Read the Room
Privacy Notice

Last updated: 19/07/26

1. Who we are

Read the Room is operated by Robert S J Lucas Ltd, trading as Workflow Reboot.

For the purposes of UK data-protection law, Robert S J Lucas Ltd is the data controller responsible for the personal information described in this notice.

Contact details

Email: rob@workflowreboot.com
Postal address: 4/8 Paisley Close, 101 High Street, EH1 1SP
Company number: 06182370

Please contact us using these details if you have questions about this notice or how we use personal information.

2. What Read the Room does

Read the Room collects feedback from people attending business networking events.

We use that information to:

  • Produce combined insights for participating event organisers
  • Help organisers understand what attendees want from networking
  • Identify patterns across networking events
  • Provide Read the Room insights and personal networking reflections to people who request them
  • Administer optional prize draws
  • Communicate with people who have chosen to receive updates
  • Improve the Read the Room service

Read the Room does not publicly rank or score attendees, hosts or events.

3. Information we collect

Depending on how you use Read the Room, we may collect:

  • Your answers to the Read the Room survey
  • Information identifying the event you attended
  • The date, location and format of the event
  • Whether you have attended that event previously
  • Your email address, where supplied
  • Your mobile telephone number, if you later choose to provide it
  • Your communication and consent preferences
  • Records showing when and how consent was obtained
  • Responses to any later feedback or follow-up questions
  • Basic technical information associated with the form submission, such as the submission date and time

We do not intentionally request special-category information such as health information, political opinions, religious beliefs or ethnicity. Please avoid including this type of information in free-text answers.

4. How survey answers and contact details are handled

The original online form may temporarily contain both survey answers and any optional contact details you provide.

After submission, the information is processed into separate datasets:

  • A survey response dataset, containing the event answers and relevant event identifiers
  • A contact and consent dataset, containing contact details and communication preferences

The working survey response dataset does not include your email address or telephone number. It records only whether contact information was supplied.

Participating hosts receive combined findings and do not receive individual survey answers linked to named attendees.

Raw submissions held by our form provider are retained temporarily while the responses are processed and checked. They are then deleted according to our retention procedure.

Separating identifying information from survey responses is one recognised way to reduce privacy risk, although information remains personal data where a separate identifier allows it to be reconnected to an individual.

5. Personal networking insights

If you opt into personal Read the Room insights, we may connect your attendee record with survey responses from events you attend.

This allows us to:

  • Reflect your answers back to you
  • Identify patterns across several events
  • Provide personal networking observations
  • Send relevant follow-up prompts

This connection is made only where you have chosen the relevant option.

Your personal responses are not included as named information in the host’s Room Read.

You may withdraw this permission or ask us to remove your personal attendee record at any time.

6. How we use your information and our lawful bases

Producing Room Read reports

We use survey answers to produce combined findings for participating hosts and to understand networking patterns.

Our lawful basis is our legitimate interests in:

  • Providing the Read the Room service
  • Helping hosts understand their events
  • Improving networking experiences
  • Developing aggregated networking insights

We reduce privacy risks by limiting the information collected, separating contact details, reporting combined findings and avoiding named responses.

Providing personal Read the Room insights

Where you ask us to connect your responses and provide personal insights, our lawful basis is consent.

You may withdraw consent at any time.

Sending Read the Room emails

We send Read the Room emails and updates only where you have chosen to receive them.

Our lawful basis is consent.

Sending text messages

We will send text messages only if you later provide your mobile number and separately agree to receive texts.

Email consent does not automatically include text-message consent.

Sharing contact details with a host

We will share your contact details with the named event host or organisation only where you specifically agree to this.

Once your contact details are shared, that organisation becomes responsible for its own use of them and should provide its own privacy information.

Administering the prize draw

If you enter the quarterly prize draw, we use your information to:

  • Record your entry
  • Select a winner
  • Check eligibility
  • Contact the winner
  • Administer the prize

Entering the prize draw does not automatically subscribe you to Read the Room or host marketing.

Operating and securing the service

We may also process information to:

  • Maintain accurate records
  • Resolve technical problems
  • Prevent misuse
  • Protect the security of the service
  • Demonstrate that valid permissions were obtained
  • Meet our legal obligations

Our lawful bases are our legitimate interests and, where applicable, compliance with a legal obligation.

7. Who we share information with

We use third-party providers to operate Read the Room. These may include providers of:

  • Online forms
  • Workflow automation
  • Cloud spreadsheets and storage
  • Email delivery
  • Artificial intelligence and data analysis
  • Website hosting
  • SMS delivery, if introduced later

Current providers may include:

  • Tally
  • Make
  • Google
  • OpenAI
  • GoDaddy
  • ClickSend

These providers process information as part of delivering their services to us.

Contact details are not included in the prompts used to create host Room Read analysis.

We may also disclose information where required by law, to protect our rights or in connection with a sale or transfer of the business.

We do not sell attendee personal information.

8. Information shared with event hosts

Hosts normally receive:

  • Combined survey findings
  • Counts and proportions
  • Anonymised written observations
  • Broad trends across their events

Hosts do not normally receive:

  • Individual attendee answers
  • Answers linked to names or email addresses
  • Personal networking profiles

Where you separately opt into communications from the host, we may provide the host with your email address and a record of that permission.

We apply minimum response thresholds and cautious reporting where small groups could make individuals easier to infer.

Effective anonymisation requires the risk of identification to be sufficiently remote, including indirect identification from contextual information.

9. Automated analysis and artificial intelligence

We may use automated tools, including artificial intelligence, to:

  • Group similar answers
  • Identify themes
  • Draft narrative observations
  • Prepare host or attendee insight reports

Contact details are excluded from the host-analysis prompts.

Automated tools do not make decisions about attendees that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Read the Room reports are observational and may be reviewed or adjusted before being issued.

10. International transfers

Some service providers may process information outside the United Kingdom.

Where this happens, we rely on safeguards recognised under UK data-protection law, which may include:

  • UK adequacy regulations
  • Approved contractual clauses
  • Other legally recognised transfer safeguards

You may contact us for further information about the safeguards used.

11. How long we keep information

We currently apply the following retention approach:

  • Raw Tally submissions: normally deleted within seven days after the relevant event has been successfully processed and checked
  • Survey response data used for host insights: retained for up to 24 MONTHS to allow event and host trends to be analysed
  • Personal attendee records: retained while personal insights remain active and for up to 24 months after the last interaction
  • Email and SMS consent records: retained while the permission remains active and for a reasonable period afterwards so that we can demonstrate the communication preference
  • Prize draw records: retained until the draw and any related queries have been completed, normally no longer than 12 months
  • Fully anonymised combined statistics: may be retained indefinitely because they no longer identify an individual

We may retain information for longer where required by law or needed to establish, exercise or defend legal rights.

UK data-protection law does not prescribe one universal retention period, but personal information must not be kept longer than necessary for the stated purpose.

12. Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:

  • Ask for a copy of your personal information
  • Ask us to correct inaccurate information
  • Ask us to delete personal information
  • Ask us to restrict its use
  • Object to processing based on legitimate interests
  • Receive certain information in a portable form
  • Withdraw consent
  • Complain about how your information has been used

Because ordinary Room Read survey answers are separated from contact details, we may not always be able to locate or identify a particular anonymous survey response.

Where responses have been connected to your personal attendee record, we will normally be able to deal with your request using your contact details.

To exercise your rights, contact:

rob@workflowreboot.com

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

13. Withdrawing consent

You can unsubscribe from Read the Room emails using the unsubscribe option provided in the message.

Where SMS is introduced, messages will explain how to stop receiving texts.

You may also contact us to:

  • Change your communication preferences
  • Withdraw host communication consent
  • Stop future personal insight linking
  • Ask us to delete your personal attendee record

Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that took place before it was withdrawn.

14. Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect information, including:

  • Separating contact details from survey answers
  • Limiting access to working files
  • Restricting contact information from host reports
  • Excluding contact details from host AI-analysis prompts
  • Deleting raw submissions according to a defined procedure
  • Keeping records of consent choices

No online system can be guaranteed completely secure, but we review the safeguards used as the service develops.

15. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice as Read the Room changes, new functions are introduced or our technology providers change.

The latest version will be available through the Read the Room survey or website.