Survey Information & Privacy Notice
Why we ask these questions
This guide explains what the survey asks and why.
What is the Diamond survey for?
The industry is made up of people across different roles, places and experiences. To support our industry properly, we need to hear from the people in it.
The survey asks questions about you and your work. Some questions may not seem obviously connected to television, such as where you lived growing up, or the type of school you attended. These questions can help us understand the experiences that shape careers in television and identify what could help to improve opportunity across the industry. This informs better decisions on training, funding and development to support a more open, inclusive sector.
Participation is voluntary, and you can answer as many or as few questions as you like. The survey is anonymous, safe, independent and private. We bring everyone’s answers together to show the bigger industry picture. No one will know which answers are yours.
How it works
The survey takes around five minutes to complete.
Once completed, you can reuse your survey for future productions rather than starting again each time.
All questions are optional. Select ‘prefer not to say’ or ‘next’ to skip a question.
Some questions use buttons, some use searchable lists, and some allow you to type your own answer if none of the options fit.
For questions where only one answer can be selected, choosing an answer will usually move you straight to the next question. For questions that allow multiple answers, select ‘next’ when you are ready to continue.
We will not save your answers until you choose to submit your survey at the end. To avoid losing your progress, we recommend completing the survey in one session and avoiding refreshing before submitting.
You can update or remove your information at any time.
Getting the right survey
Are you 13 or over?
This helps us show the right survey. There are some questions we do not need to ask those who are under 13. If you’re answering for or with a child, answer about them.
Do you work or study in the creative industries?
This helps us show the right survey. We want to hear from everyone, whether you work or study in the creative industries, or are appearing in a documentary, taking part in a competition show or being interviewed for a programme.
Your work
Industry area, job role
These questions help us group responses by department, seniority and sector. This helps us understand how experiences and opportunities vary across different types of work. Please answer based on your career as a whole, rather than a specific project.
Working pattern, contract type, contract length
Television careers do not all look the same. These questions help us understand how many people work freelance, permanently, part-time, on short contracts or in other arrangements, and whether some groups or sectors are more likely to experience insecure or unpredictable work.
Career progression, years working in television, career breaks
These questions help us understand how careers develop over time. They provide important context when looking at progression, helping us understand not only who works in television, but how people build, sustain and return to careers in the industry.
Education and qualifications
People enter television through many different routes. These questions help us understand the roles that education and training play in building careers, and how different routes into the industry may impact people’s careers.
About you
Caring responsibilities
Caring responsibilities can affect the kinds of work people can take on, particularly in an industry that may involve long hours, short contracts, or travel. These questions help us understand how caring responsibilities relate to career outcomes across the industry.
Gender and trans identity
These questions help us understand whether people of different genders and gender identities are represented across the industry and how experiences of working in television may vary.
Sexual and romantic orientation
This question helps us understand whether people of all sexualities are represented across the television workforce. It also helps us understand whether experiences of working in the industry vary between communities.
National identity, ethnic group and religion
These questions help us understand the different backgrounds, cultures and communities that make up the television workforce. They help us identify where experiences, opportunities or outcomes may vary.
Language
Language can affect access to information, recruitment and workplace experiences. These questions help us understand language-related barriers within the industry and where support may be helpful.
Where you live
Where people live can affect access to jobs, training and professional networks. This information helps us understand opportunities in different parts of the UK and the role location plays in people’s careers.
You do not need to provide your address or postcode. Simply search for a town, village, borough or area.
Country of birth and arrival in the UK
These questions help us understand the experiences of people who have moved to the UK. They provide context when looking at access to opportunities, industry networks and the challenges that can come with starting a career in a new country.
Health conditions, deafness, disability, neurodivergence and workplace barriers
These questions look at disability and accessibility from different perspectives. Some use nationally recognised measures that allow comparisons with UK population data, while others focus on identity, lived experience and barriers encountered at work. Together, they help us understand not only who works in television, but the challenges they face and what changes might help improve accessibility.
While the question about workplace barriers supports our understanding of the experiences of deaf, disabled and neurodivergent cast and crew, everyone is welcome to respond based on barriers they face, whatever the reason.
Where you grew up
Where someone grows up can influence the opportunities available to them, including education, creative activity and professional networks. This question helps us understand the role location plays in people’s routes into television and learn more about the factors that support television careers.
You do not need to provide your address or postcode. Simply search for a town, village, borough or area.
Socioeconomic background and class
Socioeconomic background is a shorthand for a range of social, economic and cultural experiences growing up. No single question could tell us everything about this, so we ask several questions that help us build a fuller picture.
By understanding the routes people take into television, we can better inform efforts to support opportunity and social mobility across the industry.
Occupation of the main household earner when you were 14
This is the most widely used measure of socioeconomic background in UK research. It is not simply a measure of income or social class. At a population level, it helps us consider factors such as professional networks, financial security, familiarity with particular careers and the kinds of opportunities people may have been exposed to growing up. It is only one part of people’s experiences, which is why it is considered alongside the other questions in this section rather than used on its own.
School type
The type of school someone attended can influence the opportunities, networks and experiences available to them while growing up. This question provides important context when looking at routes into television.
Living in care
Like the other questions in this section, this provides additional context on how experiences growing up can influence the routes people take into the industry.
Class background
Unlike the other questions in this section, this asks how you describe your own background. This is because there are cultural aspects of class that other measures do not reflect. There are no right or wrong answers. If you’re unsure, choose the option that feels closest to your experience, or skip the question.
Final questions
Year of birth
This helps us understand the age profile of the television workforce and whether experiences and opportunities vary at different life stages.
We ask whether you are 13 or over at the start to make sure we show the right survey. We ask for your year of birth later to learn about age across the workforce without asking you to update your answer regularly.
What would most improve your working life?
This question helps us understand not just what the industry looks like today, but where people would most like to see change. Combined with other Diamond information, the answers help organisations target action where it could make the greatest difference to opportunities, working conditions and career sustainability.
Under 18, parents, guardians and representatives
Taking part if you are under 18, or if you received an invitation on someone else’s behalf.
Can I take part in the survey if I’m under 18?
Yes, but if you are under 13 please ask your parent or guardian to fill in the survey for you. Or fill it in with them.
If you are 13 to 17 please ask a trusted adult if you do not understand any of the questions. If there is no-one you can ask, just move to the next question. Click on ‘Next’ to do this.
This is to make sure you fully understand all the questions and that your answers are accurate. And to make sure that when you consent to providing the survey information at the end, that consent is valid.
I’m a parent or guardian and have received a survey invitation
This survey is for the person named in the invitation.
If you are a parent/guardian of a child under 13, we recommend you complete the survey on their behalf or with them to ensure they have fully understood. Please use a unique email address when confirming their profile information (at the end of the survey).
If you are a parent or guardian of a person 13 years or over, please have that person complete the survey if they have the capacity to do so, otherwise complete on their behalf or with them to ensure they have fully understood.
We believe it is very important that young people are represented and have designed the tool to manage this appropriately. Your assistance with this is much appreciated.
I’m someone’s agent or representative and have received a survey invitation
The survey invitation is only for the person named in the email you received. If you are that person’s agent, or other form of representative, the tool has been provided with your email as their contact point. Please forward the invitation directly to them.
To keep their survey answers confidential, they will be asked to use their own email address when saving their responses. This address will be kept confidential and used only by the tool to provide them with future access to the information they have provided and to contact them for the limited purposes described.
Every question in the survey is optional.
Diamond privacy notice for children
For the adult privacy notice click here: Diamond privacy notice
This explains what happens to your information if you use Diamond, a survey run by an organisation called Creative Diversity Network (CDN).
Summary
Who we are
CDN helps UK TV companies become fairer and more welcoming to everyone, from all backgrounds. We call this diversity and inclusion, which we explain below. We collect information from people who work in TV to build reports that show how the industry is doing on this topic. Our reports don’t name anyone.
What is diversity?
This means the different backgrounds, cultures, languages, abilities, and life experiences that make each person unique.
What is inclusion?
Inclusion means making sure everyone feels like they belong, that they are treated fairly, and that they have the same access to opportunities and resources.
What Diamond is
Diamond is a website where people fill in a survey about themselves. We use the answers (from lots of people) to write reports. But the reports do not identify anyone.
Who this notice is for
Contributors: this is what we call the people we invite to do the survey, or who decide to fill it in. If you are under 13, or vulnerable, a parent, guardian or authorised representative will do the survey for or with you.
Diamond users: these are the people who work at the TV and other companies who have an account for the Diamond website. They upload the names and emails of the cast and crew working on a project so that we can send those people the email invite for the survey. They can also see or create their own reports. The reports do not identify anyone.
CDN users: these are the people who work for us at CDN.
Quick facts
Doing the survey is 100% your choice.
We don't get anything until you click ‘submit’ at the end.
Everything is locked up safely and scrambled (encrypted).
Only you can see your own answers.
You can look at, change, or delete your answers whenever you want.
The reports we create never name anyone.
1 Who we are and how to contact us
We are Creative Diversity Network Ltd. Our website is: https://creativediversitynetwork.com/about-us/
Address: Lea Business Park, Lower Luton Road, Harpenden, AL5 5EQ
Email: [email protected]
If you need help with the Diamond website: [email protected]
2 What information we collect and why
Before you do the survey
The company you work with gives us your name and email so we can invite you to do the survey. You can also get a special code instead of using your email. This is called a Diamond Linking Code.
If you're under 18, we send the email to your parent, guardian or another trusted adult instead. If you're under 13, they'll do the survey with you or for you. This is to make sure you understand everything properly and your answers are correct.
You can stop getting invite emails any time by clicking ‘unsubscribe’ in the email.
If you have already done a survey we won’t ask you to do it again. When you log into your Diamond account you will see all the projects you have worked on.
If you want to, you can stop a project from being linked to your survey answers.
What the survey actually asks
We ask about things like:
your work in TV;
where you live;
your health;
any caring you do for others;
the languages you speak;
your education; and
how you'd describe your ethnicity and religion.
You never have to answer, you can always pick ‘prefer not to say’.
If you're 13 to 17 and you get stuck on a question, ask a trusted adult. If there's no one around, it's fine to just skip to the next question.
We ask two questions about your age.
The first survey question asks if you are over 13. This is so we can take out certain questions that we do not need to ask people under 13.
Another question asks for your year of birth to understand your age and / or which age group you are in.
You can log into your account and see, change or delete your answers at any time.
We use all the survey answers from a lot of people to create reports for the TV companies and the TV industry. We use a special technique called ‘differential privacy’ to make sure the reports do not identify anyone.
Getting help with the website
When you ask us for help, we keep whatever information you send us so we can actually help you.
Perceived data
We ask the TV companies to tell us what they think about a person or character on screen (for example, how old they think a person is).
This helps us research how different people are represented on TV.
Statistical information
The Diamond website has a database that stores all the information about projects, the cast and crew and the survey answers. The database records when certain things happen. For example, when a company adds information about the cast and crew for a project, when the system sends out emails or when a survey is finished. This means we can count things without looking at individuals and what they are doing.
We count things like these.
How many surveys came from a QR code and how many from an email link.
How many surveys were done after the platform sent out emails.
How many people worked on a project and how many survey answers there are for that project.
This helps us understand things like these so we can improve the survey and how it works.
How popular the Diamond survey is.
If emails are better than QR codes, or if QR codes are better than emails.
If people do the survey after one email, or if more people do it after getting a reminder email.
Managing our organisation and complying with the law
We may need to use people’s information in some situations to:
make sure we comply with the law;
make sure the people using the website are using it properly and not trying to do bad things; or
protect people’s rights.
Automated decision-making
We never let a computer make a big, life-changing decision about you completely on its own. A human is always involved in anything serious.
But computers do help us with smaller, everyday tasks where we don’t need a human.
Sorting answers into groups: like putting together all the answers from people over 50, or everyone who works in a particular job.
Hiding personal details: scrambling the report data so nobody can figure out who said what.
Sorting help messages: if loads of people ask for help at once, the computer decides which messages are urgent and which can wait.
Catching bad behaviour: the computer watches for hacking attempts or spam and can automatically block it, like a security alarm.
None of these decide anything important about you personally, they just help keep things organised and safe.
3 How long we keep your information for
We only keep it as long as we actually need it to do all the things we described above. You can delete your own answers and account any time by logging in.
4 Who we share your information with
There are some situations where, if it’s necessary, we might have to share people’s information.
Companies that help us run the website: they have to follow strict rules to protect your information.
If the law says we have to: like a court order.
If we need legal advice from our lawyers.
If we ever sell all or part of CDN: your information might transfer to the new owner.
5 Keeping your information safe
We keep your information in the UK or Europe. We keep it scrambled (encrypted), and only people who really need to see it can access it. No-one else can see your actual survey answers.
6 Your rights
You have different rights for your personal information. Some rights only apply in certain situations or to certain information. There are also situations when the rights don’t apply.
If you want to make a rights request, or a data protection complaint, please contact: [email protected]
See it: log in any time to see your answers.
Fix it: log in to correct anything that is wrong.
Delete it: log in to delete your answers or account.
Object: you can say no to how we use your information in some cases.
Pause it: ask us to stop using your information while we sort out any concerns.
Take it with you: download your own answers as a file.
Complain: email us.
Complain to the UK's privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): if you're unhappy with how we managed your complaint. You can contact them here: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by phone: 0303 123 1113.
7 Data protection law legal reasons
UK data protection law says we must have what is called a ‘legal basis’ for anything we do with personal information. This means we must have a good reason to collect and use the information. There are several options available.
We also have to tell you what we use. This table lists the ones we use and examples of when we use them.
| Legal basis | Examples of when we use it |
|---|---|
| Consent | To collect and use your survey responses to create reports. |
| Performance of a contract | To provide your Diamond account. To reply to your questions, requests for information and support. |
| Legitimate interests | To keep our platform safe and detect any problems. |
| Legal obligation | To reply to your rights requests or complaints. To reply to any court orders. To make sure you are not sent any more emails if you unsubscribe. |
Diamond privacy notice
For the children’s privacy notice click here: Diamond privacy notice for children
This notice explains the collection and use of your personal information by Creative Diversity Network (CDN) through the Diamond platform.
Summary
Who we are
We are Creative Diversity Network (CDN). Our role is to help the UK television industry to increase diversity and inclusion. We work with our members for an industry with equality at its centre. We collect diversity and inclusion information from across the industry. We use it to create anonymous reports on diversity and inclusion in the sector.
What is diversity?
This means the different backgrounds, cultures, languages, abilities, and life experiences that make each person unique.
What is inclusion?
This means making sure everyone feels like they belong, that they are treated fairly, and that they have the same access to opportunities and resources.
What Diamond is
Diamond is the online platform we use to collect diversity and inclusion information and to create anonymous reports. We send survey email invites to people working on projects in the industry. People can also do the survey at any time.
Who this notice is for
Contributors: people we invite to do the survey, or who decide to fill it in. For children under 13 and vulnerable people, a parent, guardian or authorised representative will do the survey for or with the invited person.
Diamond users: employees, contractors and other staff at broadcasters, production companies and similar who have Diamond accounts to upload cast and crew information for survey invites and / or who log into the platform to view or generate anonymous reports.
CDN users: staff at CDN involved with Diamond.
Key points
The survey is voluntary.
We get no information until you click ‘submit’ at the end.
All information is kept securely and encrypted.
Only you can see your survey responses.
You can view, change or delete your responses at any time.
All the reports are anonymous.
1 Who we are and how to contact us
We are Creative Diversity Network Ltd. We work with the UK television industry to increase diversity and inclusion. We work with our members for an industry with equality at its centre. Please see here for more information about what we do: https://creativediversitynetwork.com/about-us/
Address: Lea Business Park, Lower Luton Road, Harpenden, AL5 5EQ
Email: [email protected]
For help or technical support with the Diamond platform: [email protected]
2 Information collection and use
Contributors
To invite you to do a survey
We collect the following information from organisations that you work for.
Contact information: your name and email address.
Role information: the project you were involved with and your role.
You can also get a Diamond Linking Code, and this can replace your email address if you want.
We use this information to send you an email invite to do the survey.
If we have been given a parent, guardian or authorised representative email address, we will send the survey invite to them, to pass on to you. Or to do the survey with you - see the section on children for more information.
If you have already done a survey we don’t ask you to do it again. You will see all the projects you have been part of in your account.
If you want to, you can de-link any project from your survey responses.
You can also use the unsubscribe link in the emails we send to stop getting survey invites from us.
Your survey responses
This includes information about:
your work;
where you live;
your health and any caring responsibilities;
the languages you speak;
your school and level of education;
your class background;
how you see yourself as regards ethnic background, gender, sexuality and religion; and
your experiences in the workplace.
We ask two questions about your age.
The first survey question asks if you are over 13. This is so we can take out certain questions that we do not need to ask people under 13.
Another question asks for your year of birth to understand your age and / or which age group you are in.
You can skip any question or choose ‘prefer not to say’.
You can log in and view, change or delete your responses at any time.
We use all the survey responses together to create anonymous statistical reports for broadcasters, production companies, post-production companies, suppliers and the wider industry. We use a technique called differential privacy to make sure the reports do not identify anyone.
If you need help or support
If you ask us for help using the platform, we collect any information you provide us so we can help you.
Perceived data
We ask the organisation who provides the details of the project, cast and crew to also provide what we call perceived data. This is information about the person providing the information thinks about specific individuals, characters or programmes.
This information contributes to industry-wide research on how people and stories are represented onscreen. This information may or may not be someone’s personal information depending on the situation.
Analytics
We collect information from the backend database to understand the following types of things.
How many surveys came from a QR code and how many from an email link.
How many surveys were done after the platform sent out emails.
Statistics on the total numbers of people uploaded as a project contributor, and how many survey responses are attached to that project. We use differential privacy techniques with these statistics.
Overall trends for numbers of people taking part in the survey.
We do not track the activity of individuals filling in the survey, and in any event we get no information from these individuals until they click ‘Submit’ at the end. We are able to generate the above statistics based on counting events in the backend database.
The analytics help us understand how far the industry is taking part in Diamond, participation rates, what works and what doesn’t to get people to do the survey, and so on.
Diamond and CDN users
To create your account
We collect your name, contact details, organisation and whether you are a regular or admin user.
This is so we can set up your account on the Diamond platform and put in place the appropriate access controls.
If you need help or support
If you contact us for help using the platform, we collect anything you provide us so we can help you.
Analytics
We collect information from the backend database to understand the following types of things.
Statistics on the total number of production companies added to the platform.
What percentage of production companies added a supplier, and how many suppliers they added.
What percentage of suppliers responded.
Business administration and legal compliance
We may use your information as necessary and appropriate to:
comply with our legal obligations;
enforce our legal rights; or
protect the rights of third parties.
Automated decision-making
We do not make any solely automated decisions about you that have a legal or similarly significant effect.
We use automated processing to:
categorise personal information for reports;
apply differential privacy and other privacy-protecting techniques to data before reporting;
classify and prioritise support requests; and
detect and limit abusive or suspicious activity.
3 Children
The organisations who provide us with your name and contact details to send the survey invites usually provide a different email address for children under 18. They will tell us that the email is for a parent, guardian or authorised representative.
If we send the survey invite to the parent, guardian or authorised representative, we will ask them to pass it on to you.
Or, if you are under 13, we will ask them to do the survey for you, or with you. This is to make sure you fully understand all the questions and that your answers are accurate. And to make sure that when you consent to providing the survey information at the end, that consent is valid.
If you are 13 to 17, please ask a trusted adult if you do not understand any of the questions. If there is no-one you can ask, just move to the next question.
The first survey question is: Are you over 13?
We ask this so we can take out some questions that we do not need to ask people under 13.
4 How long we keep your information for
We keep your information in line with our retention policy, which means we keep it for as long as we need it for the business purpose or purposes that we collect it for. We are reviewing this policy at the moment. We will update this notice with any relevant information once we have finished the review.
Contributors can delete their survey response information and their account at any time by logging in.
5 Information sharing
We will only share personal information in the following circumstances.
Service providers
We use a variety of other organisations to help run our business. For example, to provide the Diamond platform, to manage member organisation payments, to send survey invite emails and so on. We have carried out appropriate checks on our service providers and have agreements with them that contain obligations to look after your information and to only use it to provide their service.
Legal requirements or advice
We will provide information if we have to by law, regulation, a court order, or an order from another legitimate government body or regulator. We may also need to share information with professional advisers such as lawyers or accountants.
If we sell our assets
In some circumstances, we will have to share personal information with any person or organisation who we sell or transfer our business, or any part of our business, to. Or where we start discussions to sell or transfer the business or any part of it.
6 Security and data location
Security is very important on the Diamond platform. Our platform service provider (The Everyone Project) stores all information in the UK and EEA. This provider has the ISO 27001:2022 information security certification. There is more information on their security measures here: https://trust.theeveryoneproject.org/resources
The Diamond platform also has the following security measures in place.
Encryption of personal information in transit and at rest.
Differential privacy and other privacy techniques applied to all reports.
Access controls and audit logging appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.
Regular security testing, monitoring and staff training.
We make sure that any data transfer to any providers outside the UK or EEA is protected by an appropriate legal safeguard, which in most cases will be standard contractual clauses. Our providers are contractually and legally obliged to put in place the same arrangements with any providers they use.
7 Your rights and choices
You have different rights for your personal information. Some rights only apply in certain situations or to certain information. There are also situations when the rights don’t apply.
If you want to make a rights request, or a data protection complaint, please contact: [email protected]
Access
You have the right to know what personal information we have about you, and to receive a copy of it.
Contributors can see their information at any time by logging into their account. As we designed the platform to have no access to your survey responses, only you can access them.
Correction
You have the right to correct personal information we have about you that is not correct.
You will need to provide us with evidence of the correct information.
Contributors can edit their information at any time by logging into their account. As we designed the platform to have no access to your information, only you can edit it.
Deletion
In certain situations you have the right to ask us to delete the personal information we have about you.
Contributors can delete their information at any time by logging into their account.
We will not be able to delete some information, such as where we have a legal obligation to keep it, or where we need to keep it for legitimate business reasons such as accounts and records.
Objection
In certain situations you have the right to object to us handling your personal information.
If you want to object to getting marketing from us, please click the unsubscribe link in emails.
To make sure we respect your request we have to keep your contact details on a suppression list.
Restriction
In certain situations you have the right to ask us to restrict what we do with your personal information.
You can ask us to do this if:
you think we have incorrect information about you;
what we are doing with your information is not legal, but you want us to restrict what we do instead of deleting your information;
we don’t need the information anymore, but you need it for legal reasons; or
you have objected to what we are doing and we are still dealing with this objection.
Portability
In certain situations you have the right to get back the personal information you have given us in a ‘structured, commonly used and machine-readable format’. This means in a spreadsheet or other file that a computer can understand.
As we designed the platform to have no access to contributor survey responses, only you can download these.
Complaints
You can make a data protection complaint.
You also have the right to complain to the data protection regulator. The UK regulator is the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can contact them here: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or phone: 0303 123 1113.
8 GDPR lawful bases
Under UK data protection law we must have a legal basis for what we do with personal information. There are several options available. This table sets out the ones we use and examples of when we use them.
| Lawful basis | Examples of when we use it |
|---|---|
| Consent | To collect and use your survey responses to create reports. |
| Performance of a contract | To provide and maintain your Diamond account. To reply to your questions, requests for information and support. |
| Legitimate interests | To keep our platform secure and detect any problems. Marketing campaign records: we keep information so we know who was sent what marketing information and when. |
| Legal obligation | To reply to your rights requests or complaints. To reply to any court orders. To make sure you are not sent marketing if you unsubscribe. |