How does the Innovation Link use information you share with us?
Guidance
Publication date
We have a responsibility to ensure we help the whole market. To do this, we share general information on how to launch new businesses, so the knowledge we build up from working with organisations like yours will ultimately be spread. Subject to complying with our legal obligations as a public body we won’t share information externally which is, objectively, commercially confidential.
Confidentiality is crucial
In the Innovation Link team, we’re very aware that to speak freely to us about your organisation’s plans, you have to be assured of confidentiality. Without this assurance, you might need to be very selective about what you share with us, or not feel able to use our services at all. For this reason, we take the confidentiality of the information and documents you share with us very seriously. All our files, with the information you share with us, are saved on an internal system, and is only accessible to those in Ofgem involved in the Innovation Link, except to the extent indicated below.
We aim to spread knowledge
Our purpose is to encourage innovation and competition, which ultimately benefits consumers. We must be careful not to favour one innovator over another. To foster innovation, we give support to individual innovators, but we are ultimately trying to grow our knowledge to help everyone. We understand that this requires very careful judgement on our behalf as to what knowledge, accumulated from our dealings with innovators, is appropriate to publicly share.
What we may do
- Publicly share information on how to launch new products and services in a way that helps others to comply with current rules. We may incorporate knowledge and information we have built up from working with multiple organisations, including yours.
- Publicly share anonymised case studies and aggregated data on trends, based on information given to us by innovators, including yours, to illustrate the types of innovations we are seeing and to promote the work of the Innovation Link.
- Internally share information given to us by your organisation, relating to your organisation or project, for example to help develop policy.
- Invite your organisation to participate in events we host, or to respond to consultations we believe are relevant to your organisation. We will not add your organisation (or you) to a regular mailing list unless you opt in.
What we will not do
We will not share the following externally without your organisation’s express written consent or unless required to do so by law, statutory directions, court orders or government regulations:
- Information that is commercially confidential from your organisation’s viewpoint.
- Your organisation’s name, or that your organisation has been in contact with us.
You can withdraw your consent at any time by emailing us at: innovationlink@ofgem.gov.uk. Please refer here for guidance on how you can help us assess the confidentiality of information you’ve provided.
Looking after your data
As the Innovation Link is part of Ofgem, it is subject to rules about how it holds and uses personal data. You can find the Innovation Link’s privacy notice here. This explains how the Innovation Link will use and process personal data provided by your organisation, as well as how we respond to Freedom of Information and Environmental Information requests.
If you have any questions or concerns about this document, please discuss them with us.