Data Protection

PRIVACY NOTICE

1. Introduction

This Privacy Notice is provided to you by Seaton Valley Community Council which is the data controller for your data.

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We are registered as a ‘data controller’ under the Data Protection Act (registration no. Z256503X) as we collect, use and hold personal information in order to provide public services.

“Personal data” is any information about a living individual which allows them to be identified from that data (for example a name, photographs, videos, email address, or address).
Identification can be directly using the data itself or by combining it with other information which helps to identify a living individual.

The processing of personal data is governed by legislation relating to personal data which applies in the United Kingdom including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other legislation relating to personal data and rights such as the Human Rights Act.

2. Why do we collect information from you

We need to collect and hold personal information from you, in order to:

  • deliver public services
  • confirm your identity to provide some services
  • contact you by post, email, telephone
  • help us to build up a picture of how we are performing in delivering services to you and inform you of other relevant services and benefits
  • detect fraud and corruption
  • maintain our own accounts and records
  • seek your views, opinions or comments
  • send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you
  • process relevant financial transactions including grants and payments for goods and services supplied to the council.

We may not be able to provide you with a product or deal with an issue unless we have enough information about you, or permission to use it.

3. What information can we collect from you.

We may collect and process some or all of the following information about you.

You may give us information about you by filling in forms, by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise.

We process information which may include:

  • names, titles, and aliases, photographs
  • contact details such as telephone numbers, addresses, and email addresses
  • where you pay for services such as use of a council allotment, financial identifiers such as bank account numbers, and payment/transaction identifiers.

4. The personal data we hold about you.

We will comply with data protection law. The personal data we hold about you will only be:

  • used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way
  • collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes
  • relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes
    accurate and kept up to date
  • kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about
  • kept and destroyed securely including ensuring that appropriate technical and security measures are in place to protect your personal data to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure..

5.  How we use your information.

By using our services you consent that we may use your personal information that we collect from you in accordance with this notice.

Information which you provide us with will be kept securely and will only be used for the purposes stated when the information is collected. For example:

  • to deliver a service you requested
  • to allow us to be able to communicate and provide services to your needs
  • to detect and prevent fraud and crime
  • to process financial transactions, including grants and payments.

Our processing may also include the use of CCTV systems for the prevention and prosecution of crime.

6. What is the legal basis for processing your personal data

The council is a public authority. We will always take into account your interests and rights. This Privacy Notice sets out your rights and the council’s obligations to you.

We may process personal data if it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or to take steps to enter into a contract. An example of this would be processing your data in connection with the acceptance of an allotment tenancy

Sometimes the use of your personal data requires your consent. We will first obtain your consent to that use.

7. Information Sharing

In order to provide you with a good service or investigate complaints, we may use and pass on the information we hold about you to other people and organisations that provide that service, for example the Council’s partners. These organisations are obliged to keep your details secure, and use them only to fulfil your request or deliver the service.

Where each of the parties listed below are processing your data for their own independent purposes then each of us will be independently responsible to you and if you have any questions, wish to exercise any of your rights (see below) or wish to raise a complaint, you should do so directly to the relevant data controller.

  • Northumberland County Council
  • Blyth Food Bank

At no time will your information be passed to organisations external to us and our partners for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consent.

8. Data Retention

We will keep some records permanently if we are legally required to do so. We may keep some other records for an extended period of time. For example, it is currently best practice to keep financial records for a minimum period of 8 years to support HMRC audits or provide tax information.

We will not keep your information longer than it is needed or where the law states how long this should be kept. We will dispose of paper records and delete any electronic personal information in a secure way.

9. Emails

If you email us we may keep a record of your contact, your contact details and the content of the email for our record keeping.

10. Using our website

Our website www.seatonvalleycommunitycouncil.gov.uk does not store or capture personal information when you access it as a visitor.

Our system will only capture and record personal information if you:

  • Contact us using the contact form.

11. Cookies

We do not use cookie or any other analytical technology on our website.

12. Your rights and your personal data

You have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

1. To be informed why, where and how we use your information.
2. To ask for access to your information.
3. To ask for information to be corrected if inaccurate or incomplete.
4. To ask for your information to be deleted or removed where there is no need for us to continue processing it.
5. To ask us to restrict the use of your information.
6. To ask us to copy or transfer your information from one IT system to another in a safe and secure way, without impacting the quality of the information.
7. To object to how your information is used.
8. To challenge any decisions made without human intervention (automated decision making).
9. To lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office whose contact details are below.
10. If our processing is based upon your consent, to withdraw your consent.

When exercising any of the rights listed above, in order to process your request, we may need to verify your identity for your security. In such cases we will need you to respond with proof of your identity before you can exercise these rights.

We aim to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date.
However, there may be situations where you find the information we hold is no longer accurate and you have the right to have this corrected.

10. Contact Details

Please contact us if you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or the personal data we hold about you or to exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints at:

The Data Controller
Seaton Valley Community Council
20-22 Astley Road
Seaton Delaval
Northumberland
NE25 0DG

Telephone: 0191 2379870

Email: clerk@seatonvalleycommunitycouncil.gov.uk

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are unhappy with the way we process your data. Details can be found on the ICO website, or you may write to the ICO at the following address:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545745 if you prefer to use a national rate number

11. Changes to our Policy.

We keep this Privacy Notice under regular review and we will place any updates on our web page www.seatonvalleycommunitycouncil.gov.uk/data-protection.
This Notice was last updated in May 2018.

A printable version of this Privacy Notice is available is here:  Seaton Valley Council Privacy Notice

You can view our Data Protection Act Registration below: