Privacy Notice

Why do we collect information about you?

We need to hold and collect information about you in order to:

• Deliver public services;
• Confirm your identity to provide some services;
• Contact you by post, email or telephone;
• Understand your needs to provide the services that you request;
• Understand what we can do for you and inform you of other relevant services and benefits;
• Obtain your opinion about services;
• Update your customer records;
• Help us understand how we are performing at delivering services to you and what services the people of Mid and East Antrim need;
• Process financial transactions;
• Prevent and detect fraud and corruption in the use of public funds; and
• Make sure we meet our statutory obligations including those related to equality and diversity.

How we use your information

We will use the information you provide in a manner that conforms to the GDPR.

We will keep your information accurate and up to date and not keep it for longer than is necessary. In some instances, the law sets the length of time information has to be kept.

We will process your information for the following purposes:-

• for the service you requested, and to monitor and improve the council’s performance in responding to your request;
• to allow us to be able to communicate and provide services appropriate to your needs;
• to ensure that we meet our legal obligations;
• where necessary for law enforcement functions;
• to prevent and detect fraud or crime;
• to process financial transactions including grants and payments involving the council, or where we are acting on behalf of other government bodies, e.g. Department for Communities;
• to collect monies owed to us;
• where necessary to protect individuals from harm or injury; and
• to allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the provision of services.

We will not pass any personal data on to third parties, other than those who either process information on our behalf, or because of a legal requirement, and we will only do so, where possible after we have ensured that sufficient steps have been taken to protect the personal data by the recipient.

We will not disclose any information that you provide ‘in confidence’ to us, to anyone else without your permission, except in the few situations where disclosure is required by law, or where we have good reason to believe that failing to share the information would put someone else at risk. You will be told about this.

We may process your information overseas using web services that are hosted outside the European Economic Area, but only with data processing agreements that meet our obligations under the GDPR.

How we handle the data that is submitted by you

Personal information will only be collected and/or processed by the council in accordance with the GDPR and Data Protection Act. 

Information in relation to your rights and our responsibilities are detailed in our Data Protection Policy.

Personal data is collected to facilitate the provision of our statutory obligations, delivery of services and service improvement. It may also be used for research, screening and analysis purposes.

Please be aware that in some areas Council uses a third party supplier to hold the information you submit. Where this is the case the third party company complies with the Council’s information security policy and GDPR requirements, and will not share your data with anyone other than the Council.

Except as set out in this policy or as required by law, your personal data will not be provided to any third party without your prior written consent.

The personal data you submit will only be held and processed for the purpose you submitted it for unless otherwise indicated.

Your data will be retained only for as long as is permitted by our retention and disposal schedule [insert link to retention and disposal schedule here] and then destroyed (or transferred to the Public Records Office for Northern Ireland if applicable).

Telephone calls

We will inform you if we record or monitor any telephone calls you make to us.

Emails

If you email us we may keep a record of your contact and your email address and the email for our record keeping of the transaction.  For security reasons we will not include any confidential information about you in any email we send to you, unless you consent to this.

We suggest that you keep the amount of confidential information you send to us via email to a minimum and use online forms where available.

Website

We automatically receive and save certain types of information whenever you interact with the Council’s website. We use the information to monitor website traffic and to assist with the navigation and user experience of the website.

Information that we will automatically receive includes:

• Requested URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
• IP (Internet Protocol) address (this may or may not identify a specific computer)
• Domain name from which you access the internet
• Referring URL
• Software (browser/operating system) used to access the page
• Date and time pages were visited

For more details in relation to our privacy policy for our website please see our Website Privacy Policy page.

Emergency response management

Data matching may also be used to assist the council in responding to emergencies or major incidents, by allowing the council, in conjunction with the emergency services, to identify individuals who may need additional support in the event of e.g. an emergency evacuation.

CCTV/Surveillance

We have installed CCTV systems in some our premises used by members of the public for the purposes of public and staff safety, and crime prevention and detection.  CCTV is also installed on the outside of some our buildings.

For any queries you may have in connection with this privacy policy, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
The Braid
1-29 Bridge Street
Ballymena
BT43 5EJ

E: policy@midandeastantrim.gov.uk