Privacy Policy

The purpose of this privacy policy is to be transparent about how the UK National Commission for UNESCO collects, uses and protects the personal information you provide to us. For example, this includes if you contact us by filling out a form on our website, or via telephone, email, or letters. This also includes information you provide us when you interact with one of our services such as registering with us as a UNESCO UK Expert, and applying for UNESCO Prizes or designation status.

The UK National Commission for UNESCO acts under current legislation and ensures best practice in the processing of personal data.

Why we collect personal information:

To provide policy advice
To undertake research
To administer prizes and UNESCO applications
For administration purposes
To promote the role of UNESCO and its sites and projects in the UK
What types of personal information we collect:

Personal information (including name, email, address, phone number)
Information about people we advise, people who apply for UNESCO Prizes, UNESCO Patronage, or UNESCO Designation status, or people who register for pro-bono opportunities
Keeping information secure:

We will never sell your personal data, and we will never share it with another organisation for marketing purposes
We only share your information when we are required to by law or with carefully selected partners who work for us
If you have any questions about our privacy policy, please contact:

The UK National Commission for UNESCO

Suite 98
3 Whitehall Court
London
SW1A 2EL

Changes to this policy

We will amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to ensure it remains up to date and accurately reflects how and why we use your personal data. The current version of our Privacy Policy will always be on our website: www.unesco.org.uk

We support the UK’s contribution to UNESCO and bring the benefits of UNESCO to the UK. Founded in 1946 by the UK government and established under Article VII of UNESCO’s Constitution, we are a vital part of UNESCO’s unique global network of 190+ national cooperating bodies known as National Commissions.

We have four core functions:

To provide expert, independent policy advice to the UK and devolved governments on UNESCO related issues.
To support the UK government’s agenda to help UNESCO achieve its core goals.
To advise and assist individuals and institutions in the UK, and its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, on accessing UNESCO accreditation and prizes.
To support and enhance the value of the UK’s UNESCO sites and projects.
The UK National Commission for UNESCO is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales. Registration number: 05966672. Registered Office:

The UK National Commission for UNESCO

Suite 98
3 Whitehall Court
London
SW1A 2EL

The UK National Commission for UNESCO is registered as a data controller in the United Kingdom under the Data Protection Act 1998. Our Data Protection Registration number is: Z3206797. Registered Office:

The UK National Commission for UNESCO

Suite 98
3 Whitehall Court
London
SW1A 2EL

If you contact the UK National Commission for UNESCO, you may provide certain data to us which we will compile and process in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Information will be collected and processed under applicable data protection laws and regulations.

By providing such information, you agree to its use and storage in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We collect data that you provide to us and only ever collect the information we need to carry out our business functions and to help us to improve our services.

We may collect information about you in the following ways:

When you engage with us on social media
When you send us an email or contact us by telephone or by post in relation to making an enquiry
When you register your details with us
When you apply to become a UNESCO Designation, apply for a UNESCO Prize, an associated prize the UK National Commission for UNESCO manages, or apply for UNESCO Patronage or for UK National Commission for UNESCO Patronage
When you subscribe to our Network Link newsletter
When you register for an event or workshop
When you donate to us
When you apply for a job or internship with us
When you enter into a contract with us
When you visit our website – through our use of Cookies
When you interact with us in your capacity as an employee of a UNESCO Designation or affiliated partner
When you request material from us
When you contact us with enquiries or other correspondence (including via social media)
When we are required to pay you for services provided to us by an individual or organisation or for expenses incurred
Should you provide us with information in the ways outlined above, we may collect the following:

Personal information: such as your name, email address, telephone number and other contact information (including details of your social media) to store with your account
Details of UNESCO applications, UNESCO Prizes and other UKNC prizes you have commented on or reviewed or applied for
Financial details such as your bank details if we are making a payment to you, or you are making a payment to us
Records of your correspondence with us, if you have contacted us
The UK National Commission for UNESCO does not usually collect sensitive personal data such as health information, race, religious beliefs and political opinions. In any event, where we do, we will display clear notices outlying why we have collected such information and why we need it.

Third Parties

We sometimes receive personal data about individuals from third parties in relation to activities we conduct as an organisation.

For example, we may be provided with personal contact details (name, address, organisation, and email) as part of an application for a UNESCO Prize, Patronage, or Designation, or if we are searching for expert reviewers for applications. To enable us to assess the suitability of the application, we may collect personal information from publicly available sources. In these cases, we only retain personal data solely for the purposes of carrying out the application.

We may use a number of sources to carry out our work, including company and organisation websites, printed and online newspapers and publications.

Suite 98
3 Whitehall Court
London
SW1A 2EL

The UK National Commission for UNESCO will only use your data for the purposes for which it is provided or where there is a legal basis. For example, by registering with us, we will only contact you in relation the relevant areas you have selected (e.g. review UNESCO Prizes or contribute to UK National Commission for UNESCO Network Link newsletter).

When you interact or submit information to us, we may use it to:

Perform tasks as identified
Comply with applicable laws and regulations
Provide you with the services, products or information you have asked for
Record any contact we have with you for internal administrative purposes
Process sales transactions, donations or other payments
Notify you about changes to our services
We collect and use personal data such as work email addresses to communicate with individuals in a professional capacity.

Third Parties

We will only use your information within the UK National Commission for UNESCO for the purposes for which it has been obtained. This may mean that we sometimes share data with UK Government Departments for whom we are providing a service to. The UK National Commission for UNESCO will not, under any circumstances, share or sell your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes and you will not receive offers from other companies or organisations as a result of giving your details to us.

We may need to share your information with “data processors” such as our service providers, who we use to send out our regular monthly newsletter and to store your information on our Customer Relationship Management System. These “data processors” will only act under our instruction and we will not allow these organisations to use your data for their own purposes and will take care to ensure that they keep your data secure. These “data processors” have all shown compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation and we have records of their compliance.

We will also comply with legal requests where disclosure is required or permitted by law, (for example, to government bodies for tax purposes or law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime, subject to such bodies providing us with a relevant request in writing).

We will hold your personal information on our Customer Relationship Management system for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity.

The UK National Commission for UNESCO is based in the UK, and we store our data within the European Economic Area (EEA). Some organisations which provide services to us may take your data outside of the EEA, but we will only allow this if your data is adequately protected.

The accuracy of your information is really important to us. We want to ensure that we are able to communicate with you in ways that you are happy with and to provide you with information that is of interest. If you wish to change how we communicate with you or update the information we hold, then please contact:

The UK National Commission for UNESCO

Suite 98
3 Whitehall Court
London
SW1A 2EL

A list of your rights under the GDPR is accessible here

These include:

The right of access to a copy of the information we hold about you (a subject access request)
The right to have your data erased (this does not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason)
The right to have inaccurate data rectified
The right to object to your data being used for marketing
Please note there are exemptions to the rights above.

If you would like further advice or information on your rights or wish to submit a request, please write to us at

The UK National Commission for UNESCO
Suite 98
3 Whitehall Court
London
SW1A 2EL

[email protected]

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO (supervisory authority) at any time. Should you wish to exercise that right full details are available at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

The UK National Commission for UNESCO’s cookies policy is provided by our web provider, Bluehost.

What Are Cookies

As is common practice with almost all professional websites this site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your experience. This page describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the functionality of the site.

For more general information on cookies see the Wikipedia article on HTTP Cookies.

How We Use Cookies

We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately, in most cases, there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use.

Disabling Cookies

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the site. Therefore it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

The Cookies We Set

Google Analytics

This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solutions on the web to help us understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content. For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.

Embedded content

Third parties provide some of the content on our site. This includes but is not limited to: Google Maps for interactive mapping, YouTube or Vimeo for hosted video and Flickr for images, and links to UNESCO designations in the UK websites. When you visit a page containing content from one of these sites a cookie may be set. We do not have any control over these cookies, and you should check the relevant third party website for more information about these.

More Information

Hopefully, this has clarified our cookies policy for you and as previously mentioned if there is something that you are not sure whether you need or not it is usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on our site.

This cookies policy was written by the UK National Commission for UNESCO’s website provider, Bluehost.