Data protection and Privacy Statement

Your privacy

We are committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. The Privacy Notice below explains how we use information about you and how we protect your privacy. If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, you can contact us:

Telephone: 07415 461917

Email: keith@rawlings.uk/net

Why we use your personal information

Do you know what personal information is?

Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when put together with other information can then identify a person. For example, this could be your name and contact details.

Did you know that some of your personal information might be ‘special’?

Some information is ‘special’ and needs more protection due to its sensitivity. It’s often information you would not want widely known and is very personal to you. This is likely to include anything that can reveal your:

• sexuality and sexual health
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• ethnicity
• physical or mental health
• trade union membership
• political opinion
• genetic/biometric data
• criminal history

Why we need your personal information

We may need to use some information about you to:

• deliver services and support to you
• manage those services we provide to you
• help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services
• check the quality of services
• to help with research and planning of new services

How the law allows us to use your personal information

There are a number of legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information. Generally, we collect and use personal information where:

• you, or your legal representative, have given consent
• you have entered into a contract with us
• it is necessary to perform our duties
• it is required by law
• you have made your information publicly available
• it is necessary for legal cases
• it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes

If we rely on your consent to use your personal information, you have the right to remove it at any time. If you want to remove your consent, please contact information.governance@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk and tell us which service you’re using so we can deal with your request.

We only use what we need!

Where we can, we’ll only collect and use personal information if we need it to deliver a service or meet a requirement. If we don’t need personal information we’ll either keep you anonymous if we already have it for something else or we won’t ask you for it. We don’t sell your personal information to anyone else.

What you can do with your information

The law gives you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us.

You can ask for access to the information we hold on you

We would normally expect to share what we record about you with you whenever we assess your needs or provide you with services. However, you also have the right to ask for all the information we have about you and the services you receive from us. When we receive a request from you in writing, we must give you access to everything we’ve recorded about you.

However, we can’t let you see any parts of your record which contain:

• confidential information about other people
• data a professional would think will cause serious harm to your or someone else’s physical or mental wellbeing
• if we think that giving you the information may stop us from preventing or detecting a crime

This applies to personal information that is in both paper and electronic records. If you ask us, we’ll also let others see your record (except if one of the points above applies).

If you can’t ask for your records in writing, we’ll make sure there are other ways that you can. If you have any queries about access to your information, please contact information.governance@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk or call our Access to Information Officer on 0300 300 4179.

You can ask to change information you think is inaccurate

You should let us know if you disagree with something written on your file. We may not always be able to change or remove that information, but we’ll correct factual inaccuracies and may include your comments in the record to show that you disagree with it.

Please contact the information governance team to inform us of any inaccuracies.

You can ask to delete information (right to be forgotten)

In some circumstances you can ask for your personal information to be deleted; for example, where:

•  your personal information is no longer needed for the reason why it was collected in the first place
• you have removed your consent for us to use your information (where there is no other legal reason us to use it)
• there is no legal reason for the use of your information
• deleting the information is a legal requirement.
• your personal information has been shared with others, we’ll do what we can to make sure those using your personal information comply with your request for erasure

Please note that we can’t delete your information where:

• we’re required to have it by law
•  it is used for freedom of expression
• it is for, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes where it would make information unusable
• it is necessary for legal claims

You can ask to limit what we use your personal data for

You have the right to ask us to restrict what we use your personal information for where:

• you have identified inaccurate information, and have told us of it
• where we have no legal reason to use that information but you want us to restrict what we use it for rather than erase the information altogether

When information is restricted it can’t be used other than to securely store the data and with your consent to handle legal claims and protect others, or where it’s for important public interests of the UK. Where restriction of use has been granted, we’ll inform you before we carry on using your personal information.

You have the right to ask us to stop using your personal information for any council service. However, if this request is approved this may cause delays or prevent us delivering that service.

Where possible we’ll seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or use information because we are required to by law.

You can ask to have your information moved to another provider (data portability) You have the right to ask for your personal information to be given back to you or another service provider of your choice in a commonly used format. This is called data portability. However, this only applies if we’re using your personal information with consent (not if we’re required to by law) and if decisions were made by a computer and not a human being. It’s likely that data portability won’t apply to most of the services you receive from the us.

You can ask to have any computer made decisions explained to you, and details of how we may have ‘risk profiled’ you. You have the right to question decisions made about you by a computer, unless it’s required for any contract you have entered into, required by law, or you’ve consented to it.

You also have the right to object if you are being ‘profiled’. Profiling is where decisions are made about you based on certain things in your personal information, e.g. your health conditions.

If you have concerns regarding automated decision making, or profiling, please contact the information governance Team who’ll be able to advise you about how we are using your information.

Who do we share your information with?

We do not share information with anyone unless it is part of our contracted duties. For instance, completing application forms on your behalf or drawing up a legal document such as a Party Wall Award.

We may still share your information if we believe the risk to others is serious enough to do so. There may also be rare occasions when the risk to others is so great that we need to share information straight away.If this is the case, we’ll make sure that we record what information we share and our reasons for doing so. We’ll let you know what we’ve done and why if we think it is safe to do so.

How do we protect your information?

We’ll do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we’ll only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Examples of our security include:

• encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password). This is done with a secret code or what’s called a ‘cypher’. The hidden information is said to then be ‘encrypted’
• controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it
• regular testing of our technology and ways of working including keeping up to date on the latest security updates (commonly called patches)

You can find more details of our information security expectations by referring to our range of policies on the information governance pages of our website.

Where in the world is your information?

The majority of personal information is stored on systems in the UK. But there are some occasions where your information may leave the UK either in order to get to another organisation or if it’s stored in a system outside of the EU. We have additional protections on your information if it leaves the UK ranging from secure ways of transferring data to

ensuring we have a robust contract in place with that third party. We’ll take all practical steps to make sure your personal information is not sent to a country that is not seen as ‘safe’ either by the UK or EU governments. If we need to send your information to an ‘unsafe’ location we’ll always seek advice from the Information Commissioner first.

How long do we keep your personal information?

For archiving purposes, records are kept in perpetuity, but always subject to the provisos given above.

Where can I get advice?

If you have any worries or questions about how your personal information is handled please contact us 07415 461917.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number. Alternatively, visit the ICO’s website or email casework@ico.org.uk.

Cookies, cookie banner and EU cookie law

What are cookies?

We put small files (known as ‘cookies’) onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site. Cookies are used to:

• measure how you use the website, so that it can be updated and improved based on your needs
• remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again Our cookies cannot read other data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. We do not use cookies for collecting personal user information.

Why do we have a cookies banner appearing on our website?

We have a banner at the top of the page when you come to our website. This highlights that this website uses cookies. We need to make you aware that cookies exist, to comply with the EU cookie law (e-Privacy Directive).

When you see the banner, you can:

• tick the box to accept the cookies and continue
• ignore the banner – it will either disappear after 30 seconds or after visiting 5 pages. This will automatically accept the cookies
• change your preferences to turn off cookies. This will have an impact on your experience using this website. If you choose to disable cookies, it will do this for every website you visit

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use our website. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

Google Analytics stores information about:

• the pages you visit
• how long you spend on each page
• how you got to the site
• what you click on while you’re visiting the site

We don’t collect or store your personal information (e.g. your name or address), so this information can’t be used to identify who you are.