Why we exist and our approach to privacy

The Black Design Guild is a prototype project hosted and housed by Hello Brave. Hello Brave is the trading name of Tayo Medupin a design strategist and design justice advocate working with civil society organisations* in the UK (including charities, social enterprises, voluntary and community organisations and more). For our work on the Black Design Guild, Hello Brave is also home to collaborators Amelia Woods, Tope Medupin and Michael Ojo.

Whether you’re getting in touch via this website, partnering with us on this work, or connecting with us through the research and design process, we respect your privacy and have put the following practices in place to keep everyone’s data safe.

When this privacy policy applies

Following UK Data Protection Law this privacy policy applies whenever you provide any personal data to Hello Brave. This includes when you visit this website, register to be updated on the Black Design Guild, sign up for and take part in or partner with us on any element of the Black Design Guild, including but not limited to one-on-one conversations, group discussions, surveys and workshops.

What we collect when you visit this website

On this website, Hello Brave does not collect any information about you (such as your name, e-mail address etc), except when you specifically and knowingly provide such information e.g. through forms like this. This website was lovingly made using Squarespace, which “uses some necessary cookies because they allow visitors to navigate and use key features on your site”. We also use Squarespace analytics to understand site traffic and sources.

Read more about how websites built on Squarespace use cookies.

What we collect when you register your interest in the Black Design Guild

Through this website, Hello Brave is prototyping the idea of a Black Design Guild to test the assumption that Black people working in research and design will sign up. To test this we have created a form to register your interest. In this form, we will collect information on your first name, last name, email address, LinkedIn profile, your current role, what appeals to you about the Guild and what you’d like updates on.

We have practices in place to keep your data safe and will only hold this data when we have your explicit consent and/or a lawful basis for doing so. We will also rely on your consent to dictate how the data is used, how it is shared (if at all) and how long it is held. See more below. If at any time you want to have your data removed please contact Tayo Medupin at tayo@hellobrave.org

How we use your data and why we collect it (aka the lawful basis)

The Black Design Guild is on a mission to nurture and support a new generation of confident and well-compensated Black researchers and designers. As part of this, we use your data to further these aims. Specifically, the data we collect on this website to assess interest in the Black Design Guild, understand the mix of people who sign up, update funders and partners on the prototyping process, share (non-identifiable and generalisable) insights on this process in our blog and to update you when we launch. We will also collect some data via analytics to understand site traffic and sources.

If there is a different lawful basis for collecting your information, we’ll let you know. Through this work, we may also rely on our Legitimate Interest to process your data to achieve the mission outlined. In these circumstances and wherever possible, we’ll uphold your right to object to such processing.

Will we ever share your data with others?

If you register your interest in the Black Design Guild, Hello Brave may share your identifiable data with project partners, funders, advisors and sub-contractors. We’ll ask for your consent to do this on any form you submit. We will usually also ask for your permission to share anonymised data (e.g. quotes, and anonymised demographic data) openly with others including via our blog. We do this to ensure our work is benefiting as many people as possible and to further our commitment to open working and making knowledge open to all.

How and where we store your data

Hello Brave uses the following secure services in all of our work.

• Squarespace: The website is built on Squarespace. Squarespace collects cookies to improve your experience of Squarespace sites and to support website analytics. Read about how Squarespace complies with GDPR here.

• Google Workspace: This is used for emails, calendars, surveys and data storage. We use this to securely house any data captured when you sign up to or take part in a research and design project. See the Google Workspace Privacy Policy here.

• Zoom: We use this often for one-on-one discussions and workshops. We may record these conversations to the Zoom cloud. Read how Zoom protects your data here.

• Calandly: We love Calandly and sometimes use it to support with scheduling. Read about Calandly’s security and compliance here.

All data we collect will be held inside the European Union and the European Economic Area or other territory complying with the legal and technical guidelines laid down for handling data by the European Union.

All of the data we store is accessible only by Hello Brave, associates, freelancers, sub-contractors and relevant partners. Everyone will be clear on good practice for data handling and GDPR.

Where data is stored outside of the UK, we will ensure suitable safeguards are in place. These may include but are not limited to Standard Contractual Clauses.

How long we store your data and your right to be forgotten

For the purpose of this project, we will store your data for the length of time required to send you the requested invites. We will then delete your data within 3 months of that invite unless you have asked us to inform you of other ways to be involved. In that case, we’ll work to keep your data safe for the duration of the Guild unless otherwise agreed or until you contact us to delete it.

If at any time you want to have your data removed please contact Tayo Medupin at tayo@hellobrave.org

If you want to know what data we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998 please contact us at tayo@hellobrave.org

If you require us to supply you with details of the personal information that we hold about you, then we will provide this information free of charge and we will provide this information to you within 30 days of your request unless the request is complex or is numerous requests. If this is the case we will inform you within 30 days of your request about the reason for the extension of time. If the request is very complex or excessive, we’ll likely need to charge you a reasonable amount or write you with a reason why we’re unable to respond.

Your Rights

You have specific rights related to the personal information you provide to Hello Brave. These include your rights to ask that we:

• confirm what personal information, if any, we may hold about you and for what purposes

• change or withdraw the consent you’ve given in relation to how we can use your personal information

• Stop processing your data in our Legitimate Interest

• correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal information we may hold about you

• provide you with access to any personal data you’ve provided by consent or by a contract with us, for you to move somewhere else

• stop the processing of your personal information, whilst any objection from you is being resolved

• permanently erase all your personal information promptly, and confirm to you that this has been done

• object to profiling or to any decisions being taken by us by automated means

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, if we do not address your request, or fail to provide you with a valid reason why we have been unable to do so, please get in touch at tayo@hellobrave.org

You also have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office to make a complaint. They can be contacted via their website https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or by telephone 0303 123 1113.

In the event of a data vulnerability or security breach

We are committed to keeping your data safe.

If at any time, we learn that your data has been compromised, if we find an issue with our systems or if we discover that we haven’t done our part to comply with this privacy policy or the data privacy laws we’ll get in touch as soon as we become aware. We’ll also alert the Information Commissions and any other relevant authorities as required. 

Our approach to data and the law

We’ve designed the way we store and use data to be compliant with the 2018 EU General Data Protection Regulation (aka. GDPR). We’ve also taken into account other relevant legislation to keep you safe. We also aim to maintain integrity in the way we collect, use and protect all parent data and will make sure we treat your data as if it were our own.

Who can I ask if I have additional questions?

Tayo Medupin is the Data Protection Officer of Hello Brave and can answer any additional questions. Her e-mail address tayo@hellobrave.org

Hello Brave is the trading name of design strategist Tayo Medupin. Registered address is Milner House, 2 Taymount Rise, London, SE23 3UU.