Last updated: 15th February 2010.
In order to process you personal information we are registered as a ‘data controller’ under the Data Protection Act. You can view our Data Protection Notifications, detailing the purposes we process information for on the Information Commissioner’s website.
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North East Lincolnshire Borough Council |
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North East Lincolnshire Borough Council Superintendent Registrars Service |
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North East Lincolnshire Borough Council Electoral Registration Officer |
This Privacy Notice explains how we use and share your information.
Our Commitment
When collecting, holding or using your personal information we are committed to:
- Recognising that we are holding your personal information on your behalf, and respect that responsibility;
- Only collecting and holding the personal information we need for our specified purposes;
- Only retaining your personal information for as long as we need to;
- Being open and transparent with you about how we will use your personal data and who we will share it with;
- Ensuring effective safeguards and systems are in place to keep your personal information safe and secure;
- Making it easy for you to access and correct your personal information;
- Ensuring all employees handling your personal information have appropriate training and guidance, and have processes in place to monitor, identify and deal with misuse; and
- Acting in compliance with the principles of the Data Protection Act.
How we collect your personal information?
We may collect personal information from you, in all of the following ways:
- Paper, electronic or online forms;
- CCTV
- E-mail;
- Telephone;
- Website; or
- Face to face, with one of our employees, or one of our partners.
Use of CCTV
We have installed CCTV systems in some of our locations used by members of the public, for the purposes of public safety and the prevention and detection of crime. In these locations signs are prominently displayed notifying you that CCTV is in operation and providing you with details of who to contact for further information about them.
We will only disclose CCTV images to third parties for the purposes as stated above of public safety and the prevention and detection of crime. CCTV images will not be released to the media for entertainment purposes or placed on the internet.
Images captured by CCTV will not be kept for longer than is necessary. However, on occasions there may be a need to keep images for longer, for example where a crime is being investigated.
You have the right to see CCTV images of yourself and be provided with a copy; please see the guidance on our website concerning your rights to make a Subject Access Request.
Further information on the use of CCTV by North East Lincolnshire Council is available on our website.
E-mails
If you email us we will make a record of your contact and your email address. For security reasons we will not include any confidential information about you in any email we send to you, and advise you keep the amount of confidential information you send to us via email to a minimum.
Telephone calls
We will always inform you if we are making an audio recording or monitoring any telephone call you make to us or receive from us. Any audio recordings made will only be used for the purposes stated in this Privacy Notice and in accordance with the principles of the Data Protection Act, this will include for the purpose of employee training.
Using our website
If you use our website www.nelincs.gov.uk for general public access, then we will not store or capture personal information about you, we will however record the IP addresses or hostnames of all users accessing our website. This information allows us to produce statistics on the performance of our website, including the how often it is being used, the number of unique visitors and the most popular pages.
An IP address is the numeric address of a computer, hostnames are similar in appearance to the domain names you see in website addresses or URLs and email addresses. The IP addresses and hostnames we record are those of the internet service provider's equipment that you are using to access the internet, and not your own computer's name or location.
The specific IP addresses and hostnames we record will be stored securely and not made publicly available. They will only be used by website log file software to compile overall summary statistical reports on the performance of our website.
Your internet service provider will keep records of who is using any IP address or hostname at any time, so it is theoretically possible to trace back activity shown on any website log file to a specific individual. In practice, this can only be done with the explicit involvement of the internet service provider, and such a trace would therefore only take place in the event of serious criminal misuse of the internet and would be carried out by the police. We will not attempt to associate IP addresses and hostnames with individuals. In the event of serious criminal misuse of the website, the matter would be referred to the police for investigation.
We will only capture and record personal information about you, if you:
- Subscribe to or apply for services that require your personal information; or
- Contact us and leave your details for us to respond to.
We employ cookie technology to help log visitors to our web site. A cookie is a string of information that is sent by a web site and stored on your hard drive or temporarily in your computer's memory. The information collected is used for the administration of the server and to improve the service provided by the web site. No personal information is collected in this way. You can reject the use of cookies but this may mean you are asked for information you have already provided to us i.e. to participate in a survey.
This statement only covers the www.nelincs.gov.uk which is maintained by us, and does not cover other web sites you are linked to from our site.
How we use your information
We will use your personal information for a limited number of purposes, and at all times in accordance with the principles set out in the Data Protection Act, including:
- For the purpose you provided the information for or where you have consented to the processing of your information;
- To deliver the services you request;
- To allow us to communicate effectively with you;
- To confirm your identity where needed to provide our services;
- To improve our understanding of your needs, to enable us to inform you of and provide you with other relevant services and benefits;
- To monitor and improve our performance and delivery of services;
- To process financial transactions including grants, payments and benefits we administer, or where we are acting on behalf of others i.e. The Department for Work and Pensions.
- To ensure that we meet our legal obligations efficiently and effectively, including those relating to Equality and Diversity and Health and Safety;
- To carry out our law enforcement functions efficiently and effectively, including licensing, planning enforcement and Trading standards;
- To prevent and detect fraud and corruption in the use of public funds;
- Where necessary to protect individuals from the risk of harm or injury; and
- Where otherwise permitted under the Data Protection Act.
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.
Your personal data, after it has been anonymised, may be used to for statistical analysis to allow us to effectively target and plan the allocation of resources and provision of services.
Information sharing
We may disclose your information to others, but only where this is necessary, either to comply with our legal obligations or as permitted by the Data Protection Act. This includes for the purpose of the prevention and/or detection of crime, or where it is necessary to allow a third party working for or acting on behalf of the Council, to provide service.
We strive to ensure that your personal data in our care is protected and secure, where your information is disclosed to a third party, we will seek to ensure that they have sufficient systems and procedures in place to protect your personal data and will only use for the specified purposes it was provided for.
We have agreed with our LSP partners a Community Charter for Information Sharing, so you can be assured that we and are local partners all comply with the same principles for the sharing of information.
Where we need to disclose your sensitive or confidential information, such as medical details to a third party, we will only do so once we have obtained your explicit consent, unless we are legally required to do so, or where we have good reason to believe that failing to share the information would put you or someone else at risk of harm.
We will not pass your personal information to external organisations for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consent.
We will only transfer your personal information overseas, where we are obliged to do so by law or in individual cases where there is a specific requirement and then only with your consent.
Data matching for the prevention and detection of fraud and crime
We are required by law to protect the public funds we administer, and may use any of the personal information you provide to prevent and detect potential fraud and crime, by conducting data matching on our own or in conjunction with others. The other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds we may share information with for data matching, include the Audit Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs, the Police and other local authorities.
Data Matching involves the comparison of computer records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body. The data matched is usually personal information, allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is found it indicates that there is an inconsistency which requires further investigation. No assumption can or will be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out.
The Audit Commission requires us to take part in the National Fraud Initiative, which is a national data matching exercises to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We are required to provide particular sets of data to the Audit Commission for matching for each exercise, and these are set out in the Audit Commission's handbooks.
The use of data by the Audit Commission for data matching is carried out under its powers in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998, and does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Data matching by the Audit Commission is subject to a Code of Practice.
Further information about the Audit Commission’s legal powers and why it matches particular information can be found on the Audit Commission website.
Emergency response management
Data matching may be also be used to assist us and our partners to plan for and respond to emergencies or major accidents, examples of where this will be used includes the identification of individuals who may need additional support in the event of an emergency evacuation.
Who processes your personal information?
Our elected members and employees will be given access to and process your personal information for the purposes of their official duties, but only the personal information needed for that specific purpose, and which they are authorised . They must not disclose your personal data to anyone else without your consent, unless they are legally obliged or empowered to do so.
If you make a complaint about council services or sign a petition that is presented to a council meeting your personal data may be shared with your local ward councillors, committee members and council employees working in the service concerned.
You can write and ask us to stop processing your personal data at any time. You must explain what processing you want us to stop and why. We must reply within 21 days to let you know what we have done about your request.
How we protect your information
We will only collect from you information relevant and adequate to meet our purposes. We have put in place rigorous procedures, supported by a set of information management and security policies, and employee training and guidance, to ensure your information is handled and processed securely and appropriately in accordance with the Data Protection Act.
We will not keep your information longer than it is needed for or we are required to by law. Your information will be disposed in a controlled and secure manner in accordance with our Retention and Disposal standards.
Your rights
You have the right to request that we stop processing your personal data in relation to any council service. To do this you must write to us explaining what processing you want us to stop and why. Please be aware, that this may cause delays or prevent us providing you with a service. Where possible we will seek to comply with your request, but this may not always be possible, as we may be required to hold or process your information to comply with a legal requirement. We will reply to you within 21 days and let you know what we have done about your request.
You are legally entitled to request access to any information we hold about you, this is called a Subject Access Request.
We aim to ensure that any information we hold about you is correct. If you believe that any information we hold about you is incorrect, you have the right to have this corrected.
Please contact the service holding the information or our Corporate Records and Information Manager to exercise any of these rights, or if you have a complaint about how your information has been used.
We will not use your personal data for third party marketing without your express consent.
Further information
We will at all times, comply with the legal requirements set out by the Data Protection Act 1998 in relation to the processing of your personal data. If you would like to know more or have any questions or concerns about how your information is being processed please contact us.
Corporate Records and Information Manager.
Policy, Performance and Development
Municipal Offices
Town Hall Square
Grimsby
North East Lincolnshire
DN31 1HU
Foi@nelincs.gov.uk
(01472) 323372
Further general information about the Data Protection Act is available from the Information Commissioner's web site.
Changes to this Privacy Notice
We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our services, feedback from you and to comply with any changes in the law. When we make a change, we will revise the ‘last updated’ date, which can be found at the beginning of this notice.