Last updated April 2023

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This privacy policy is issued by Hive Founders Ltd ("we", "us" and "our") as the data controller for your personal information.

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We are registered in England and Wales under company registration number 14061640, and our registered office is at 71 - 75 Shelton Street, London, WC2H 9JQ, England.

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We are registered as a data controller in the UK with registration number [    ].

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1.  Introduction
 

We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of everyone in our community.

This privacy policy explains how we collect and use your personal information when you visit our website (hivefounders.net) (“Website”), when you communicate with us or other members of the community via email, Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, Google Meet, Zoom or other communication channels that we may offer from time to time, or when you participate in any of the programs or other services we offer.
 

2.  How we use your Personal Information
 

In this Section 2 we have set out:

• the type of Personal Information that we may process about you;

• in the case of  that we did not obtain the Personal Information directly from you, the source and specific categories of that information;

• the purposes for which we may process Personal Information; and

• our legal basis for the processing.

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(a) Identity data: We process Personal Information (including your name, email address, telephone number, address, job title, company name, and any other information that you choose to share with us)  when you register for an account, send us an enquiry, subscribe to emails, newsletters or programs, join one of our events, and which you provide to us when using our services, including information entered into any of our contact or booking forms ("Identity data").

 

The source of the Identity data is you and we rely on you to make sure the information is accurate. The Identity data may be processed for the purposes of operating our website, providing our services, ensuring the security of our Website and services, maintaining back-ups of our databases and communicating with you. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract, or our legitimate interests in running our business and making the Website and services available to you.

 

(b) Communication data: We process Personal Information (including your name, email address, address, telephone number, the content of the communication and online identifiers like your IP address and username) that you share with us or with the Hive Founders’ community via one of our communication channels, or whilst on a community call (including recorded video calls), or one-to-one calls or meetings (“communication data”). 

 

The source of the communication data is you and we rely on you to make sure the information is accurate. The communication data may be processed for the purposes of administering your membership account, providing our services, maintaining back-ups of our databases and communicating with you and enabling you to communicate with other Hive members. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract, or our legitimate interests in running our business and making the Website and services available to you.

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(c)​​ Publication data: We process Personal Information that you post for publication on our Website or through our services, or that you provide in any comments, reviews or testimonials you give us ("publication data") and publish this publicly on our Website, social media channels and other marketing and promotional channels.

 

The source of the publication data is you. The legal basis for this processing is consent or our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business, or the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract.

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(d) Transaction data: Where you pay for any of our services online, your payment details (credit or debit card information and contact information) will be stored by our 3rd party payment processor on a secure encrypted basis ("transaction data") and we will have access to your contact information and redacted card details.

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The source of the transaction data is you and/or our payment processor. The transaction data may be processed for the purpose of supplying the purchased goods and/or services and keeping proper records of those transactions. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract.
 

(e) Usage data: Where you consent to us using cookies, we process data about your use of our Website and services ("usage data"). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your interactions.

 

The source of the usage data is our analytics tracking system or 3rd parties that display our adverts or content to you (for example, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn). This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing how you use our Website and services, and which adverts and content you interact with. The legal basis for this processing is your consent.

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(f) Legal obligations: We may process any of your Personal Information identified in this policy where necessary to comply with our legal obligations or for the exercise or defence of legal claims. 
 

(g) We may process any of your Personal Information identified in this policy where necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, or obtaining professional advice. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper protection of our business against risks.
 

Please do not supply any other person's Personal Information to us, unless you have their explicit consent to do so.
 

3.  Special Categories of Personal Data

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Under data protection law, there are Special Categories of Personal Data (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data).

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We may collect information relating to your race or ethnicity or sexual orientation as part of our diversity and inclusion surveys, and we will always make this option and get your consent before collecting this information.

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We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data, or any information about criminal convictions and offences from our Website visitors.

 

4. Sharing your Personal Information with others
 

We may disclose your Personal Information to our insurers and/or professional advisers where necessary to obtain or maintain insurance coverage, manage risks, obtain professional advice, in compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person, or exercise or defend legal claims.
 

Your Personal Information will be shared with the following third party service providers (and we have linked to their privacy policies): 

1. our Website hosting provider Wix is located in Israel

2. our communication service providers, Mailchimp, WhatsApp, Slack, Google Meet, HubSpot, all of which are located in the United States

3. our payment processor, Stripe, located in the United States

4. social media channels, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram located in the United States.

5. our Website analytics service provider, Google, located in the United States

6. our event booking service provider, Eventbrite, located in the United States

7. other software providers that we may use to manage our bookings, database, communications, marketing, accounting and other business services.

 

Your Personal Information will be visible and shared with other members of the Hive Founders’ community when you join and interact on our communication channels and your publication data will be shared publicly via our Website, social media channels and other marketing and promotional channels.

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5.  Change of purpose

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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 you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

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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 data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

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6.  Marketing

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We may use your Identity data, Communication data, or Usage data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services and marketing offers may be relevant for you.

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You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

 

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

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You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the unsubscribe links on any marketing message sent to you, or by contacting us at any time.

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Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase or ongoing customer relationship.

 

7. International transfers of your Personal Information
 

Hive Founders is an international community. So your Personal Information will be accessed by and transferred to countries outside the UK and European Economic Area (EEA).
 

We will only transfer your Personal Information outside of the UK/EEA where we have the appropriate safeguards in place, namely an adequacy decision or the standard contractual clauses (plus UK Addendum, where necessary).
 

You acknowledge that Personal Information that you submit for publication through our Website, communication channels or services may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such Personal Information by others.
 

8.  Retaining and deleting Personal Information
 

We will not retain your Personal Information for any longer than is necessary (or is prescribed by law or regulations) and in particular the following retention policies will apply:

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(a) Usage data will be retained for a maximum period of 26 months following the date of collection;

(b) Identity data will be retained for a maximum period of 6 years following your closing of your account;

(c) Transaction data will be retained for the periods that are required to comply with legal regulations in the countries in which we operate, or you reside.

 

Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section 5, we may retain your Personal Information where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
 

9.  Your rights
 

You have the right to:

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• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
   

• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
   

• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data 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 data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
   

• Object to processing of your personal data 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 as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
   

• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

(a)         if you want us to establish the data's accuracy;

(b)         where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;

(c)         where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or

(d)         you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
 

• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
   

• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

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These rights are subject to certain limitations and exceptions. You can learn more about your rights by visiting https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/.
 

10. How to exercise your rights

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You can exercise any of these rights at any time by contacting us here. 

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No fee usually required

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

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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 your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

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Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

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11. Cookie Policy
 

(a) About cookies
 

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
 

Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.
 

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but Personal Information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.
 

(b) Cookies that we use

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We use the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.

• Analytical or performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

• Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

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You can find more information about the individual cookies we use, the purposes for which we use them, and how long they stay on your browser, in the table below.

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Please note that some of the cookies are placed by third parties, over which we have no control. These named third parties include, for example, providers of external services like web analytics or digital marketing. These third party cookies are likely to be analytical cookies or performance cookies or targeting cookies

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(c) Cookies used by our service providers
 

Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website​

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Here's a list of the cookies that we use on our Website.

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