Privacy notice

Lived Experience Network Ltd (LENs) is responsible for the information in this notice. In data protection law, this makes us the “controller”.

We are a company registered in England and Wales, company number 13592256. Our registered office is 380 Ongar Road, Pilgrims Hatch, Brentwood CM15 9JH.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Our registration number is ZB995011.

If you have a question about this notice, or want to use your rights, email info@lens-network.com.

If you work with us as an Expert by Experience, our worker privacy notice explains how we use your information.

When you use our contact form, we collect your name, email address, organisation (if you give it) and your message. If you email us, we have your email address and anything you write.

What for

To reply to you (we aim to reply within 2 working days), to discuss work we might do together, and to email you a copy of your enquiry.

Lawful basis

Our legitimate interest in replying to people who contact us (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)). If your enquiry leads to an agreement, taking the steps you asked for before a contract (Article 6(1)(b)).

How long

We keep enquiries for 24 months from when we receive them, then delete them. If we go on to work together, we keep what we need for that work under our agreement with you.

Your enquiry is stored in our website database and copied into the LENs team’s own system so we can answer it. We also send it to info@lens-network.com. Please do not include health or other sensitive details about yourself or anyone else.

To stop spam, our server uses your IP address for a short time to limit how many enquiries can be sent in 10 minutes. It is not stored.

Our application form for Experts by Experience is run by LENs, and this notice applies to it.

We collect your name, email address, phone number, postcode, how you heard about us and your answers to our questions. Some answers are about your lived experience and your health, such as the services you have used and whether, and roughly when, you were in hospital or secure care. If we go ahead with your application, we also ask for references and the details we need for identity, right-to-work and DBS checks.

What for

To consider you for Expert by Experience work, contact you about it and match you to suitable opportunities.

Lawful basis

Taking the steps you asked for before a contract (Article 6(1)(b)) and our legitimate interest in recruiting the right people (Article 6(1)(f)). Lived experience is a genuine requirement of the role, so for health information we rely on employment law (Article 9(2)(b), with Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018), not on your consent.

Who sees it

The LENs Recruitment Team. An AI service also processes your screening answers for us, under contract, to write a summary for the team to read, and checks the quality of any photo you upload. The LENs admin team can also ask an AI assistant questions about recruitment, such as how many people applied in a month or whose screening is waiting: it reads your name and where your application stands (never your contact details or screening answers) and sends what it needs to our AI provider, Anthropic. No decision is made automatically: a person at LENs reads every application and makes every decision.

How long

If you join our Talent Pool, we keep your details while you are in it. Otherwise, if you do not go on to work with us, we keep your details for 12 months after your last contact with us, then remove everything that identifies you. Unfinished applications are deleted 90 days after you last saved them. If you start working with us, your information moves to our HR system and our worker privacy notice applies.

If you do not finish the screening form, we close your application 7 days after our last reminder. You are welcome to apply again at any time.

We also keep a log of who at LENs viewed or changed your application, so we can show how it was handled. The log is kept after your details are removed.

Page counts

Vercel Web Analytics counts visits to each page. It does not use cookies and does not keep information that identifies you. We use it to see which pages are useful. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running a useful website (Article 6(1)(f)).

Google Analytics, only if you accept it

Google Analytics only runs if you choose “Accept analytics cookies”. It uses cookies to tell us how people find and use the website, such as the pages visited, the type of device and the town or region. It does not record your full IP address. Our lawful basis is your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time. Google keeps this information for the period set in our account, which is no more than 14 months.

Security logs

When you visit, our hosting company records technical details, such as your IP address and browser, in security logs. These are kept for a short time to keep the website safe.

We only set analytics cookies if you accept them. You can change your choice at any time.

Change cookie settings

We do not sell your information or use it for marketing.

We use trusted companies to run our services. They only use your information to provide that service to us:

• Vercel, which hosts this website and the application form and counts page visits;
• Supabase, which stores enquiries (in Ireland) and applications (in London);
• Resend, which sends our emails, such as the copy of your enquiry;
• an AI service, which summarises applicants’ screening answers for our Recruitment Team, checks the quality of uploaded photos and helps our admin team answer questions about recruitment;
• Google, which provides our email and, if you accept it, Google Analytics.

Some of these companies are based in the USA or may handle information there. If any of them handle your information outside the UK, we make sure the protections UK law requires are in place.

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the information we hold about you;
• have it corrected if it is wrong;
• have it deleted, or ask us to stop or limit using it;
• object to how we use it;
• receive it in a format you can take elsewhere;
• withdraw your consent to analytics cookies at any time.

Some rights depend on the reason we hold the information. To use any of them, email info@lens-network.com. We will reply within one month.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

We update this notice when the way we use information changes. The date at the top shows when it last changed. This website is meant for adults, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 16.