Your trust is very important to us. This means the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. It is important that you read this notice so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your relationship with us, in accordance with data protection law.
Why are we collecting your personal information?
You can ask questions and receive answers from the Corona Bot through Facebook. The Corona Bot allows the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ to provide the public with ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ resources and answers to questions about Covid-19.
If you decide to use the Corona Bot, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will be processing the personal information that you make available through Facebook in order to respond to your question with an appropriate answer. The questions that you ask the Corona Bot may also be used by the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ in order for us to improve the performance of the Corona Bot.
What information are we processing?
The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will process the following personal information
- Question text (utterance);
- Facebook Handle or Display name;
- Facebook Identifier; and
- The device you use to access the Corona Bot.
Depending on the content of your question text, you may choose (although are not required) to include personal information in your question.
Through your Facebook settings and subject to your Facebook user terms and conditions, you may choose to provide additional personal information linked to your Facebook account (such as your user profile URL and other information you share on your profile). If you do so, Facebook may provide this information to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ through the Facebook Business Manager platform for the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ to provide the Corona Bot.
You may also choose (but are not required) to include special category personal data in your question to the Corona Bot. For example, you may provide information which discloses any health, disability or ethnicity status.
However, you can use the Corona Bot without sharing any such information in your question. For example, instead of asking βI have had Covid-19 and my address is 1 Fake Street, am I immune?β, you could ask, βIf someone has had Covid-19, are they immune?β.
The text question you ask the Corona Bot will be used to match our knowledge base of questions to find an appropriate answer. We will provide the answer back to you directly through Facebook by using your Facebook Identifier. It will also be used to help improve the Corona Bot service.
We retain the text questions that we receive as we use this data to monitor the use and performance of the Corona Bot by our audiences and to improve the service for example:
- Daily/Weekly/Monthly active users;
- Browser or Operating system of user; and
- Country/Age/Region data.
Apart from your question text, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will not be transferring or storing any of your personal data onto our systems.
Who is the Data Controller?
You can ask questions and receive answers from the Corona Bot through Facebook. The Corona Bot allows the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ to provide the public with ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ resources and answers to questions about Covid-19.
The Corona Bot is available through Facebook and as such Facebook will also be a separate data controller of your personal information. You can learn more about how Facebook will be processing your personal information within .
As separate data controllers, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ and Facebook have the responsibility to comply, and to demonstrate compliance with, data protection law.
What is the lawful basis for processing?
The legal basis on which the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ processes your personal information is the performance of its public task. The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔβs role is to act in the public interest and to serve all audiences with content which informs and educates. Through the Corona Bot, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will be able to provide the public with access to resources to answer questions about Covid-19 and ensure that accurate information from sources is available to the UK public in an accessible and relevant way.
The text utterance data that forms part of a question you ask the Corona Bot will be used to match our knowledge base of questions to find an appropriate answer. We will provide the answer back to you directly through Facebook by using your Facebook Identifier. It will also be used to help improve the Corona Bot service.
If you choose to include in your questions to the Corona Bot details of your health or other special category information, the lawful basis for that processing will be your explicit consent. You can withdraw your explicit consent at any time as described below.
Do we share your personal information with Third Parties?
If you ask the Corona Bot a question, we will analyse the question text using Microsoft software and Azure data centres in the EEA to understand your question text. We process this with an ID that cannot be used to identify you. This helps us to ensure that you receive the correct response. In the unlikely event of a service failure or traffic load issue your question text and ID may be routed through a to ensure that we can provide your response. Unless you include identifying information in your question text Microsoft cannot identify you during this process.
Corona Bot questions and answers are provided through Facebook apps and websites and your use of the Corona Bot will be subject to . Facebook may share your data within the Facebook Companies or other third parties. Please refer to for more information.
Right to Withdraw Your Explicit Consent and Retention Periods
If you ask the Corona Bot a question and later decide that you no longer wish to converse with the Corona Bot, you can delete the conversation history from your messages.
Please note that if you do this within 10 minutes after you sent a message, this will delete the message history and any other personal information that Facebook has provided to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ. However, if you delete the conversation history after 10 minutes of asking a question, the conversation history with the Corona Bot that you see in Facebook Messenger will be deleted, but the Facebook will retain the conversation history and any other personal information that is linked to the conversation in the Facebook system that it provides to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ.
Deleting the conversation history will not delete any personal information that is stored by Facebook.
You have the right to withdraw your explicit consent to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ for the processing of any special category personal data that you have included in your question at any time by making a request or deleting your conversation as set out above.
The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will store your personal data on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ systems. However, any information you provide will be subject to Facebookβs data retention policy. You can read more about Facebookβs retention periods in
Your rights and more information
You have rights under data protection law. You can make requests to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ about the information which we use to provide the Corona Bot. You can also make requests to Facebook relating to your personal information which is stored by Facebook.
You have the right to ask for your data we collect to be deleted however there are exceptions to your rights and they may be limited in some situations for example we may refuse this request. If the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ agrees to delete the data that has been provided by you through the Corona Bot, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will no longer be able to access this data through the Facebook platform. However, your personal data that is collected by Facebook may remain on Facebook systems and you should read the for more information on how Facebook uses your data.
You can contact our Data Protection Officer if you have questions or you wish to find out more details about your rights, please visit the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔβs Privacy and Cookies Policy at .
If you have a concern about the way the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has handled your personal information, you can raise your concern with the supervisory authority in the UK, the Information Commissionerβs Office (ICO) .
Updating this privacy notice
We will revise the privacy notice if there are significant changes to how we use your personal information.