Data Protection and Privacy

ST BEES PARISH COUNCIL PRIVACY STATEMENT

St Bees Parish Council is committed to protecting your privacy when you make contact with us or use our services. This Privacy Statement explains how we use your personal information and how we protect your privacy.

St Bees Parish Council is the Data Controller for your data.  If you have any questions about how we look after your personal information please contact The Clerk to St Bees Parish Council, East House, Coulderton, Egremont CA22 2UR email pc_clerk@stbees.org.uk

Your personal data – what is it?

“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 by the personal data alone or in conjunction with any other personal data.

 Most of the data we hold is information provided by you or is obtained from publicly available sources. We do not collect information from users of the Parish Council’s web-site. 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 (the “GDPR) and other legislation relating to personal data and rights such as the Human Rights Act.

Sensitive personal data – what is it?

The information we process may very occasionally include personal data which is particularly sensitive and needs to be protected even more carefully. This might be information such as religious beliefs, ethnicity, health details, political opinions, trade union affiliation, criminal record or other special categories such as data concerning sexual orientation.

Why do we need to hold personal information?

The Parish Council is a public authority and has certain powers and duties. Most of your personal data is processed for compliance with a legal obligation which includes the discharge of the council’s statutory functions and powers.  Sometime when exercising these powers or duties it is necessary to process personal data of residents or people using the council’s services.  We will always take into account your interests and rights. 

We may also 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 garden tenancy.

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

How do we use personal data?

We need to use personal data for a number of reasons:

  • To deliver public services including to understand your needs to provide the services that you request and to understand what we can do for you and inform you of other relevant services;
  • to contact you by post, email, or telephone
  • to help us to build up a picture of how we are performing;
  • to prevent and detect fraud and corruption in the use of public funds and where necessary for law enforcement functions;
  • to enable us to meet our legal and statutory obligations and powers:
  • to carry out comprehensive safeguarding procedures (including due diligence and complaints handling) in accordance with best safeguarding practice from time to time with the aim of ensuring that all children and adults-at-risk are provided with safe environments and generally as necessary to protect individuals from harm or injury;
  • to promote the interests of the council;
  • to maintain our own accounts and records;
  • to seek your views, opinions or comments;
  • to notify you of changes to our facilities, services, events and staff, councillors and role holders;
  • to send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you.  These may include information about campaigns, appeals, other new projects or initiatives;
  • to process relevant financial transactions including grants and payments for goods and services supplied to the council
  • to allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the provision of services.

 

 How does the law allow us to use your personal data?

  The law requires that personal information is:-

  • 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 is 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 from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure.

Who do we share information with?

We use a telephone answering service to take messages on our behalf. Arrangements are in place to ensure that the company complies with the same data protection policies.

Occasionally we may need to share your data with some or all of the following:

  • Our agents, suppliers and contractors. For example, we may ask a commercial provider to publish or distribute newsletters on our behalf.
  •  Other local authorities or not for profit bodies with which we are carrying out joint ventures e.g.  in relation to facilities or events for the community.

We will only share your personal data where it is necessary to provide a service to you, to fulfil our statutory functions or with your consent.  Third parties with which we work also have an obligation to put in place appropriate security measures and will be responsible to you directly for the manner in which they process and protect your personal data.

How long do we keep your personal data?

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 current best practice to keep financial records for a minimum period of 8 years to support HMRC audits or provide tax information. 

We may have legal obligations to retain some data in connection with our statutory obligations as a public authority. 

The council is permitted to retain data in order to defend or pursue claims.  In some cases the law imposes a time limit for such claims (for example 3 years for personal injury claims or 6 years for contract claims).  We will retain some personal data for this purpose as long as we believe it is necessary to be able to defend or pursue a claim.

 In general, we will endeavour to keep data only for as long as we need it.  This means that we will delete it when it is no longer needed.

Your rights and your personal data 

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

  • the right to access personal data we hold on you
  • the right to correct and update the personal information we hold on you
  • the right to request that your personal data erased. However, we may not be able to do this where we have a valid reason for retaining the information eg a legal duty or in connection with a legal claim
  • the right to object to processing of your personal data or to restrict it to certain purposes only
  • the right to data portability
  • the right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time for any processing of data to which consent was obtained
  • the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You can contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Transfer of Data Abroad

We do not transfer any personal data to countries or territories outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and do not use storage systems based outside the EU. Please note that our website is also accessible from overseas so on occasion some personal data (for example in a newsletter) may be accessed from overseas.

Changes to this policy

We keep this Privacy Statement under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page (www.stbees.org.uk) This Statement was last reviewed in June 2018.

Contact Details

If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement or the personal data we hold about you or to exercise any of your legal rights, please contact:

The Clerk to St Bees Parish Council
East House
Coulderton
Egremont
Cumbria
CA22 2UR

Email pc_clerk@stbees.org.uk

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