1. Controller
Market Accord is a community brand and cannot itself be a legal data controller. Bid Champions Ltd is currently the UK GDPR controller only for this website, email enquiries prepared through its central forms, and community administration it directly performs. An independent project or partner may be a separate or joint controller where its project-specific notice says so. Contact: hello@marketaccord.co.uk.
2. Information we may collect
- Identity, role, organisation, contact and correspondence information.
- Application, buyer-challenge, expert, partnership, evidence and correction information.
- Project administration, attendance, actions, operating evidence, review and complaint records.
- Research consent, interview, survey, observation and publication choices.
- Registry information about legal operators, roles, funding, conflicts and status.
- Optional marketing preferences.
- Technical security information such as IP address, request time, page, user agent and server error logs generated by hosting systems.
- Your selected Market Accord country edition, stored in your browser so that a deliberate choice takes priority on later visits.
3. Why we use it and lawful bases
| Purpose | Typical lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Respond to enquiries and assess applications or challenges | Legitimate interests and steps requested before a possible agreement |
| Administer a programme, pilot or service | Contract, legitimate interests and legal obligations |
| Conduct research and publish learning | Consent where required; legitimate interests for appropriately controlled organisational research; project-specific basis recorded |
| Maintain a transparent project registry and manage badge status | Legitimate interests, contract and consent where personal publication is optional |
| Send optional research or programme updates | Consent |
| Security, fraud prevention, complaints and legal claims | Legitimate interests and legal obligations |
4. Recipients and processors
Information may be handled by authorised Bid Champions personnel, relevant project specialists, hosting and email providers, technical service providers, professional advisers, and authorities where legally required. On a first visit to the UK homepage, the browser may ask the free Country.is service for the country associated with the visitor's public IP address so that it can offer the France, Italy or Germany edition where appropriate. Market Accord does not receive or retain the returned IP address, and any failure leaves the UK edition in place. A visitor's manual country choice always takes priority. The public forms validate information in the visitor's browser and prepare an email addressed to Market Accord; the visitor chooses whether to send it through their own email provider. The website does not send the form contents to a separate form-processing service. Market Accord email is forwarded to an authorised Bid Champions Outlook inbox. A project-specific notice will identify material additional recipients.
5. Research, registry and public information
Support participation does not automatically authorise research, a named case study, registry publication or marketing. Public registry information is agreed and reviewed separately. Where a legal operator is a company, some organisational identity and role information may need to remain public to make the relationship transparent.
6. International transfers
Some technology providers may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where UK data-protection law requires a transfer mechanism, Bid Champions uses the provider's applicable adequacy arrangement, approved contractual safeguards or another lawful mechanism and considers supplementary measures where appropriate.
7. Retention
- General enquiries: normally up to 24 months after the last meaningful contact.
- Unsuccessful or non-progressed applications: normally up to 12 months unless a longer period is needed for a complaint or agreed future contact.
- Project, contract, financial and material decision records: normally six years after completion, or longer where law, insurance or an active claim requires it.
- Research data: the period stated in the research record, ordinarily no longer than seven years for material supporting published findings unless anonymised earlier.
- Marketing preferences: until withdrawal, plus a suppression record to respect that withdrawal.
- Security and server logs: normally 30–90 days unless an incident requires longer retention.
Actual periods may be shortened or extended where the information, risk, law, funding or project agreement requires it.
8. Your rights
Depending on the circumstances, you may have rights to access, correct, erase, restrict, object, receive portable information and withdraw consent. You may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. Withdrawal does not make earlier lawful processing unlawful and may not remove information that must remain for legal claims, contractual records or a transparent company/project record.
9. Security
Market Accord uses access controls, limited public forms, no public file upload and security headers. The public forms do not transmit their contents through the website server: they prepare an email for the visitor to review and send. Email is not suitable for confidential tender files or highly sensitive personal information, so do not send sensitive material until an appropriate transfer route is agreed.
10. Automated decisions and country editions
Country lookup is used only to select a relevant public edition: France, Italy or Germany are selected for those exact country results and the UK edition is the default for every other or unavailable result. It does not make a decision about eligibility, access or support, and visitors can change edition at any time. Market Accord does not use the website to make solely automated eligibility, supplier quality, badge or publication decisions with legal or similarly significant effect. Automated tools may classify source records or assist drafting, but a human reviews material decisions.
11. Changes and contact
Material changes to purposes, processors or public data use will be reflected before the changed activity begins where required. Contact hello@marketaccord.co.uk with “Privacy” in the subject.