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Belstone Parish Council Privacy Policy

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.

The processing of personal data in the UK is governed by the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018), the UK 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 Belstone Parish Council which is the data controller for your data.

Other data controllers the council works with:

  • Local Authorities (Such as West Devon Borough Council, Devon County Council and the Dartmoor National Park)
  • Community Groups (Such as Belstone Village Hall)

We may need to share your personal data we hold with them so that they can carry out their responsibilities to the council. If we and the other data controllers listed above are processing your data jointly for the same purposes, then the council 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 council processes and for what purposes is set out in this Privacy Notice.

The council 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;

How we use sensitive personal data

  • We may process sensitive personal data including, as appropriate: – information about your physical or mental health or condition in order to monitor sick leave and take decisions on your fitness for work; – your racial or ethnic origin or religious or similar information in order to monitor compliance with equal opportunities legislation; – in order to comply with legal requirements and obligations to third parties.
  • These types of data are described in the GDPR as “Special categories of data” and require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal data.
  • We may process special categories of personal data in the following circumstances: – In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent. – Where we need to carry out our legal obligations. – Where it is needed in the public interest.
  • Less commonly, we may process this type of personal data where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

Do we need your consent to process your sensitive personal data?

  • In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain sensitive personal data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the personal data that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. The council will comply with data protection law. This says that 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. Our processing may also include the use of CCTV systems for the prevention and prosecution of crime.

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

The council 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 council’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 council’s services. We will always take into account your interests and rights. This Privacy Notice sets out your rights and the council’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 would be processing your data in connection with the use of sports facilities, or 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.

Sharing your personal data

This section provides information about the third parties with whom the council 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 council 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 our 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 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: 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.

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 administrative fee.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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).

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.

International data transfers

We make every effort to ensure that information you provide to us is not transferred to countries which do not have data protection laws equivalent to those in force in the United Kingdom (UK) or European Economic Area (EEA).

Information that we collect may be stored and processed in our secure cloud storage with either Google or Zoho. Our email is stored within data centres situated in the European Union (https://www.zoho.com/mail/gdpr.html). Data stored within Google Cloud may be held in data centres outside the UK or EEA, where it is secured to the same standards as if it were held within the UK or EEA (https://cloud.google.com/terms/cloud-privacy-notice).

Personal information that you submit for publication on the website will be published on the internet and may be available, via the internet, around the world.

Although the web server on which our website is located is situated within the UK, we also use a Content Delivery Network provided by QUIC.cloud (https://quic.cloud/privacy-policy) and so website content may be stored on their edge servers outside the UK. We have selected to serve such content only from their servers situated within the UK or EEA.

When data is transferred between locations on any of these platforms, it is transferred over an encrypted connection.

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.

Website Privacy

The Belstone Parish Council website pages form part of the Belstone website (https://belstonevillage.net). This Privacy Notice should be read in conjunction with the Website Privacy Policy published at: https://belstonevillage.net/privacy-policy/

How we keep your personal data secure

We make every effort to ensure the security of personal data we hold electronically or on paper.

Paper records are held in secure storage in a locked room that is not accessible to the public.

Electronic records and email communications are held within secure cloud storage with either Google (https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_uk/security/) or Zoho (https://www.zoho.com/privacy.html).

Councillors use email accounts and storage provided and managed by the Council for their communications on behalf of the Council.

Where data is held locally on the Parish Clerk or Parish Councillors’ own electronic devices (for example, emails and attached files), such devices are password protected and the data is held in an encrypted state.

Data breach procedures

If we suspect that there has been any unauthorised access to, or disclosure of, the personal data we hold, we will immediately inform anyone who we believe may have been affected.

Where required in the applicable legislation the Information Commissioner will also be notified within 72 hours of the breach being discovered.

Policy amendments

We may update this privacy policy from time-to-time by posting a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are aware of any changes.

Your rights

You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you.

Updating information

Please let us know if the personal information which we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

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:

This Notice was last updated in October 2022.