The Wellcome Trust regards the lawful and correct treatment of personal information as very important and to this end is fully committed to the principles of data protection, as set out in the Data Protection Act.

What information we collect about you

We process personal data in connection with our charitable mission to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. We do this through a range of activities, including grant funding, capacity building in history of medicine and biomedical ethics, by measuring the societal and historical impacts of biomedical research and by means of our public venue facilities and the Wellcome Library.

How we use this information

Information that you supply in connection with the provision of a service or a grant application and any funding arising from it will be treated in confidence and in accordance with the principles of the Data Protection Act. Details about how personal information provided as part of a grant application and any subsequent award is used, are given on the grant application forms.

You may be asked for personal information if you want to take advantage of specific services we offer, such as when completing a publication subscription form, Library joining or enquiry form, arranging Library appointments or in connection with Wellcome Collection activities. We will use the personal information you provide to deliver the services you have told us you wish to take part in or to send you information that you have requested and may offer you the opportunity to receive additional information about our activities or those of our partners and service providers. You may opt out of this at any time by contacting us.

Surveys

From time to time we conduct web surveys among current or previous grantholders and others to evaluate the impact of our policies, services and funding. We also conduct surveys on behalf of, or in partnership with other organisations whose aims are similar to our own.

The survey results will be used solely for evaluation purposes. No information contained in the results will be attributed to the person who submitted it without their explicit consent being obtained in advance. The survey results may be anonymised and, for information/research purposes, may also be made available to other organisations, some of which are our funding partners. We will tell you who these organisations are as part of the survey process.

All data collected by the Trust for the purpose of surveys will be held and processed by the Trust in a secure environment. All data will be anonymised and stored for a maximum of two years and then destroyed, unless the data is required for career-tracking purposes in which case it will not be anonymised and will be held for a longer period of time.

Do we use 'cookies'?

When you log into this site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Cookies allow our server to remember you are the same person as you move through a survey.

The Trust also uses cookies to gather non-personal statistical information about visitors to our sites, such as the number of visits to pages, the amount of time spent viewing a page, the path taken by visitors to a particular page and other general information. The Trust uses this information to improve our websites.

You have the opportunity to set your computer to accept all cookies, to notify you when a cookie is issued, or choose not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these options may prevent you from accessing all functions of this site. Find out more about cookies.

How do we protect personal information?

We use appropriate organisational and technical measures to ensure that your data is secure and protected from loss, misuse and unauthorised access or alteration. From time to time we introduce changes or improvements to our systems. Any test data that may have been used in this connection is managed in a secure and confidential manner.

Do we share your information with anyone else?

The Trust does not pass on your information to others unless we have stated that we will do so as part of our terms and conditions. Some of our publications are distributed by third parties but we agree with those third parties that they will keep your information secure and not use it for other purposes.

We may ask you for your agreement to send your contact details to organisations that help us to provide certain services so that they can tell you about their products and services. This will be clearly explained at the point where we collect your information. You will be given the opportunity to decline or to choose how you are contacted.

Your rights

You have the right to ask us at any time not to contact you, or to change your preferred methods of contact for marketing purposes.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you (for which we may charge a small fee) and to have any inaccuracies in your information corrected.

How to tell us about changes

If you have any questions about data protection or require further information, please email dataprotection@wellcome.ac.uk or write to the Data Protection Compliance Officer, Wellcome Trust, Gibbs Building, 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE.

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This privacy policy covers the Wellcome Trust website, the Wellcome Collection website, the Wellcome Library website, the Wellcome Images website and the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre website. Other websites linked to from these sites are not covered by this policy.