Data Protection Policy
Data Protection Policy
1. Introduction: The Data Protection Policy
1.1. Fillingham Parish Meeting recognises its responsibility to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018 which regulates the use of personal data. This does not have to be sensitive data; it can be as little as a name and address.
2. General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)
2.1. The GDPR sets out high standards for the handling of personal information and protecting individuals’ rights for privacy. It also regulates how personal information can be collected, handled and used. The GDPR applies to anyone holding personal information about people, electronically or on paper. Fillingham Parish Meeting is responsible for any required notification to the Information Commissioner regarding the holding of personal data about individuals.
2.2. When dealing with personal data, representatives of Fillingham Parish Meeting must ensure that:
i. Data is processed fairly, lawfully and in a transparent manner
This means that personal information should only be collected from individuals if representatives have been open and honest about why they want the personal information.
ii. Data is processed for specified purposes only
This means that data is collected for specific, explicit and legitimate purposes only.
iii. Data is relevant to what it is needed for
Data will be monitored so that too much or too little is not kept; only data that is needed should be held.
iv. Data is accurate and kept up to date and is not kept longer than it is needed
Personal data should be accurate, if it is not it should be corrected. Data no longer needed will be shredded or securely disposed of.
v. Data is processed in accordance with the rights of individuals
Individuals must be informed, upon request, of all the personal information held about them.
vi. Data is kept securely
There should be protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.
3. Storing and accessing data
3.1. Fillingham Parish Meeting recognises its responsibility to be open with people when taking personal details from them. This means that Parish Representatives must be honest about why they want a particular piece of personal information.
3.2. Fillingham Parish Meeting may hold personal information about individuals such as their names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers. These will be securely kept by Fillingham Parish Meeting and are not available for public access. All data stored on the computers used by Fillingham Parish Meeting are password protected. Once data is not needed any more, is out of date or has served its use and falls outside the minimum retention time of Parish Meeting’s document retention policy, it will be shredded or securely deleted from the computer.
3.3. Fillingham Parish Meeting is aware that people have the right to access any personal information that is held about them. Subject Access Requests (SARs) must be submitted in writing (this can be done in hard copy, email or social media). If a person requests to see any data that is being held about them, the SAR response must detail:
i. How and to what purpose personal data is processed
ii. The period Fillingham Parish Meeting tend to process it for
iii. Anyone who has access to the personal data
3.4. The response must be sent within 30 days and should be free of charge.
3.5. If a SAR includes personal data of other individuals, Fillingham Parish Meeting must not disclose the personal information of the other individual. That individual’s personal information may either be redacted, or the individual may be contacted to give permission for their information to be shared with the Subject.
3.6. Individuals have the right to have their data rectified if it is incorrect, the right to request erasure of the data, the right to request restriction of processing of the data and the right to object to data processing, although rules do apply to those requests.
3.7. Please see “Subject Access Request Procedure” for more details.
4. Confidentiality
4.1. Representatives of Fillingham Parish Meeting must be aware that when complaints or queries are made, they must remain confidential unless the subject gives permission otherwise. When handling personal data, this must also remain confidential.
Appendices:
Appendix 1: Subject Access Request Procedure
Appendix 2: Sample Letters
Appendix 3: Consent Form
Appendix 4: Privacy Notice
This Data Protection Policy was adopted by the Parish Meeting at the meeting held on the
13th May 2019
Signed:
Chair of Fillingham Parish Meeting
Appendix 1: Subject Access Request Procedure
This procedure is to be followed when an individual contacts Fillingham Parish Meeting to request access to their personal information held by the Parish Meeting. Requests must be completed within 1 month, so it should be actioned as soon as it is received. SAR’s should be provided free of charge, however, the Meeting may charge a ‘reasonable fee’ when a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly if it is repetitive.
The steps below should be followed to action the request:
1. Is it a valid subject access request?
a) The request must be in writing (letter, email, social media or fax).
b) Has the person requesting the information provided you with sufficient information to allow you to search for the information? (You are allowed to request for more information from the person if the request is too broad.)
2. Verify the identity of the requestor.
a) You must be confident that the person requesting the information is indeed the person the information relates to. You should ask for the person to meet with their passport/photo driving licence and confirmation of their address (utility bill/bank statement).
3. Determine where the personal information will be found
a) Consider the type of information requested and use the data processing map to determine where the records are stored. (Personal data is data which relates to a living individual who can be identified from the data (name, address, email address, database information) and can include expressions of opinion about the individual.)
b) If you do not hold any personal data, inform the requestor. If you do hold personal data, continue to the next step.
4. Screen the information
a) Some of the information you have retrieved may not be disclosable due to exemptions, however legal advice should be sought before applying exemptions.
Examples of exemptions are:
• References you have given
• Publicly available information
• Crime and taxation
• Management information (restructuring/redundancies)
• Negotiations with the requestor
• Regulatory activities (planning enforcement, noise nuisance)
• Legal advice and proceedings
• Personal data of third parties
5. Are you able to disclose all the information?
a) In some cases, emails and documents may contain the personal information of other individuals who have not given their consent to share their personal information with others. If this is the case, the other individual’s personal data must be redacted before the SAR is sent out.
6. Prepare the SAR response (using the sample letters at the end of this document) and make sure to include as a minimum the following information:
a) the purposes of the processing;
b) the categories of personal data concerned;
c) the recipients or categories of recipients to whom personal data has been or will be disclosed, in particular in third countries or international organisations, including any appropriate safeguards for transfer of data;
d) where possible, the envisaged period for which personal data will be stored, or, if not possible, the criteria used to determine that period;
e) the existence of the right to request rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing of personal data concerning the data subject or to object to such processing;
f) the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office (“ICO”);
g) if the data has not been collected from the data subject: the source of such data;
h) the existence of any automated decision-making, including profiling and any meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject.
Be sure to also provide a copy of the personal data undergoing processing.
All SAR’s should be logged to include the date of receipt, identity of the data subject, summary of the request, indication of if the Parish Meeting can comply, date information is sent to the data subject.
Appendix 2: Sample letters:
Replying to a subject access request providing the requested personal data
“[Name] [Address]
[Date]
Dear [Name of data subject]
Data Protection subject access request
Thank you for your letter of [date] making a data subject access request for [subject]. We are pleased to enclose the personal data you requested.
Include 6(a) to (h) above.
Copyright in the personal data you have been given belongs to the Parish Meeting or to another party. Copyright material must not be copied, distributed, modified, reproduced, transmitted, published or otherwise made available in whole or in part without the prior written consent of the copyright holder.
Yours sincerely”
Release of part of the personal data, when the remainder is covered by an exemption
“[Name] [Address]
[Date]
Dear [Name of data subject]
Data Protection subject access request
Thank you for your letter of [date] making a data subject access request for [subject]. To answer your request we asked the following areas to search their records for personal data relating to you:
• [List the areas]
I am pleased to enclose [some/most] of the personal data you requested. [If any personal data has been removed] We have removed any obvious duplicate personal data that we noticed as we processed your request, as well as any personal data that is not about you. You will notice that [if there are gaps in the document] parts of the document(s) have been blacked out. [OR if there are fewer documents enclose] I have not enclosed all of the personal data you requested. This is because [explain why it is exempt].
Include 6(a) to (h) above.
Copyright in the personal data you have been given belongs to the Parish Meeting or to another party. Copyright material must not be copied, distributed, modified, reproduced, transmitted, published, or otherwise made available in whole or in part without the prior written consent of the copyright holder.
Yours sincerely”
Replying to a subject access request explaining why you cannot provide any of the requested personal data
“[Name] [Address]
[Date]
Dear [Name of data subject]
Data Protection subject access request
Thank you for your letter of [date] making a data subject access request for [subject].
I regret that we cannot provide the personal data you requested. This is because [explanation where appropriate].
[Examples include where one of the exemptions under the data protection legislation applies. For example the personal data might include personal data is ‘legally privileged’ because it is contained within legal advice provided to the Parish Meeting or relevant to on-going or preparation for litigation. Other exemptions include where the personal data identifies another living individual or relates to negotiations with the data subject. Your data protection officer will be able to advise if a relevant exemption applies and if the Parish Meeting is going to rely on the exemption to withhold or redact the data disclosed to the individual, then in this section of the letter the Parish Meeting should set out the reason why some of the data has been excluded.]
Yours sincerely”
Appendix 3: Data Consent Form
Fillingham Parish Meeting takes its responsibilities with regard to personal data and privacy seriously. For the Parish Meeting to communicate with you about the Meeting and its activities we need your consent.
Fillingham Parish Meeting will only make direct communication to you about meetings, specific events or village issues using email and occasionally by post (see also the note on Social Media, below). Please fill in your name and address and other contact information below to and confirm your consent by ticking the box below.
Name
Address
Please tick if you are happy to receive communications of this nature
Signature Date
You can find out more about our data protection policy and how we use personal data from our “Privacy Notice” which is available from our website, search “Fillingham Parish” in your search engine.
You can withdraw or change your consent at any time by contacting the Parish Meeting.
If you are aged 13 or under your parent or guardian should fill in their details below to confirm their consent:
Name
Address
Signature Date
A note on social media: Where you may separately access Parish Meeting information on social media, such as via Facebook, your engagement will be governed within the terms and conditions of that platform. Fillingham Parish will not hold or process data outside that platform.
Appendix 4: Privacy Notice
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 directly using the data itself or by combining it with other information which helps to identify a living individual (e.g. a list of staff may contain personnel ID numbers rather than names but if you use a separate list of the ID numbers which give the corresponding names to identify the staff in the first list then the first list will also be treated as personal data). 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.
Who are we?
This Privacy Notice is provided to you by the Fillingham Parish Meeting which is the data controller for your data.
Other data controllers the Parish Meeting works with:
• Local councils (e.g. West Lindsay District Council, Lincolnshire County Council),
• Community groups (e.g. LALC)
• Charities
• Other not for profit entities
• Contractors / suppliers
We may need to share your personal data we hold with them so that they can carry out their responsibilities to the Parish Meeting. If we and the other data controllers listed above are processing your data jointly for the same purposes, then the Parish Meeting and the other data controllers may be “joint data controllers” which mean we are all collectively responsible to you for your data. Where each of the parties listed above are processing your data for their own independent purposes then each of us will be independently responsible to you and if you have any questions, wish to exercise any of your rights (see below) or wish to raise a complaint, you should do so directly to the relevant data controller.
A description of what personal data the Parish Meeting processes and for what purposes is set out in this Privacy Notice.
The Parish Meeting will process some or all of the following personal data where necessary to perform its tasks:
• Names, titles, and aliases, photographs;
• Contact details such as telephone numbers, addresses, and email addresses;
• Where they are relevant to the services provided by a council, or where you provide them to us, we may process information such as gender, age, marital status, nationality, education/ work history, academic/professional qualifications, hobbies, family composition, and dependants;
• Where you pay for activities such as use of the village hall, financial identifiers such as bank account numbers, payment card numbers, payment/transaction identifiers, policy numbers, and claim numbers;
• Where there is a specific need for personal data, e.g. details of accident records
• Some personal data may be defined as sensitive and this will only be processed to meet legal obligations, e.g. details of accident or injuries.
• Fillingham Parish Meeting will not process or retain personal data defined as sensitive or other special categories for any other personal data such as criminal convictions, racial or ethnic origin, mental and physical health, medication/treatment received, political beliefs, trade union affiliation, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning and sexual life or orientation.
The Parish Meeting will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal data we hold about you must be:
• 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 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 to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure.
We use your personal data for some or all of the following purposes:
• 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 confirm your identity to provide some services;
• To contact you by post, email, telephone or using social media (e.g., Facebook);
• 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 the law enforcement functions;
• To enable us to meet all legal and statutory obligations and powers including any delegated functions;
• 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 Parish Meeting;
• 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 Parish Representatives.
• 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 Parish Meeting.
• To allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the provision of services.
• Our processing may also include the use of CCTV systems for the prevention and prosecution of crime.
For Parish Representatives, we may also use your personal data for some or all of these additional purposes:
• Management and planning, including accounting and auditing
• Education, training and development requirements.
• Dealing with legal disputes involving you, including accidents where acting on behalf of Fillingham Parish.
• Complying with health and safety obligations.
• To prevent fraud.
• To undertake activity consistent with our statutory functions and powers including any delegated functions.
• To maintain our own accounts and records;
• To seek your views or comments;
• To administer Parish Representatives’ interests
• To provide a reference.
What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?
The Parish Meeting is a public authority and has certain powers and obligations. Most of your personal data is processed for compliance with a legal obligation which includes the discharge of the Parish Meeting’s statutory functions and powers. Sometimes when exercising these powers or duties it is necessary to process personal data of residents or people using the Parish Meeting’s services. We will always take into account your interests and rights. This Privacy Notice sets out your rights and the Parish Meeting’s obligations to you.
We may 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 could be processing your data in connection with the hire of the Village Hall.
Sometimes the use of your personal data requires your consent. We will first obtain your consent to that use.
Sharing your personal data
This section provides information about the third parties with whom the Parish Meeting may share your personal data. These third parties 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. It is likely that we will need to share your data with some or all of the following (but only where necessary):
• The data controllers listed above under the heading “Other data controllers the Parish Meeting works with”;
• Our agents, suppliers and contractors. For example, we may ask a commercial provider to publish or distribute newsletters on our behalf, or to maintain database software;
• On occasion, 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.
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 currently 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 Parish Meeting 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:
When exercising any of the rights listed below, in order to process your request, we may need to verify your identity for your security. In such cases we will need you to respond with proof of your identity before you can exercise these rights.
1) The right to access personal data we hold on you
• At any point you can contact us to request the personal data we hold on you as well as why we have that personal data, who has access to the personal data and where we obtained the personal data from. Once we have received your request we will respond within one month.
• There are no fees or charges for the first request but additional requests for the same personal data or requests which are manifestly unfounded or excessive may be subject to an administration fee.
2) The right to correct and update the personal data we hold on you
• If the data we hold on you is out of date, incomplete or incorrect, you can inform us and your data will be updated.
3) The right to have your personal data erased
• If you feel that we should no longer be using your personal data or that we are unlawfully using your personal data, you can request that we erase the personal data we hold.
• When we receive your request we will confirm whether the personal data has been deleted or the reason why it cannot be deleted (for example because we need it for to comply with a legal obligation).
4) The right to object to processing of your personal data or to restrict it to certain purposes only
• You have the right to request that we stop processing your personal data or ask us to restrict processing. Upon receiving the request we will contact you and let you know if we are able to comply or if we have a legal obligation to continue to process your data.
5) The right to data portability
• You have the right to request that we transfer some of your data to another controller. We will comply with your request, where it is feasible to do so, within one month of receiving your request.
6) The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time for any processing of data to which consent was obtained
• You can withdraw your consent easily by telephone, email, or by post (see Contact Details below).
7) 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
Any personal data transferred to countries or territories outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) will only be placed on systems complying with measures giving equivalent protection of personal rights either through international agreements or contracts approved by the European Union. [Our website is also accessible from overseas so on occasion some personal data (for example in a newsletter) may be accessed from overseas].
Further processing
If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Notice, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where and whenever necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.
Changes to this notice
We keep this Privacy Notice under regular review and we will place any updates on the Parish Meeting web page.
Contact Details
Please contact us if you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or the personal data we hold about you or to exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints at:
The Clerk, Fillingham Parish Meeting, 11 Rectory Lea, Fillingham, Gainsborough, DN21 5GE