Pride of Birmingham Awards 2022 – Privacy Notice

Your privacy is important to us

We are MGN Limited, a Reach PLC entity (“MGN”) , and we understand that your personal information is important to you and it’s important to us too. We are both data controllers with regard to the Pride of Birmingham Awards 2022 and are committed to safeguarding your personal information in line with the latest data protection and privacy laws.

About this privacy notice

This privacy notice covers the collection and use of your personal information by MGN and as part of the Pride of Birmingham Awards nomination and judging process.

If you are a nominator, this privacy notice applies to the personal information that you provide to MGN when you make an award nomination.

If you are a nominee or award winner, this privacy notice applies to the personal information that has been provided to MGN by your nominator when they nominated you for an award, or that MGN collects  through their own research, such as from news articles or other publicly available sources.

If you are an identified nominee i.e. you have not been nominated by a nominator but we have identified you from our own research as someone who may be eligible for an award, then this privacy notice applies to the personal information we have collected about you either from news articles, other publicly available sources or information provided from other people we have interviewed.

This privacy notice was last updated on 01/12/2022.

What personal information do we collect?

When you make a nomination or are nominated (either by a nominator, or directly by MGN) for an award we will ask for the following personal information:

  • First name and surname of the award nominator
  • Telephone number of the award nominator
  • Email address of the award nominator
  • Name of the award nominee
  • Postal address of the award nominee
  • Telephone number of the award nominee

Personal information may also be included in the narrative of why the nominee deserves the award. This could include anything about the nominee’s life, including sensitive data such as health information or criminal offence data about themselves or others.

We also conduct our own research to find identified nominees. We will collect the same information to the extent it is available from publicly available sources or other third parties we interview. 

How will we use your personal information?

Generally, we will only process your personal information on one or more of the following legal grounds:

  1. Our legitimate interests: Where it is necessary to use your personal information for the purposes of our legitimate interests (or those of a third party). We have explained some of these interests in more detail below. We only use your information on this legal basis where we have considered that, on balance, our legitimate interests are not overridden by your interests, fundamental rights or freedoms.
    • We have a legitimate interest in collecting the nominator’s personal details (such as name, contact numbers and/or email address) from the nominator, from publicly available sources or when MGN find out about the nominee’s story from another source, so we can contact the nominee or identified nominee to see if they are interested in taking part in the awards process.
    • We have a legitimate interest in using the nominee’s/ identified nominee’s personal information so we can assess their suitability to take part in the Pride of Birmingham Awards and receive an award, including performing background checks.
    • We have a legitimate interest in collecting basic personal details about the nominee’s/ identified nominee’s next of kin (usually their name, a contact number and/or address) so we can contact them in the event of an emergency.
    • We have a legitimate interest in providing certain personal information to third parties who may require it to supply any benefits to award winners, the nominator and their friends and family, or to help facilitate their participation in the Pride of Birmingham Awards. This may include travel agencies, airlines, resorts and hotels.
    • We have a legitimate interest in using the nominee/ identified nominee’s and nominator’s personal information to deal with any questions or complaints arising in relation to their contribution to the programme.
  2. To comply with legal obligations: Where it is necessary to process your personal information to comply with legislation and/or regulatory obligations (for example, we may need to keep financial records for tax purposes).
  3. Consent: We may ask you for your consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose. We will explain the specific purpose for processing at the time we ask you for such consent.
  4. Use of the journalistic exemption: The exemption protects freedom of expression in journalism.  It applies if an organisation or individual acts with a view to publishing something in the public interest, and believes that provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) need to be disapplied to facilitate such use.  The Pride of Birmingam Awards often use special category personal data, such as health, sexual orientation and ethnicity.  None of the above legal bases are suitable for this type of data until to the point of making contact with the nominee or identified nominee.  Therefore the journalistic exemption is used.  From the point of making contact with the nominee or identified nominee onwards, consent is generally used as the legal basis for processing their personal data, where consent is given.  For those under the age of 13 consent must be provided by the parent or legal guardian.

Where consent or the journalistic exemption are not being used to facilitate the processing of special category data, we may use the following bases:

  1. Vital interests: Where is it necessary to process your sensitive information to protect your interests or someone else’s (for example, if there is a medical emergency and consent cannot be obtained).
  2. Information that has been manifestly made public: Where you have clearly made your sensitive information public (for example, on publicly available social media websites or when speaking in interviews or footage).
  3. Legal claims and defence of rights: Where it is necessary to process your sensitive information for the purposes of establishing, making and/or defending legal claims.

Under data protection law, there are exemptions from MGN obligations, your rights and certain aspects of this privacy notice, which may apply in some circumstances. In particular, MGN may process personal information for:

What do we do with your personal information?

When you submit a nomination for an award, or you are nominated for an award, MGN will review all of the information provided in line with the selection criteria outlined in the Pride of Birmingham awards terms and conditions. MGN will use the personal information provided by nominators, or compiled from its own research, to produce a shortlist for each award. If the nomination does not comply with the terms and conditions, then the relevant personal information will be promptly deleted.

Personal information of shortlisted potential award winners (which may include both nominees and identified nominees) will be shared with the relevant award judging panel. The panels are made up of members selected by MGN and will review the shortlist to choose winners of the awards and inform MGN of their decision. MGN may also contact nominators and/or nominees/ identified nominees to research their story prior to the winners being contacted.

If you are selected as a winner of an award, MGN  will use the personal data provided by the nominators to contact the winners. Winners will be contacted and asked to confirm that they are happy to be winners of the relevant award and for their personal information to be used for this purpose. MGNwill use the personal information provided to contact the award winners, invite them to the Pride of Birmingham Awards ceremony and arrange associated travel and accommodation.

If a winner does not wish to accept an award, and does not consent to the use of their personal data henceforth, then their personal information will be deleted except for personal information identifying them as a winner who declined an award which will only be stored by MGN. 

Will MGN send you marketing messages?

Neither MGN will use a nominator’s or nominee’s/identified nominee’s personal information provided as part of the award nomination process to send marketing messages, unless the nominator has consented for themselves to receive marketing messages from MGN about the Pride of BirminghamAwards.

Once selected as a winner, you may be asked by MGN if you are happy to be contacted by TSB Bank plc, partner of the Pride of Birmingham Awards and if you grant consent, your personal information may be passed to TSB.

What are your rights?

Any personal information you supply will be treated in accordance with applicable data protection laws including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.  We are committed to delivering the rights that individuals are entitled to under data protection laws. These are:

  • the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.  To do this, please contact us at dataprotection@reachplc.com making clear that you are requesting a copy of your personal information and including full details of what you require. You may also be required to submit a proof of your identity.
  • the right to object to your personal information being processed or withdraw consent for the processing of your personal information at any time. We will comply with such a request unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so, such as when we need to continue to process your personal information to defend a legal claim;
  • the right to restrict processing in certain circumstances.
  • the right to rectification. You may request that we correct any inaccurate and/or complete any incomplete personal information;
  • the right of erasure. You may request that we erase your personal information and we will comply, unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so;
  • the right not to be subject to decision making based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significant effects;
  • the right to data portability. In certain circumstances, you may request that we provide your personal information to you in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and have it transferred to another provider of the same or similar services to us. Where this right is applicable, we will comply with such transfer as far as it is technically feasible; and
  • the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority. We suggest that you contact us about any questions or if you have a complaint in relation to how we process your personal information. However, you do have the right to contact the relevant supervisory authority directly. To contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in the United Kingdom, please visit the ICO website for instructions.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights,  please contact: dataprotection@reachplc.com  in relation to your personal information held by MGN.

Data Controller

MGN will be the data controller of personal information that forms part of an award nomination.

MGN Limited incorporated and registered in England and Wales with company number 02571173 whose registered office is at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP


If you wish to contact us about our privacy notice, please email MGN at dataprotection@reachplc.com