Privacy Notice

Privacy Notice

Trade-Up is a not-for-profit membership organisation providing information about trade training opportunities. We are committed to protecting your privacy in everything we do and ensuring that you are always clear on how your personal information is used. We understand that your privacy and the security of your personal information is extremely important. 

This Privacy Notice explains what personal information we collect, what we do with it, our lawful basis for processing your data and how we secure your information. We will also explain your rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you and how you can exercise your rights or register a complaint.

Trade-Up is the data controller. Our registration number with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is ZB472937.

Contact details: 

Trade-Up 

Building 2000

Lakeside North Harbour

Portsmouth, Hampshire

PO6 3EN

Email: privacy@trade-up.co.uk

Personal information we collect:

Trade-Up Members

To provide our membership services we collect the following personal data: name and surname, address (physical/postal), telephone number, email address and date of birth. We may clarify information provided via phone call but do not record calls.

To become a member, we require the successful completion of our vetting process. Trade-Up will share the personal data provided with Checkatrade who provides vetting research services to us. Checkatrade makes use of the services of third-party suppliers for identity and verification checks.

Our vetting checks include the following:

  • Open-source reviews of press stories, provided through service provider Moodys (www.moodys.com )
  • Third party reviews/feedback relevant to you or your business, these checks include reviewing social media business pages
  • Business checks through CreditSafe (www.creditsafe.com), namely:
    • Legal proceedings check 
    • Director’s check   
    • Company legal status check 
    • Business credit check 
  • DBS checks (only carried out if there is any reference to unspent convictions during the application process)
  • Business owner identity verification through facial recognition confirmation performed by third party service provider HooYu (www.hooyu.com)
  • Business Public Liability Insurance check 
  • FCA-regulated status check  

Checks will also be carried out on linked individuals such as directors, partners, employees, agents, suppliers or contractors. 

Please note that when the details of other individuals are provided to Trade-Up and Checkatrade, this should be done with the knowledge and consent of the individuals concerned. When other individuals are added to your account at your request, they will also have to undergo vetting checks. 

These checks include a database duplicate check, a director’s credit check and open-source reviews of press stories. Some additional checks might be required depending on the results of our initial vetting. 

Website Enquiries

If you visit our website or make an enquiry regarding a training provider, we will collect the following information: name and surname, full address including post code, telephone number, email address, IP address and information about your request. 

Vendors

We currently process the following personal information of vendors who provide services to us: name and surname, address (physical/postal), telephone number, email address, bank and payment details.

You are under no obligation to provide any information but if you do not, then it might be impossible for us to provide our services.

How we obtain and use personal information:

Most of the personal information we process was provided directly by you for one of the following reasons:

  • You applied to become a member of Trade-Up.
  • You enquired about training opportunities or requested our assistance in matching you with a training provider.
  • Your data was provided to us by an existing member or applicant for vetting purposes.
  • You agreed to receive marketing communications from us.
  • You are providing contracted services to us as a vendor.
  • To enable us to respond to enquiries or correspondence.

Lawful basis for processing personal information:

We provide different services and our lawful basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this Privacy Notice will depend on the type of personal information and the specific context in which we collect and use it.

We will normally collect and process your personal information for our membership services or training provider matching service to meet our contractual obligations. Vetting is required for our legitimate interests to meet the requirements of the partnership.

We carry out balancing and necessity tests to ensure that your rights are protected when we rely on our legitimate interests for processing. We may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information to meet our obligations to comply with financial and regulatory requirements. 

Sharing of Information:

We share the information provided to us by membership applicants with Checkatrade for vetting purposes. In most cases data sharing will be related to the contracted services we provide on behalf of the members of Trade-Up. We also share data with our professional advisors. In some cases, we are required to share information with regulatory authorities to comply with our obligations.

Data Transfers:

We use processors who are based outside of the United Kingdom. When data is transferred outside of the United Kingdom, we ensure that appropriate safeguards such as the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or an International Data Transfer Agreement are included in contracts.

How we store and secure your information: 

Trade-Up will retain the data of successful membership applicants for six years from the end of the membership. If you are unsuccessful in your application, the data will be retained for three years from the date of the membership application. Checkatrade retains the data of vetted applicants and members for three years from application.  

We have put in place appropriate organisational and technical measures to meet our legal obligation to ensure the security of your personal information. We use industry standard security and firewalls. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in connection with the collection, storage and disclosure of your information. We dispose of information by deleting it from all our systems and securely disposing of paper files.

Cookie Notice:

We use cookies on our website to enhance your browsing experience and to generally ensure the efficient running of the website. Cookies are small files normally consisting of letters and numbers which store information on the user’s device. They are used in numerous ways, such as to analyse visitor traffic to our website through Google Analytics and to help the website load faster. We also have links on our website to social media sites. Some of the cookies on our website are classified as non-essential cookies which you can decline. Personal information we collect when you visit our website includes information about your device and IP address.  

Your data protection rights:

Under data protection law, you have individual rights pertaining to your personal information, including:

  • Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. 
  • Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to correct information you think is inaccurate or complete information you think is incomplete. 
  • Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.  We maintain a retention policy and will inform you if we are not able to delete your information immediately.
  • Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances. 
  • Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
  • Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling. We perform credit checks but decisions about membership eligibility are done by our directors and are not based on automated decision making.

You do not need to pay a fee for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we are required to respond to you within one month unless there are reasons why it will take longer to collect the information you requested. If that is the case, we will inform you. 

In some cases, we will require you to provide proof of your identity if we are unable to confirm your identity through other information we hold about you. This is required to ensure the security of the personal information we hold and to meet our legal obligations. 

Please email privacy@trade-up.co.uk if you want to exercise any of your rights.

How to complain:

In the first instance please send complaints to us at: privacy@trade-up.co.uk 

You can also write to: 

Trade-Up

Building 2000

Lakeside North Harbour

Portsmouth, Hampshire

PO6 3EN

If you are not happy with the response you receive, you can send your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113, www.ico.org.uk

Changes to our policies may result in periodic changes to this Privacy Notice. We recommend that you check back regularly but we will notify you of any changes through our website. The date released will always be listed below.

Last updated:  15 November 2022