etc.We use this information to:

– Go about our daily work

– Pay invoices (Note that invoices in relation to our case-specific country report service include clients’ reference number as provided by their legal representative; the name of their legal representative’s firm and their country of origin)

– Apply for public/private tenders

Indefinitely unless you specify that such information may only be kept for a certain amount of time.

All emails in our ‘Trash’ folder will be deleted on a regular basis.

Information you provide when registering for COI training which is likely to include your name, organisation or affiliation, and emailWe use this information to administer the training course, send you the course handbook and request voluntary feedback about the session. Training sessions we jointly hold with Asylos will also hold this information, see their privacy policyAny such data will be kept for 1 year
Information that you provide as part of downloading our publications or for providing feedback about our publications [Note: You have the option to anonymously download our publications or anonymously provide feedback]We use this information to:

– Improve our publications

– Measure the impact of our publications

– Add testimonials to our annual report and other communication material (if your explicit consent is provided)

Downloading reports: By including your email you consent that it will be stored for a maximum of 4 months after downloading the report.

Providing feedback:

For five years

Information that you provide as part of ARC’s recruitment process which is likely to include your name, gender, disability, organisation, current and former employment positions, educational background, and contact detailsWe use this information to:

– Assess whether you are suitable for the position

– To contact you as part of the recruitment process

Any such data will be kept for 1 year unless you have been successful in your application in which case we retain the right to keep the data for 2 years following the completion of your contract.
We use the following third party service:

–        Google Analytics (see its Privacy Policy)

–        Dropbox (see its Privacy Policy)

–        Survey Monkey (see its Privacy Policy)

–        Mail Chimp (see its Privacy Policy)

We use these services to:

– To track which parts of our website are visited and which resources are downloaded (Google Analytics)

– To store all of our work documents (Dropbox)

– To create online surveys and analyse the inputs provided for research purposes (Survey Monkey)

– To send mail-outs to our subscribers (Mail Chimp)

Indefinitely.

None of this information is used to identify our website users or will be shared with unauthorised individuals.

 

Information on how we store your personal data

We will always hold your information securely on either (or all) a secure cloud server, through password protected computers, and/or a password protected external hard drive. All electronic data we hold will only ever be made accessible to authorised individuals.

Disclosure of your information

We will never share your email with other organisations and businesses.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties in order to comply with any legal obligation, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of ARC or others.

In the unlikely event of an actual or suspected data protection breach, the Director of ARC will immediately be notified who in turn will take appropriate steps to manage the breach.

Following links to and from our site

Our site may contain links to websites of our partners. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that they will have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.

 

Accessing your personal information

You are entitled to view, amend, or delete the personal information that we hold. Email your request to info@asylumresearchcentre.org

Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we may make to this Privacy Policy in the future will be posted on our website.

Complaints and Contact 

Any questions, complaints and comments should also be addressed to the Director of ARC info@asylumresearchcentre.org

London, July 2022