GDPR Privacy Policy Staff Data

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT?

Linden Research, Inc. (Linden Lab) and its affiliates or subsidiaries including, without limitation, the Linden Lab or Tilia entity which employs or engages you (the Company) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with applicable data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

It applies to all (current and former) employees, workers, contractors, temporary workers, consultants and contingent workers.

The entity of the Company which employs you is the “data controller” of your personal information. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time but if we do so, we will provide you with an updated copy of this notice as soon as reasonably practical.

It is important that you read and retain this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information and what your rights are under the data protection legislation.

DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.

2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.

3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.

4. Accurate and kept up to date.

5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.

6. Kept securely.

THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection, such as information about a person’s health or sexual orientation.

We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

Categories of Personal Information

Examples

Disclosures to Third Parties/Service Providers

Identifiers

Your name (including any nickname or alias you have used), avatar information, signature, postal address, telephone number, mobile number, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, e-mail address, account name, Social Security number, driver’s license or identification number, passport number, or other similar identifiers, education, work history, information on your resume, CV, or bio, awards, certifications, recognitions, professional licenses, background check information, including criminal history

Identification and evaluation, job application identification, job application evaluation, temporary placement evaluation, communications, payroll and benefit administration, security, legal issues/compliance

Benefits, payroll, security and emergency contact information

Insurance policy number, bank account number, federal and state tax credits claims, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, including credit check information, medical information, health insurance information, beneficiary information, physical characteristics, description, photographs, video, emergency contact name, emergency contact information and telephone number

Payroll and benefit administration, legal issues/compliance, emergency response, security

Internet, computer, or other similar network activity

Use of the company’s computer system, browsing history, search history, information regarding interaction with a website, application, or advertisement, email, instant messaging, or voicemail messages

Information technology administration, work supervision, investigations, communications, performance evaluation, compliance with company policies and procedures, discipline, legal issues/compliance

Professional or work-related information

Current or past job history or performance, conduct, performance evaluations

Evaluation and advancement, investigations, discipline, legal issues/compliance

Inferences drawn from other personal information

Performance, abilities, and aptitudes

Evaluation and advancement, legal issues/compliance

COVID-19 vaccination status and exposure/infections

Medical and/or pharmacy records documenting receipt of the COVID-19 vaccination; records documenting exposure and/or COVID-19 infections

Compliance with company policies and procedures, legal issues/compliance

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information, at all times in compliance with applicable data protection laws and regulations. These also include certain protected characteristics under California or federal law:

Information about your race or ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religious beliefs, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), marital status, age, sexual orientation and political opinions.

Veteran or military status

Trade union membership.

Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records, including:

where you leave employment and under any share plan operated by a group company the reason for leaving is determined to be ill-health, injury or disability, the records relating to that decision;

details of any absences (other than holidays) from work including time on statutory parental leave and sick leave; and

where you leave employment and the reason for leaving is related to your health, information about that condition needed for pensions and permanent health insurance purposes.

Information about criminal convictions and offences.

HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?

We collect personal information about employees, workers and contractors through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from other internal sources, such as your manager, or external sources and third parties including former employers, medical professionals, tax, judicial or governmental authorities, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies.

We will collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us.

HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We need all the categories of information in the list above primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligation. In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you or providing a benefit), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

HOW WE USE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We have in place an appropriate policy document and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
Where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment.
Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

Our obligations as an employer

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

We will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or family related leaves, to comply with employment and other laws.

We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits including statutory maternity pay, statutory sick pay, pensions and permanent health insurance.

If you apply for an ill-health pension under a pension arrangement operated by a group company, we will use information about your physical or mental health in reaching a decision about your entitlement.

We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.

We will use trade union membership information to pay trade union premiums, register the status of a protected employee and to comply with employment law obligations.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.

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INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with this Privacy Policy.

Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

We envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.

We will only collect information about criminal convictions consistent with the needs of the position and where we are legally able to do so. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:

To determine fitness for employment, where the criminal conviction is related to the duties of the role.

We are allowed to use your personal information in this way to carry out our obligations to fulfill our regulatory requirements and prevent fraud. We have in place an appropriate policy and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.

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AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:

Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request a reconsideration.
Where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you. We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however we will notify you in writing if this position changes.

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DATA SHARING

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the Linden Lab group.

We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We may transfer your personal information outside the EU.

If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

”Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following third-party service providers process personal information about you for the following purposes:

SmartPension or Nest for UK pension scheme administration;

ADP UK or similar for UK payroll and tax purposes;

Internal and external auditors and consultants for regulatory compliance;

Internal and external attorneys for employee relations matters;

Carta for employee grants of Restricted Stock Units;

Sterling or Credence for background checks.

We will share personal data regarding your participation in any pension arrangement operated by a group company with the trustees or scheme managers of the arrangement in connection with the administration of the arrangements.

We may share your personal information with third parties not listed above where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. We will endeavour to keep this list up to date and you can access a copy of this policy any time at the People Team space in Confluence. However, if you would like an up-to-date list, please contact the People Team at hr@lindenlab.com.

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

When might you share my personal information with other entities in the group?

We will share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our regular reporting activities on company performance, in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise, and for system maintenance support and hosting of data. We will share personal data relating to your participation in any share plans and pension arrangements operated by a group company with other entities in the group for the purposes of administering the share plans.

What about other third parties?

We may need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law. This may include making returns to HMRC, the Charity Commission and other charitable or governmental organisations.

Transferring information outside the EU

We will transfer the personal information we collect about you to the following countries outside the EU in order to perform our contract with you: the United States.

However, to ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection we have put in place the appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the EU and UK laws on data protection. If you require further information about the protective measures, please let us know by contacting the Office of the CISO at cisoteam@lindenlab.com.

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DATA SECURITY

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. Details of these measures may be obtained from the Office of the CISO at cisoteam@lindenlab.com.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

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DATA RETENTION

How long will you use my information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once you are no longer an employee, worker, or contractor of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our data retention policy.

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RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.

Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).

Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

California residents have rights to request access to certain personal data collected about them over the past 12 months, or deletion of their personal data, subject to certain exceptions, and may not be discriminated against because they exercise their rights under the CCPA.

If you want to review, verify, correct, or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the People Team in writing at hr@lindenlab.com.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

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RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CONSENT

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing, and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the People team at hr@lindenlab.com. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

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CONTACT

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Office of the CISO at cisoteam@lindenlab.com. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the relevant regulatory authority. In the UK this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (Tel: 0303 123 1113), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

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CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the People Team at hr@lindenlab.com.

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