Councillor's constituent enquiries privacy notice

Who is the Data Controller for this processing?

Your Local Councillor is the Data Controller for this processing, in some instances we will be joint Data Controllers

What services are covered by this privacy notice?

Constituent enquiries

To enable Councillors in the borough to respond to the enquiries you have raised with them.

Councillor public meetings and consultations

To respond to any concerns when attending a public meeting or consultation with your local Councillor and provide you with timely updates to local issues.

What personal information do we hold?

Your local Councillor will only collect and use the minimum amount of personal information required when delivering a service to you. Wherever possible we use non-identifiable personal information.

Your Councillor may use some or all of the personal information provided:

your name, address, date of birth
your contact details, such as telephone number, email address etc.
national identifiers such as NHS number, National Insurance number etc.
information about your family.
details about your lifestyle and social circumstances.
financial details
employment and education details.
details about your housing needs.
physical or mental health details
offences (including alleged offences)
religious or other beliefs of a similar nature
social care support outcomes

We get most of this information from you, but we may also get some of this data from:

central Government agencies
other local Authorities
health and social care providers
police and probation services
commissioned partners
family members

How do we use your personal information?

We use your information to:

handle and respond to enquiries
communicate with you

Who else might we share your personal information with?

Sometimes we may need to share your information, but we will only do so where it is necessary or required by law. We will only share the minimum information for each circumstance.

We may sometimes need to share some of your information with:

health service providers including NHS agencies (GPs, hospitals, ambulance, health visitor, mental health services)
education providers
care providers, e.g. day care, domiciliary, residential
Government agencies (e.g. Department of Health, Department of Work and Pensions)
support groups for people with disabilities
local Government
police
substance misuse agencies
advocacy services
fire and rescue services
prepaid card providers
direct payment support services
housing associations
technology assistance providers

What is the legal basis for our use of your personal information?

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for using your personal information are:

you gave us your consent (GDPR Article 6 (a) - you are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting your local Councillor.

When we collect data about your race, health, ethnic origin, politics or trade union membership, we also rely on the following lawful basis:

you gave us your explicit consent (GDPR Article 9 (2) (a))
we need to analyse your information (GDPR Article 9 (2) (j))

Where will we store your information?

Your information will be securely stored in your local Councillor’s Constituent Office, or stored securely on our network.

How long will we keep your personal information?

We will only use your personal information whilst delivering the service to you and to deal with any questions or complaints that we may receive about this, unless the law requires us to keep it for a longer period. In practice, this means that your information will be kept for four years and then securely destroyed.

If we need to use your information for research or reports, your information will be anonymised and any information taken from notes (hand written or typed) during any consultation sessions will be securely destroyed. The information will continue to be used in a summarised and anonymised form in any research reports or papers that are published. The anonymised information in the papers may be of historic interest and may be held in public archives indefinitely

Your rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

your right of access - you have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information
your right to rectification - you have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
your right to erasure - you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances
your right to restriction of processing - you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances
your right to data portability - you have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact your Councillor if you wish to make a request. The contact details for your local Councillor can be found on Find my Councillor.

How to complain if you are unhappy about how your data is used

You can complain directly to your Councillor.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office using the following details:

Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website
By post: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Will my personal information be accessible outside the UK?

Your information is stored securely within the UK, but the transfer of personal information outside of the UK could become necessary.

This would only take place if permitted by law, where there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect the personal information.