Privacy and Cookies

Your privacy

Epsom & Ewell Borough Council is committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. The Council is a data controller.

As the data controller, we must:

only keep your data that we need to provide services and do what the law says we must
keep your data safe and accurate
only keep your data as long as we have to
collect, store and use your data in a way that does not break any data protection laws.

This privacy notice explains how we use information about you and how we protect your privacy.

Who we are and what we do

The Council provides a wide variety of services to its residents, businesses and visitors.

We have a Data Protection Officer who makes sure we respect your rights and follow the law. If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, please contact the Data Protection Officer, at foidpa@epsom-ewell.gov.uk or by calling 01372 732000 and asking to speak to the Data Protection Officer.

Do you know what personal information is?

Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when put together with other information can then identify a person. For example, this could be your name, address, telephone number, date of birth, Personal data can be found in letters, emails, photographs, audio recordings and video recordings.

Some data is called special category data which is more sensitive and we have to look after it more carefully. This includes details of race or ethnic origin, political or religious beliefs, sexual orientation, trade union membership, health data, biometric data (eg fingerprints and facial recognition) and genetic data (eg DNA).

Why do we need your personal information?

We may need to use some information about you to:

deliver services to you
manage those services we provide to you
carry out regulatory, licensing and enforcement roles which the law requires us to do
train and manage the employment of our workers who deliver those services
make payments and grants and spot fraud
help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services
keep track of spending on services
check the quality of services
tell you about council services
help with research and planning of new services

Each service at the council will produce a privacy notice explaining the reasons and legal basis for collecting your data and those notices will appear as links on this page over time. Generally we collect and use personal information where:

it is required by law
it is necessary to perform our statutory duties
you have entered into a contract with us
it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency
you have given consent

If we need your data to perform our statutory duty or where we have a contract with you, if you do not provide us with that data, we may not be able to provide the services to you.

Who we share your personal data with

We are allowed to share data about you with others for a range of reasons. These include when we have to share your data for legal reasons and might result in your data being shared with:

the police
immigration service
National Fraud Initiative
Department for Work and Pensions
HM Revenue and Customs
Courts, tribunals and other regulatory bodies
the Electoral Registration Officer
the Council’s auditors

We may also use your personal information if it is in your vital interests, where your life is or could be in danger. This will not happen very often, if at all, but it will help to identify and assist individuals whose vital interests are threatened, and /or who need additional support during emergencies or major incidents, for example emergency evacuation.

We will share data about you between council departments so that we can keep your details up-to-date and improve our service to you. We may also share information where we have your prior consent or there is another legal reason for doing so.

If we use a third party to provide you with council services we will pass your details to them in order that they can provide the service. The third party will only be able to use data to provide the services and for no other reason.

You can ask for access to the information we hold on you (subject access)

You have the right to ask for all the information we have about you and the services you receive from us. When we receive a request from you, we must give you access to everything we’ve recorded about you.

However, we can’t let you see any parts of your record which contain:

Confidential information about other people; or
Data a professional thinks will cause serious harm to your or someone else’s physical or mental wellbeing; or
If we think that giving you the information may stop us from preventing or detecting a crime.

This applies to personal information that is in both paper and electronic records. If you ask us, we’ll also let others see your record (except if one of the points above applies).

You can make a subject access request by completing and returning the form at the bottom of this page.

If you can’t ask for your records in writing, we’ll make sure there are other ways that you can. If you have any queries about access to your information please contact foidpa@epsom-ewell.gov.uk or 01372 732000.

You can ask to change information you think is inaccurate (rectification)

You should let us know if you disagree with something written on your file.

We may not always be able to change or remove that information but we’ll correct factual inaccuracies and may include your comments in the record to show that you disagree with it.

You can ask to delete information (right to be forgotten)

In some circumstances you can ask for your personal information to be deleted, for example:

Where your personal information is no longer needed for the reason why it was collected in the first place
Where you have removed your consent for us to use your information (where there is no other legal reason us to use it)
Where there is no legal reason for the use of your information
Where deleting the information is a legal requirement
Where your personal information has been shared with others, we’ll do what we can to make sure those using your personal information comply with your request for erasure.

Please note that we can’t delete your information where:

we’re required to have it by law
it is used for freedom of expression
it is used for public health purposes
it is for, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes where it would make information unusable
it is necessary for legal claims

You can ask to limit what we use your personal data for (restriction)

You have the right to ask us to restrict what we use your personal information for where:

you have identified inaccurate information, and have told us of it
where we have no legal reason to use that information but you want us to restrict what we use it for rather than erase the information altogether

When information is restricted it can’t be used other than to securely store the data and with your consent to handle legal claims and protect others, or where it’s for important public interests of the UK.

Where restriction of use has been granted, we’ll inform you before we carry on using your personal information.

Where possible we’ll seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or use information because we are required to by law.

You can object to us processing your data

You have the right to object to your data being used for marketing or profiling. You can do this by unsubscribing from the service or by contacting us.

You can ask to have your information moved to another provider (data portability)

You have the right to ask for your personal information to be given back to you or another service provider of your choice in a commonly used format. This is called data portability.

However this only applies if we’re using your personal information with consent (not if we’re required to by law) and if decisions were made by a computer and not a human being.

It’s likely that data portability won’t apply to most of the services you receive from the Council.

You can ask to have any computer made decisions explained to you, and details of how we may have risk profiled you.

You have the right to question decisions made about you by a computer, unless it’s required for any contract you have entered into, required by law, or you’ve consented to it.

You also have the right to object if you are being ‘profiled’. Profiling is where decisions are made about you based on certain things in your personal information, eg your health conditions.

If and when the Council uses your personal information to profile you, in order to deliver the most appropriate service to you, you will be informed.

If you have concerns regarding automated decision making, or profiling, please contact the Data Protection Officer who’ll be able to advise you about how we using your information.

Processing based on consent

If we are processing your data because you have consented to us doing so you can withdraw that consent at any time by getting in touch with us. Unless there is another legal basis for us to process your data we must stop processing your data when you withdraw consent. This may mean that we can no longer provide services to you.

Who do we share your information with?

We use a range of organisations to either store personal information or help deliver our services to you.

We’ll often complete an assessment before we share personal information to make sure we protect your privacy and comply with the law.

Sometimes we have a legal duty to provide personal information to other organisations. This is often because we need to give that data to courts, including if the court orders that we provide the information.

We may also share your personal information when we feel there’s a good reason that’s more important than protecting your privacy. This doesn't happen often, but we may share your information in order to find and stop crime and fraud; or if there are serious risks to the public, our staff or to other professionals.

The risk must be serious before we can override your right to privacy.

If we’re worried about your physical safety or feel we need to take action to protect you from being harmed in other ways, we’ll discuss this with you and, if possible, get your permission to tell others about your situation before doing so.

We may still share your information if we believe the risk to others is serious enough to do so.

There may also be rare occasions when the risk to others is so great that we need to share information straight away.

If this is the case, we’ll make sure that we record what information we share and our reasons for doing so. We’ll let you know what we’ve done and why if we think it is safe to do so.

How do we protect your information?

We’ll do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we’ll only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Examples of our security include:

Encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password). This is done with a secret code or what’s called a ‘cipher’. The hidden information is said to then be ‘encrypted’
Pseudonymisation, meaning that we’ll use a different name so we can hide parts of your personal information from view. This means that someone outside of the Council could work on your information for us without ever knowing it was yours
Controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it
Training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong
Regular testing of our technology and ways of working including keeping up to date on the latest security updates (commonly called patches)

Where in the world is your information?

The majority of personal information is stored on systems in the UK. But there may some occasions where your information may leave the UK either in order to get to another organisation or if it’s stored in a system outside of the EU.

We have additional protections on your information if it leaves the UK ranging from secure ways of transferring data to ensuring we have a robust contract in place with that third party.

We’ll take all practical steps to make sure your personal information is not sent to a country that is not seen as ‘safe’ either by the UK or EU Governments.

How long do we keep your personal information?

We will only hold your personal information for as long as necessary for business purposes or if we are required to keep it by law. There’s often a legal reason for keeping your personal information for a set period of time, we try to include all of these in our retention schedule.

Where can I get advice?

If you have any worries or questions about how your personal information is handled please contact our Data Protection Officer at foidpa@epsom-ewell.gov.uk or by calling 01372 732000.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number.

Alternatively, visit ico.org.uk or email casework@ico.org.uk.