Privacy Policy

This policy applies to our public website, enquiries and consultation bookings you send us, and the invitation-only client portal used to run tenders and evaluate bids. Paid engagements are also governed by a separate signed agreement; where that agreement addresses a specific data question, it prevails for that work.

Information you give us:

• Enquiry details — your name, work email, company, and the content of any message or brief you send when you contact us or book a consultation.
• Portal account data — for invited users: name, work email, company, and role, plus records of activity within the portal needed to operate it securely.
• Uploaded materials — tender documents, bid submissions, and related files that you or your organisation upload to the portal.

Information collected automatically when you use the site:

• Technical and usage data — device and browser type, pages viewed, referring source, and approximate location derived from your IP address.
• Cookies and similar technologies — described in section 05.

• Respond to your enquiries and provide the services you request.
• Operate, maintain, and secure the client portal and our procurement services.
• Communicate with you about an engagement, including notices about your account.
• Detect, prevent, and investigate misuse, fraud, and security incidents.
• Understand how the website is used, in aggregate, so we can improve it.
• Meet legal, tax, and regulatory obligations.

Where data-protection law such as the GDPR applies, we rely on one or more of the following bases:

• Performance of a contract — to provide services you or your organisation have engaged us for.
• Legitimate interests — to run, secure, and improve our business and respond to enquiries, balanced against your rights.
• Consent — for non-essential cookies and any optional communications, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Legal obligation — where we are required to retain or disclose information.

We use cookies and similar technologies that are strictly necessary for the site and portal to function and to keep them secure. Where we use analytics to understand aggregate usage, we configure it to minimise the personal data involved. You can control non-essential cookies through your browser settings and, where shown, our cookie notice.

We share personal information only as needed to run the services:

• Service providers — vetted vendors that host our infrastructure, deliver email, provide authentication (including sign-in with Microsoft or Google), and support analytics, acting on our instructions.
• Professional advisers — legal, accounting, and insurance advisers where reasonably necessary.
• Legal and safety — authorities or third parties where required by law or to protect our rights, users, or the integrity of a tender process.
• Business transfers — a successor entity in the event of a merger, acquisition, or reorganisation.

We do not sell your personal information.

When a buyer runs a tender through our portal, the tender documents, bidder submissions, and related content are processed on that client’s behalf and under their direction. For that content, MarketConnect acts as a processor and the client is the controller. Access is invitation-only and role-scoped: a bidder’s submission is kept confidential to that bidder and the buyer’s evaluators, never exposed to competing bidders. We handle this material in line with the engagement agreement and this policy.

When you apply for a role through our careers page, we collect your name, email address, phone number, any LinkedIn address you give us, your CV, your application letter, and your answers to the screening questions shown on the role.

We use this only to consider you for the role you applied for and for other roles we think may suit you. Your answers to the screening questions are read by a person alongside your CV. They are not scored, and no decision about your application is made automatically.

Our lawful basis is your consent, which you give by ticking the box on the application form. You can withdraw it at any time, and doing so does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it. Where we keep an application to defend a recruitment decision, our basis is our legitimate interest in being able to show how we decided.

Your application is delivered to our recruitment mailbox using Postmark, an email delivery provider acting as our processor. Postmark keeps a copy of the message, including your CV, in its own activity log for a limited period under its retention terms. We do not share your application with anyone outside MarketConnect unless you ask us to.

We keep applications for twelve months from the date you apply, so we can come back to you when a suitable role opens. We then delete them. This is a manual review rather than an automatic process, so if you want your application removed sooner, or want to be sure it has gone, write to careers@market-connect.net and we will confirm. Your rights under section 12 apply to this information as they do to any other.

We operate across Europe and Southeast Asia, and your information may be processed in the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and the European Economic Area, among other locations where our service providers operate. Where information moves across borders, we take steps to ensure it remains protected by appropriate safeguards.

We keep personal information only for as long as needed for the purposes described here, to meet legal, tax, and regulatory obligations, and to resolve disputes. Portal content is retained in line with the relevant client engagement, after which it is deleted or anonymised.

We use technical and organisational measures appropriate to the risk, including encryption in transit, access controls, and hardened hosting. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security, but we work to protect your information and to respond quickly if an issue arises.

Subject to your local law, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, to restrict or object to certain processing, and to withdraw consent where we rely on it. To exercise these rights, contact us at info@market-connect.net. If you are in the EEA or UK, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.

Our website and services are intended for businesses and professionals. They are not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “last updated” date above, and for material changes we will provide a more prominent notice where appropriate.

For any question about this policy or your personal information, email info@market-connect.net. This policy sits alongside our Terms of Service.