Privacy Statement

This statement explains how Silk Helix Ltd collects, uses and protects personal information across our services and website. It applies to everyone who contacts us, uses our services, subscribes to our updates or visits our website. Where a particular service processes personal data in a materially different way, a supplementary notice applies in addition to this statement. This is currently the case for our Workplace Needs Assessments, which are covered by a separate Workplace Needs Assessment Privacy Notice provided within the booking pack.

Our contact details

Name: Jenefer Livings, Director, Silk Helix Ltd

Address: Elizabeth House, 28 Baddow Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 0DG

Phone: 01245 910 500

Email: gdpr@silkhelix.co.uk

Silk Helix Ltd is registered in England and Wales with company number 12080100.

Who this statement is from

Silk Helix Ltd is the data controller for the personal information described in this statement, except where we act as a processor on behalf of a client. When we administer HR data for a client, for example within Breathe HR as part of our retained HR service, the client is the data controller and we act as their processor under a separate agreement. In that situation the client’s own privacy information applies to their employees and workers.

The information we collect

What we collect depends on how you interact with us. It may include:

Personal identifiers and contact details such as your name, job title, organisation, email address, postal address and telephone number.
Booking and account information, including the services you request, appointment details and login details for our course platform.
Correspondence and the content of enquiries, advice calls and documents we prepare for you.
Recordings and notes of advice calls, as described below.
Billing information needed to process payments and issue invoices. Where a service involves health or neurodivergence information, this is special category data and is handled under the relevant supplementary notice.

How we collect it and why we have it

Most of the personal information we hold is provided directly by you when you have:

Visited our website or completed a form on it.
Enquired about or booked one of our services.
Engaged in business dealings with us.
Subscribed to our newsletter or downloaded a resource.
Attended one of our training courses, seminars or events.
Followed or interacted with us on social media. We also collect some information from third parties, such as your employer where they have commissioned a service that involves you.

What we do with your information

We use personal information to:

Respond to enquiries and provide quotes.
Deliver our services, including HR and neurodiversity advice, retained HR support, training, courses and assessments.
Record and take notes from advice calls so we can give accurate advice and prepare any documents that arise.
Administer bookings, payments and our course platform.
Send you our newsletter and updates where you have asked to receive them.
Meet our legal, regulatory and record keeping obligations.
Keep our website secure and improve how it works.

Recording of advice calls

We routinely record our advice calls for note taking purposes. Recording lets our consultant stay fully engaged during the call and produce an accurate record afterwards. Recordings are treated as confidential, are not shared outside Silk Helix except where required by law and are kept for 6 months and then deleted. The notes of advice, case summary and any documents we prepare from the call are kept for 7 years. If you would prefer your call not to be recorded, please tell us before the call and we will discuss the options with you.

Lawful bases

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, the lawful bases we rely on are:

Contract, where processing is necessary to provide a service you have requested or to take steps before entering into a contract.
Legitimate interests, where processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as responding to enquiries, keeping accurate records of advice and administering our relationship with you. We balance these interests against your rights.
Legal obligation, where we need to process information to comply with the law.
Consent, which we rely on for marketing communications such as our newsletter. You can withdraw consent at any time. Where we process special category data, such as health or neurodivergence information as part of a Workplace Needs Assessment, we do so under the additional condition set out in the supplementary notice for that service.

We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.

We use trusted service providers who process personal data on our behalf under contract, acting only on our instructions. These include:

HR software providers, including Breathe HR.
Video conferencing providers, including Zoom and Google Meet.
Cloud storage, email and document tools, including Google Workspace.
Payment and invoicing providers.
AI tools used solely as drafting support under paid subscriptions with contractual data protection safeguards. These tools are not used for automated decision making and do not use your personal data to train public models. We may also share information where we are required to do so by law or by a regulator.

Storing your information and international transfers

Your information is stored securely using access controlled systems, with appropriate technical and organisational safeguards in place. Data is generally stored within the UK or the European Economic Area. Where a provider processes data outside the UK, we ensure an appropriate safeguard is in place, such as a UK adequacy decision or the International Data Transfer Agreement.

How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it. Our retention periods reflect the different services we provide:

Most contractual and business records are kept for 7 years from the end of your contract with us, in line with our legal and record keeping obligations.
Notes of advice, a case summary and any documents we prepare in connection with an advice call are kept for 7 years.
Advice call recordings are kept for 6 months and then deleted.
Workplace Needs Assessment records are retained as set out in the supplementary notice for that service. In summary, the final report is kept for 7 years and recordings are deleted within 30 days of the report being issued.
Marketing information is kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to stop.
Booking details are deleted after 30 days where a booking does not proceed. Once a retention period has ended, we securely delete the information.

Cookies

Silk Helix does not set its own cookies and does not use cookies for analytics or advertising.

Some pages include content embedded from third parties, namely YouTube videos and the Calendly booking tool. When you view or interact with that content, those providers may set their own cookies. These cookies are controlled by the third party rather than by us. You can manage cookies through your browser settings and find further detail in the privacy and cookie notices published by Google (YouTube) and Calendly.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law you have rights including:

Your right of access. You can ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification. You can ask us to correct information you think is inaccurate or to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure. You can ask us to delete your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing. You can ask us to restrict processing in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing. You can object to processing in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability. You can ask us to transfer your information to you or another organisation in certain circumstances.
Your right to withdraw consent. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. You are not required to pay a charge to exercise your rights. If you make a request we have one month to respond. Please contact us at gdpr@silkhelix.co.uk if you wish to make a request.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about how we use your personal information, please contact us first at gdpr@silkhelix.co.uk so we can try to put things right.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

Address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Helpline: 0303 123 1113

Website: ico.org.uk