Privacy Policy

Somerton Town Council (STC) is committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. The
Privacy Notice below explains how we use information about you and how we protect your privacy.

We have a Data Protection Officer, the Town Clerk, 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 Clerk’s Office, at [email protected] or by calling 01458 272236.

Why we use personal information?

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 and contact details.

Did you know that some of your personal information might be ‘special’?
Some information is ‘special’ and needs more protection due to its sensitivity. It is often information you
would not want widely known and is very personal to you. This is likely to include anything that can reveal
your:

• sexuality and sexual health
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• ethnicity
• physical or mental health
• trade union membership
• political opinion
• genetic/biometric data
• criminal history

Why do we need your personal information?

We may need to use some information about you to:

• deliver services and support to you
• manage those services we provide to you
• train and manage the employment of our workers who deliver those services
• help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services
• keep track of spending on services
• check the quality of services
• to help with research and planning of new services.

How the law allows us to use your personal information.
There are legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information.
Generally, we collect and use personal information in the where:

• you, or your legal representative, have given consent
• you have entered into a contract with us
• it is necessary to perform our statutory duties
• it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency
• it is required by law
• it is necessary for employment purposes
• you have made your information publicly available
• it is necessary for legal cases
• it is to the benefit of society as a whole
• it is necessary to protect public health
• it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes

If we have consent to use your personal information, you have the right to remove it at any time. If you
want to remove your consent, please contact [email protected] and tell us which
service you are using so we can deal with your request.

We only use what we need!

Where we can, we will only collect and use personal information if we need it to deliver a service or meet a requirement. If we do not need personal information, we will either keep you anonymous if we already
have it for something else or we will not ask you for it. For example, in a survey we may not need your
contact details we will only collect your survey responses.

If we use your personal information for research and analysis, we will always keep you anonymous or use a different name unless you have agreed that your personal information can be used for that research.

We do not sell your personal information to anyone else.

Who do we share your information with?
We may share your personal information across the Council and with other partner organisations, where
this is necessary, e.g. to provide a service. We will never share your personal information with a third party unless we have a lawful reason to do. We sometimes share your information when we feel there is a good reason that’s more important that protecting your privacy. This doesn’t happen often, but we may share your information:

• to find and stop crime and fraud; or
• if there are serious risks to the public, our staff or to other professionals;
• to protect a child; or
• to protect adults who are thought to be at risk, for example if they are frail, confused or cannot
  understand what is happening to them.

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

Where we have these arrangements there is always an agreement in in place to make sure that the
organisation complies with data protection law.

We will often complete a privacy impact assessment (PIA) before we share personal information to make
sure we protect your privacy and comply with the law.

Where your information is shared, we will make sure that we record what information we share and our
reasons for doing so. We will let you know what we’ve done and why if we think it is safe to do so, unless
we are not required to do so. For example, if a person is under investigation for fraud, letting them know
that an investigation is taking place may disrupt the investigation so we would not need to tell them.

Will I be contacted for marketing purposes?

We do not make your personal details available to third parties for marketing purposes and STC will only
send you marketing emails and otherwise contact you for marketing purposes if you sign up to a mailing list, for example, to the Octagon Theatre so you could be kept informed of forthcoming shows, or otherwise asked to be kept informed.

If you wish to have your name removed from a mailing list or have any questions please contact
[email protected].

National Fraud Initiative

The Local Authorities and the Registered Providers are under a duty to protect the public funds it
administers, and to this end may use the information you have provided on this form for the prevention and detection of fraud. It may also share this information with other bodies responsible for auditing or
administering public funds for these purposes.

The Cabinet Office is responsible for carrying out data matching exercises.

Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body to see how far they match. This is usually personal information.

Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is found it may indicate that there is an inconsistency which requires further investigation. No assumption can be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out.

The partner Local Authorities and the Registered Providers participate in the Cabinet Office’s National Fraud Initiative: a data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud and are required to provide particular sets of data to the Minister for the Cabinet Office for matching for each exercise.

What you can do with your information?

The law gives you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us.

You can ask for access to the information we hold on you.

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 in writing, 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 you or someone else’s physical or mental
  wellbeing; or
• if we think that giving you the information may stop us or another organisation from preventing or
  detecting a crime.

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

If you would like to ask for access to the information that we hold on you, please contact
[email protected].

You can ask to change information you think is inaccurate

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 will correct factual inaccuracies
and may include your comments in the record to show that you disagree with it.

If you would like to ask to change information you think is inaccurate please contact
[email protected].

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 data is no longer needed for the reasons 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 for 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 will do what we can to make sure those using your personal information comply with your request for deletion.

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; or
• it is necessary for legal claims.

If you would like to ask for your information to be deleted, please contact
[email protected].

You can ask to limit what we use your personal data for.

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 delete the information altogether.

When information is restricted is 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 will inform you before we carry on using your personal
information.
Were possible we will seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or use information
because we are required to by law.

If you would like to ask us to limit what we use your personal data for please contact
[email protected]

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

You have the right to ask for your personal data 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 decision were made by a computer and not a human being.

It is likely that data portability will not apply to most of the services you receive from the council.

How do we protect your information?

We will do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure
way, and we will 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 ‘cypher’. The
  hidden information is said to then be ‘encrypted’.
• Pseudonymisation, meaning that we will 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 our systems in the UK. But there are 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 will 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.

If we need to send your information to an ‘unsafe’ location we will always seek advice from the Information Commissioner first.

How long do we keep your personal information?

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.

For each service the schedule lists how long, your information may be kept for. This ranges from months for some records to decades for more sensitive records.

Where can I get advice?

If you have any worries or questions about how your personal information is handled, please contact the
Clerk’s Office by calling 01458 272236 or email [email protected].

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 [email protected].

Cookie Notice

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added, and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site.

Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its
operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your
preferences.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. As a visitor to our website, you will have the option to opt-in or withdraw at any time.

Somerton Town Council and Edgar Hall Set Cookies:

Cookies are used as a session handler to link a user to a particular session on the website. These do not hold or track private data; they are more a link to data potentially stored in the website itself for that user.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to
leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting
such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement.

You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure.

Updating our Cookie Policy

somertontowncouncil.gov.uk and edgarhall.co.uk websites may be subject to change at our own discretion.

A message on our website will clearly state this in the event of it happening.

You can contact Somerton Town Council directly at:
Address: Edgar Hall, Unit 8 Cary Court, Somerton Business Park, Somerton, TA11 6SB
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 01458 272236

If you believe that any information, we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or
email us as soon as possible, at the above address. We will promptly correct any information found to be
incorrect.

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END OF POLICY