Contributor Privacy Notice

1. Who this notice applies to

This notice applies to anyone who contributes to, appears in, supports or supplies material for Future content or productions, whether paid or unpaid. This includes freelance writers, editors, journalists, photographers, illustrators, presenters, performers, interviewees, talent, influencers, composers, videographers, production crew, contributors of images or other material, location owners and individual representatives of suppliers, including those who have previously contributed to our productions, or to our suppliers, or to individuals who work for our suppliers (“Contributors”). It also applies to a Contributor’s agent, manager, guardian or other representative where relevant. 

“Content” includes articles, images, video, audio, podcasts, social-media content, interviews, other creative work and any other material created for or supplied to Future. This notice does not replace a Contributor agreement, brief, release or other terms that apply to a commission.

2. The controller responsible for your data

The controller that collects and is responsible for how your data is held and used, is the Future Group company that engages you or commissions the relevant contribution (“Future”, “we”, or “us”). This will normally be identified in your Contributor agreement, brief, invoice request, release or other commissioning communication.

A list of Future Group companies is available on the main Future website.

3. Personal data we collect

From our Contributors:

• Identity and contact information, such as your name, professional name, postal address, email address, telephone number, date of birth where needed, social media handles and professional biography.
• Commission, contract and communications information, including briefs, agreements, correspondence, submissions, invoices, purchase-order details, records of acceptance, revisions, rights, permissions, releases and consents.
• Payment, tax and business information, such as bank or payment details, tax status, VAT registration number, UK Unique Taxpayer Reference, US tax forms and other tax-reporting information that we are required to obtain.
• Content and attribution information, including your written work, image, voice, likeness, video, audio, photograph, biography, social-media profile links and any personal data included in material you provide.
• Professional and compliance information, such as experience, references, credentials, insurance information, right-to-work or identity information, conflict disclosures, records needed to assess a commission and relevant communications about compliance.
• Production, health and safety and access information, where relevant, including accessibility or dietary requirements, emergency contact details, health or disability information needed for reasonable adjustments or safe participation, location/access records, CCTV and IT or device-use logs.
• Information received from your agent, manager, representative, colleagues, clients, production partners, public sources and other third parties, where relevant to the engagement or content.
• Special-category personal data where you choose to include it in content, where it is necessary for a production or your safety, or where law permits us to collect it. This may include information about health, disability, race or ethnicity, religion, political opinions, trade-union membership, sex life or sexual orientation. We do not ask for more information than we need for the relevant purpose.

We also need a small amount of information from our suppliers to ensure that our contract runs smoothly. For example, we need contact details of relevant individuals (such as names, telephone numbers and email addresses) so that we can communicate with you. We also need other information, such as your bank details so that we can pay for the services you provide (if this is part of the contractual arrangements between us). We may also hold extra information that someone in your organisation has chosen to tell us from time to time.

4. How we use your personal data and our legal bases

Where UK or EU data-protection law applies, we rely on one or more of the legal bases below. The appropriate basis depends on the activity and the information involved.

Contributors

Suppliers

5. Who we share your personal data with

We will only share your personal data where it is necessary, fair, and consistent with one of our lawful bases for processing. Specific circumstances in which your information may be disclosed include:

• other Future Group companies and relevant Future personnel, including editorial, production, rights, legal, finance, payroll, IT, security and management teams;
• external recipients of electronic communications (such as emails) which contain your information;
• aggregated and anonymised diversity data to relevant regulators as part of a formal request;
• 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 the production. Or, whether you have an on-screen or off-screen role, to allow us to credit your role.
• your agent, manager, representative, guardian or emergency contact, where appropriate;
• clients, advertisers, sponsors, commissioning parties, production partners, broadcasters, distributors, publishers, platforms, licensees, collecting societies and rights-management providers, where needed to create, publish, distribute, promote or manage rights in the content;
• service providers acting for us, including payment, tax, payroll, IT, cloud-hosting, communications, document-management, production, security, insurance and professional-advisory providers;
• auditors, insurers, legal advisers, regulators, tax authorities, law-enforcement bodies, courts and other authorities where required or permitted by law; and
• a prospective buyer or purchaser if we sell, merge, reorganise or transfer a relevant part of our business or assets.

We require service providers processing personal data for us to protect it and to use it only for the agreed purposes. 

Note that if your content is made public through Future publications, websites, platforms, social-media channels, broadcasts, events, marketing and other media, and may be used worldwide in the ways described in the relevant contract, brief, release or licence. This can include your name, professional biography, photograph, voice, likeness and social-media profile links where relevant to attribution, publication or promotion. Once content is public, Future cannot fully control how third parties access, share or reuse it. If you are incidentally captured in filming or photography, or attend an event where recording takes place, we will provide appropriate information where practicable and will consider requests not to be included where we reasonably can.

UK broadcasters are researching diversity on their productions (as part of a project called “Project Diamond”), and this covers diversity characteristics that you may choose to tell broadcasters. If you provide us with your email address, we will enter it into a system called Silvermouse. You will then be invited to provide, but are not obliged to, your diversity characteristics – gender, ethnicity, disability, age, gender identity and sexual orientation. In that instance, the commissioner, as data controller, is responsible for this data and will have access to reports compiled from it for the purposes of the research. If you would prefer not to be involved in Project Diamond, you should contact your production contact at Future within 7 days of the issue date of any agreement provided to you for signature. Further information can be found here: http://creativediversitynetwork.com/diamond-Presenters/

6. International transfers

Future operates internationally and some of our systems are hosted outside of the EEA. If you are located in the UK or the EEA, your data may be accessed or processed in countries outside the country of your residence, including within Future and by service providers. Whenever we transfer your information outside the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring appropriate safeguards are implemented. Where applicable law requires safeguards for an international transfer, we will use an approved transfer mechanism, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, the UK Addendum to the European Commission Standard Contractual Clauses, the Standard Contractual Clauses or another recognised safeguard. Please contact us if you want further information about the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal information outside the EEA.

7. Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your 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 also put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. How long we keep your data

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it is processed, as described in this notice. The period depends on the nature of the contribution, any continuing publication, licence or archive, and our legal obligations. In general, we will keep your information until the production has been produced and for a period afterwards. In considering how long to keep it, we will take into account its relevance to our business and your contribution either as a record or in the event of a legal claim.

Contract, payment and tax records are generally retained for the periods required by tax, accounting and record-keeping laws. We may retain information longer where needed to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, respond to an investigation or meet a legal obligation. Some information, such as production footage of your contribution will be held indefinitely as we have an ongoing legitimate interest in retaining this.

We securely delete or anonymise information when it is no longer needed.

9. Your privacy rights

If you are in the UK, EU, or a US state that gives your privacy rights, or another country, depending on the law that applies to you, you may have rights to request access to, correction or deletion of your personal data, restriction or opt out of certain processing, portability, limit use of sensitive personal information, and to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw this at any time; this will not affect processing already carried out before withdrawal. However, note that some of these rights are not absolute and maybe subject to legal exemptions, including but not limited to, journalistic freedom, artistic expression, freedom of expression, and contractual requirements. You will not be discriminated against for exercising your rights. The main Future Privacy Notice contains further information about US and Canadian rights.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer and their team at [email protected]

We do not use Contributor personal data to make decisions based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

10. Further Information

This Privacy Notice does not form part of your contract and we may amend it at any time. For the general Future Privacy Notice, visit www.futureplc.com/privacy-policy/.

For questions about this notice, to exercise your rights or to raise a privacy concern, email our privacy team at [email protected]. Please tell us your name, the Future brand or service involved, the type of contribution and enough information for us to identify the relevant records. You may also write to:

• Data Protection Enquiries, Future Publishing Limited, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA, United Kingdom; or
• Privacy Officer, Future US LLC, Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036, USA.

If you feel you need to, you have the right to make a complaint at any time. We take any complaint very seriously, so you should contact our privacy team in the first instance. 

If you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with your complaint, you have the right to refer it to your local data protection authority. If you live in the UK, this is the Information Commission (https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/), the UK data protection supervisory authority.