IDG Privacy Notice

Content last updated: 14 May 2024. Changes made to address change of legal body from CRNCC to RDNCC under new contract from 1 April 2024.  Minor change to "Destruction of Data" section - first bullet point. Change of presentation on site to show all content on one page but also leave distinct site links to separate pages.


The Department of Health and Social Care  ("DHSC”) is the Data Controller for the Identity Gateway "IDG" under the Data Protection Act and, after 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 ("Data Protection Laws"). 

The University of Leeds (“The Host Organisation”) is the Data Processor for the Identity Gateway Service"[IDG]". The University of Leeds provides the National Institute for Health and Care Research (“NIHR”) Research Delivery Network Coordinating Centre (“RDNCC”) on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care and the RDNCC is responsible for the processing of your personal data. 

About the NIHR Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre

The NIHR Research Delivery Network Coordinating Centre (RDNCC) is a service provided by the University of Leeds, with contracted maintenance by PA Consulting Services Limited.

The RDNCC manages the NIHR Research Delivery Network ("RDN") on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.  The RDN makes it possible for patients and health professionals across England to participate in clinical research studies within the NHS.  The RDN provides the infrastructure that allows high-quality clinical research funded by charities, research funders and life-sciences industry to be undertaken throughout the NHS.  The RDN works with patients and the public to make sure their needs are placed at the heart of all research, and provides opportunities for patients to gain earlier access to new and better treatments through research participation. The RDN provides practical help in identifying and recruiting patients for clinical research studies, so that researchers can be confident of completing the study on time and as planned.

The RDN supports around 5,000 clinical research studies each year.  

The information we collect

The  RDNCC collects your personal data on behalf of and as directed by the Department of Health and Social Care.

The RDNCC collects information directly and indirectly. When you use ”IDG” system, we use technology to collect information indirectly - such as your internet address. This is commonplace across all internet services to enable the investigation of issues such as malicious use. This information is then kept in our internet access logs. 

We collect information directly from you in a number of ways. One way is by using cookies. Cookies are small files of information that save and retrieve information about your visit to our site, such as how you entered our site, how you navigated through the site and what information was of interest to you. This information is collected for a number of reasons, for example, to help develop the website and associated services. 

The cookies we use identify you only as a number. If you are uncomfortable about the use of cookies, you can disable them by changing the settings in the preferences or options menu in your internet browser. However, disabling cookies may affect our ability to provide services to you: if certain cookies are disabled you may not be able to access the service.

The only data stored on ”IDG” will be:

Your data will be stored on the ”IDG” service.

The personal data we collect may vary depending on the nature of your interaction with RDN.  However, we always protect your personal data within the terms of this Privacy Notice. 

How and why we use your personal data

Your personal data is used to enable you to use IT Services provided by RDNCC. Their Privacy Notices are : 

The following services which are used within RDNCC are also accessed through IDG. 

How we protect your data

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure.  We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and maintain strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.  However, given that transmitting information over the internet cannot be completely secure, we can’t guarantee the security of your data in transit. 


”IDG” is hosted on the Amazon Web Service platform, a cloud-based software platform which provides for disaster recovery processes across its servers, which are all located within the European Economic Area (EEA). None of the data contained within ”IDG”  will go outside the UK or the EEA. The ”IDG” platform is accredited to ISO 27001 security standards. 

We will not sell your personal data.  We will not disclose your personal data to third parties outside of the RDNCC, unless we have your explicit permission, or are required by law to do so. 


We will hold the data for as long as we are providing you services and for as long as you agree to this.  We will retain your data for varying amounts of time depending on the nature of your interactions with the ”IDG” service


Destruction of Data

Who do we share your personal data with

Your rights over your personal data

The Data Protection Officer for the RDNCC is:

As a data subject, you have the following rights under the Data Protection Laws: 

These rights are explained in more detail on the Individual Rights section of the Guide to the General Data Protection Regulations on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

If you wish to exercise any of your data subject rights, please contact the NIHR Service Desk in the first instance - either:  

We will respond in a timely manner to any rights that you wish to exercise, and for Subject Access Requests (SARs) this has to be  within a month of receiving your request unless the request is particularly complex.

Contacting the Regulator

It is important that you ensure you have read this privacy notice - and if you do not think that we have processed your data in accordance with this privacy notice - you should let us know as soon as possible.  

Similarly, you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. Information about how to do this is available at www.ico.org.uk.