Corporate Privacy Statement

Our Corporate Privacy Statement explains how we will handle your personal information

Your privacy is important. We regard the lawful and correct treatment of personal data as vital to maintaining the confidence of the many people we deal with. We will treat personal data lawfully and correctly. Any personal information you give us will only be used in accordance found in the principles found in the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). More information on the GDPR can be found on the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) website.

By law, we must register with the ICO as a 'data controller'. This can be viewed on the ICO Public Register. Our registration number is Z2549363.

If you provide any personal information to us, it will only be used for delivering services to you. It will not be shared with any third party unless stated, without your consent or unless required by law for the prevention and detection of fraud.

The handling and use of personal data at Fenland District Council is monitored by the Data Protection Officer (DPO). You can contact them at foi@fenland.gov.uk.

For more service specific information please see our Privacy notices.

How we manage personal information

GDPR regulates the management of personal information. We need to handle personal information about you so that we can provide services for you.

When we ask you for personal information we promise to:

make sure you know why we need it
only ask for what we need and not collect too much
protect it, and make sure no unauthorised person has access to it
let you know if we share it with other organisations to provide you with better services and if you can refuse to it being shared
make sure we only keep it for as long as necessary

In dealing with your information, we will:

abide by the law in handling your personal information
consider the risks when we are planning to use or hold personal information in new ways
provide training to staff who handle personal information
respond appropriately if personal information is not used or protected properly

In return, we ask you to:

give us accurate information
tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes, such as a new address. This helps us to keep your information reliable and up to date

Why we may collect information about you

We may need to collect and hold information about you in order to:

deliver public services
confirm your identity and update your customer record to provide services
contact you by post, email or telephone
understand what we can do for you and inform you of other relevant services and benefits
get your opinion about your services
prevent and detect fraud and corruption in the use of public funds
allow us to undertake statutory functions efficiently and effectively
make sure we meet our statutory obligations, including those related to diversity and equalities

We may not be able to provide you with a product or service unless we have enough information, or your permission to use that information.

The information we collect

We may collect and process the following data about you:

personal information that you provide to us
personal information for administration purposes for services we provide
records of times that you have contacted us
with your specific consent, we may ask you to complete customer satisfaction surveys for research purposes

We may also record telephone calls made to us or CCTV images of customers visiting our offices for:

training our staff
improving our services
investigating complaints
preventing and detecting crime
the safety and wellbeing of our staff

Sometimes we have to give information to other authorities, organisations or people. This would be for the prevention or detection of crime, or because of legal matters. We do not need your consent to do this. If we can, we will tell you if we have passed your information on.

Why your information is processed

Most of the personal information we ask you for is to enable us to provide statutory services. It is a legal requirement for some areas such as the administration of the Electoral Register, Council Tax, Business Rates and Housing Benefit.

How we use your information

We will use the information you provide in a manner that conforms to the Data Protection Act. We will keep your information accurate, up to date and only for as long as necessary.

We may process your information for the following purposes:

for the service you requested. We may also use it to monitor and improve our performance in responding to your request
to allow us to be able to communicate and provide services and benefits appropriate to your needs
to ensure that we meet our legal obligations
where necessary for law enforcement functions
to prevent and detect fraud and corruption in the use of public funds
to process financial transactions including grants, payments and benefits involving the council, or where we are acting on behalf of other government bodies
where necessary to protect individuals from harm or injury
to allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the provision of services

Information sharing

We may need to pass your information to other people and organisations that process information or provide a service on our behalf. These providers are obliged to keep your details securely and use them only for the intended specific purpose.

We may share your information with partners of the council where it helps to provide a public service. Partners will keep your details securely and use them only for the intended specific purpose.

We may disclose information within and to other partners of the council where it is necessary e.g to comply with a legal obligation or where permitted under the Data Protection Act.

We may disclose information when necessary to prevent risk of harm to an individual.

If we need to disclose sensitive or confidential information, we will do so with your prior explicit consent or where we are legally required to. We shall inform you of any disclosure of information where possible.

Find out more about the Information Sharing Framework that we follow.

As of 2020 we are required to share Council Tax data with the Office of National Statistics which will be used to complete the National Census. Find out more about how they use your data at the ONS website.

Where your consent is required to use personal data

The information we hold about you has been collected for a specific purpose. Your consent may be needed when we want to use data for a different purpose. For example, we collect your name and address so we can send Council Tax bills. We would need your permission if we used this information to send you something else at another time. This is called opting in.

If you give consent for this action or any other form of opt in consent, you have the right to ask for this consent to be withdrawn where relevant. However, your consent is not required when we are obliged under law to assist in the prevention and detection of crime (e.g the National Fraud initiative) or where the information is needed to carry out a legal function (e.g the collection of Council Tax).

How you can see the personal information we hold about you

The GDPR provides a number of rights for individuals. You can ask us for access to the information we hold about you through a Subject Access Request (SAR).

Complaints

You can use our 3Cs complaints procedure to complain about the way your request has been processed. If, after this, you are still unhappy then you can make an appeal to the ICO.

Automatic information and cookies

The cookies we use on our website do not contain any information that personally identifies you. They are used to gather information about general website usage and to provide you with a more personalised service. More information can be found in our Cookies Policy.

Third party processors

We use a small number of 'third party processors' to collect and store online data. Each are GDPR compliant. Links to their Privacy Policies are listed below:

Pages

Privacy notices