Background
Verification Check Ltd (“Verification Check”,
“we” or “our”) is
committed to ensuring your personal information is protected. This privacy notice
describes how Verification
Check collects, uses and protects your information.
How
we collect your information
The
information we collect comes either directly from you when you choose our I’mVerified
service, or your
prospective employer uses our Global Verification service to verify your qualifications,
or our trusted
third-party integrations such as TrustID who we use to verify photographic ID
document.
We
also collect your information when you create an account to use our service as a
business user.
The
type of information we collect
We
collect the following type of information:
If
you use our I’mVerified service we will collect your first name, middle name, last name,
date of birth, email
address and qualification details. Where we also need to verify photographic ID we may
collect your date of
birth and nationality.
When
an employer provides your information, we collect first name, middle name, last name,
date of birth and
qualification details.
If
you are a business user, we collect first name, last name, business email address and
telephone
number.
How
we use your information
Under
data protection regulations we must have a legal basis to process your personal data.
The legal bases
are:
- To
perform our contract with you;
- To comply with legal
obligations;
- For
our legitimate interests, for example to fulfil our contracts with universities or
institutions who have engaged
us to verify your identity or qualifications. We do not use your personal data for
activities where our
interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are
permitted by law to do
so).
- With consent, which we will only rely on
where we obtain your
active consent to use your personal data, and only for the specific purpose we’ve
requested.
We
rely on the following legal bases:
To
register you as a new user on the I’mVerified service: we use your contact details, and
name to perform our
contract with you.
To
carry out a verification service, we will need to contact the academic institution where
you received your
qualification. We will share your personal data as follows with the relevant academic
institutions:
If
you are a user on the I’mVerified service: we use your contact details, name, and
qualification details to
perform our contract with you.
If
you are using I’mVerified through an institution or organisation: we will use your
contact details, name, and
qualification details relying on your consent to do so (whether this is consent received
directly from you or
via an institution).
To
administer and protect our business and website: we use your contact details, name, and
any technical
information which are necessary for our legitimate interests (running our business,
ensuring the website is
functional, preventing fraud and security issues).
To
send you relevant marketing communications: we use your name and contact details, and
rely on our legitimate
interest as legal basis for processing your data (to carry out marketing and develop and
grow our service
offerings). Where you subscribe to our newsletter, we rely on your consent to provide
you with marketing
communications. You can opt out of marketing communications at any time using the links
in the
email.
Who
we will share your information with
We
need to share your information with the relevant organisations, universities and
institutions to verify your
qualification as follows:
- The
institution where the qualification was awarded;
- The
institution or organisation who has requested the verification;
-
TrustID: who provide ID verification services. Their privacy policy can be found here:
https://www.trustid.co.uk/policies/.
We
require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it
in accordance with the
law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for
their own purposes and only
permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with
our
instructions.
Storing
your information
Your
personal information will be stored on systems owned or operated by Verification Check
or those of our specific
suppliers and will only be stored inside the United Kingdom (UK) or European Economic
Area (EEA), or a country
approved by the UK or EU.
Within
Verification Check your information will be stored on our
secured systems in accordance with the Verification Check Information Security Policy.
Where your information is
stored in countries outside the EEA or an approved country, we will ensure it is
protected by encryption and
that we ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by using
appropriate safeguards as set out
by law.
If we
need to manually verify your qualification, this is carried out by our agents who are
not based in the UK or
EEA, but we will ask your consent to do that. We will ensure that our agents protect
your personal data to a
similar degree by using appropriate safeguards.
Retention
We
will only retain your personal data as long as it is reasonably necessary for the
purposes we collected it for.
We will consider the amount of data we have on file, the nature and sensitivity of that
data, and the risk of
harm if there is an unauthorised disclosure when deciding on the retention
period.
Where
you are an I’mVerified user with a user account, we will retain all personal data on
your profile (name, contact
details, qualification details, identity information and verification information)
whilst your user account is
active. If you delete your account, we will also delete all personal data we
hold.
Where
we are verifying your information for an institution, we retain your verification
information for a maximum of
24 months from the date of the verification process being completed.
Your
Rights
You
have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal
data.
You
have the right to:
-
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “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 in
certain circumstances.
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, where we may have processed your
information unlawfully or where
we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law.
-
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest
as the legal basis. In
some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process
your information which
override your right to object.
- You also have the absolute right to object
any time to the
processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
-
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.
-
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to
suspend the processing of
your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
- If you want us to establish the
data’s
accuracy;
- Where our use of the data is
unlawful but you do not
want us to erase it;
- 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
- You have objected to our use of
your data but we need
to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
If
you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact the Data Protection
Officer/Privacy Manager
at privacy@verificationcheck.com.
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.
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. 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.
Time
limit to respond. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month.
Occasionally it could take us
longer 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.
If
you are not happy how we use your information or how we have responded to your request,
you have the right to
complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk. We would however
appreciate the chance to
deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first
instance.
Use
of cookies
We
may use cookies and similar technologies on our website. Cookies are small text files
that may be stored on your
computer or mobile device when you visit our website. Cookies do many different things,
such as letting you
navigate between web pages efficiently and remembering your preferences. We use cookies
to track your use of our
site, but we do not use cookies to make decisions about you or to send you marketing
information electronically.
Please see our cookie policy for more details.
Third
Party Links
This
website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking
on those links or
enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you.
We do not control these
third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you
leave our website, we
encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.
How
we will tell you about future changes to this privacy notice
Any
changes we make to our privacy notice will be put on our website. Please check for
updates from time to time so
you are always fully aware of what information is collected and how it is
used.
How
to contact us
If
you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, please
contact the Data
Protection Officer/Privacy Manager at privacy@verificationcheck.com
Last
updated July 2024