LENs privacy notice

How LENs uses your information

For Experts by Experience working with LENs. Last updated 22 October 2026.

Who we are

Lived Experience Network (LENs) is responsible for the information in this notice (the "controller"). It explains what we collect about you when you work with us as an Expert by Experience, why, who sees it, how long we keep it and your rights.

If you have a question, or want to use any of your rights, contact the LENs team at info@lens-network.com.

Your contact details, address and photo

Your name, date of birth, phone number, personal email, home address and a photo of you.

What for
To work with you, contact you, arrange your visits and travel, and show who you are on your ID badge and in the LENs apps.
Lawful basis
Our contract with you (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)). For your photo, our legitimate interest in staff and the services we visit knowing who you are (Article 6(1)(f)).

Your emergency contact

The name, phone number and relationship of someone we can contact in an emergency. Please tell them you have given us their details.

What for
Only to contact them if something happens to you while you are working with us.
Lawful basis
Our legitimate interest in keeping you safe (Article 6(1)(f)), or protecting someone's life in an emergency (Article 6(1)(d)).

Pay, tax and student loans

Your bank details, National Insurance number and your HMRC starter information: your sex as shown on your passport, birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate, your employment situation, any P45, and any student or postgraduate loan.

What for
To pay you, take the right tax, National Insurance and student loan repayments, and report them to HMRC.
Lawful basis
Our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b)) and our legal duties as an employer under tax law (Article 6(1)(c)).

Your right to work in the UK

How you prove your right to work, copies of the documents you show us (for example your passport or certificate) or your share code, and a record of when and how we checked them. These can show your nationality.

What for
To check, as the law requires, that you are allowed to work in the UK, before you start and again if your permission is time-limited.
Lawful basis
Our legal duty under immigration law (Article 6(1)(c)).

Your DBS check

Whether you are on the DBS Update Service and, if you are, your certificate number and a photo of your certificate. A DBS certificate can include information about criminal convictions and cautions.

What for
To check that your certificate is the right level for the work and still up to date, using the DBS Update Service.
Lawful basis
Our legitimate interest in the safety of the people and services we work with (Article 6(1)(f)). For criminal record information, the employment condition in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018, as set out in our Appropriate Policy Document.

Your lived experience and health

As an Expert by Experience, we ask you to tell us about your lived experience of a mental-health condition, neurodivergence or disability (your own or as a carer), anything that helps you at work, and the services you have experience of. Because lived experience is a genuine requirement of the role, this is a required part of working with us. We do not rely on your consent for it.

This information is confidential. Only the LENs HR and admin team can see it; your line manager cannot. The admin team can search it to find people for suitable work, and that search stays inside LENs. We do not share it outside LENs.

What for
To meet the requirements of your role, match you to suitable opportunities, and arrange any support or adjustments.
Lawful basis
Our contract with you and our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(b) and (f)) and, for health information, employment law (Article 9(2)(b), with Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018).

Who we share your information with

Inside LENs: the LENs HR and admin team. Your line manager can see your work details, your phone number (so they can call you about your work), whether your right-to-work and DBS checks are done, the documents you upload (such as your passport or DBS certificate) and your HMRC starter form (to help with payroll). They cannot see your bank details or your health and lived-experience information.

Outside LENs: our accountant, who runs payroll (they receive your HMRC starter information, not your bank details); HMRC; the Home Office, when we check a share code; and the Disclosure and Barring Service, when we check the Update Service.

We also use trusted companies to run our systems, such as hosting, email, sign-in and electronic signatures. They only use your information to provide that service to us. If any of them handle it outside the UK, we make sure the protections UK law requires are in place.

When you add a receipt to an expense in LENs Timesheets, the image is sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to read the amount, date and type for you to check. Nothing is decided automatically: you check the details and submit as before. Anthropic does not use it to train its AI.

The LENs admin team can ask an AI assistant questions about our work, such as how many visits took place in a month or who has a check-in booked. To answer, it reads a read-only copy of your work records: your visits, expenses, bookings, pay and the invoices they appear on; your start and leaving dates, check-ins and leave dates (annual leave or other absence, never the reason); whether your right-to-work and DBS checks are done; and your training progress. It sends the parts it needs, which can include your name, to Anthropic. It cannot see your bank or contact details, your documents or the details of your checks, nothing is decided about you from it, and Anthropic does not use it to train its AI. The questions and answers are kept for 12 months.

The admin team can also use it to find EbEs by the lived experience and services you have told us about, to offer suitable work. That search stays inside LENs: the assistant writes the search, but who matched, and your lived-experience information, is never sent to it. It cannot see anything you wrote under "other" or the support and adjustments you asked for.

How long we keep it

We keep your information while you work with us and only as long as we need it afterwards. Some periods are set by law: payroll and tax records for at least three years after the end of the tax year they relate to, and right-to-work records for two years after you stop working with us. Health and lived-experience information is kept for up to six months after you stop working with us, then deleted or anonymised.

Your rights

You can see and update most of your details at any time in your LENs HR profile.

You also have the right to ask for a copy of your information, to have it corrected, deleted or restricted, to object to how we use it, and to receive it in a format you can take elsewhere. Some rights depend on the reason we hold the information. To use any of them, contact the LENs team at info@lens-network.com.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.