Introduction
We respect your privacy and understand that privacy is important to you and that you care about how information about you is used, so this privacy notice sets out details about what data we collect and how we use it.
About us
Vale of Allen Group Parish Council is situated in East Dorset and includes the six parishes of Gussage All Saints, Gussage St Michael, Hinton Martell, Hinton Parva & Stanbridge, Long Crichel, Moor Crichel and Witchampton. We only process data in the context of our Parish Council obligations and duties.
How to contact us
If you have any questions about how we collect and use your information not covered in this privacy notice, or if you wish to speak to someone about our approach to data protection and privacy, please contact the Parish Clerk via e-mail: voapc@outlook.com.
Data we collect and process
Visitors to our website
Where we collect personal data via our website, we will be upfront about it and it will be obvious to you that you’re providing personal data and how we will be using it.
Cookies
Our website does not use cookies.
If you opt to receive email updates from our website
It is possible for website visitors to “Subscribe via Email” and receive notices via email of new posts added to the website. This functionality is provided by our website software, WordPress. Your email address is only used to send you an email every time a new post appears on the website. It is not used for any other purpose by the Parish Council or WordPress.
If you use the website contact form
If you fill out our website contact form (http://valeofallen-pc.gov.uk/contact-the-parish-council) a notification email is sent to the Parish Clerk to respond. No copy of the data you submit is stored anywhere within the website and will remain within the Parish Clerk’s email system (depending on what the contact relates to). However, you should note that as our site does not use SSL (https) the data you submit using the contact form will not be encrypted once you press the “Submit” button.
General correspondence
If you contact us via the Parish Clerk or a Parish Councillor (by email, phone or the website form), any personal data provided will be processed for the purposes of your contact.
If you contact the Parish Clerk via email
If you send us an email via the Parish Clerk your email will be processed via the Clerk’s email program. General correspondence will be processed according to the type of correspondence and will be retained for up to 3 years.
If you contact a Councillor via email
Your correspondence will be processed via the Councillor’s email program. Depending on the nature of the correspondence it may be passed to the Clerk to respond, or the Councillor will respond directly (possibly copying in other Councillors and the Clerk). The Councillor will process and retain the email correspondence via their email program and retain the correspondence in line with Parish Council policies.
If you contact the Parish Clerk via telephone
The nature of your phone call will determine whether it needs to be recorded or shared with the Councillors. Notes or a record of your call will be retained, where appropriate to do so.
Making a complaint
If you contact us to make a complaint, details of your complaint, your name and contact details (email, phone, address as appropriate) will be recorded in our Complaints Register. This enables us to keep track of the complaint.
We process complaint information purely for dealing with the complaint in line with our legal obligation to deal with Council relate complaints. We rely on the lawful basis of public task (i.e. to deliver the general services and expectations of a Parish Council).
We keep complaints data for up to 6 years after the complaint.
Councillors’ data
The Parish Clerk retains contact details (name, email, phone) and other official information (e.g. notices of interests) about Councillors for as long as the Councillor is in position on the Council. It is a legal obligation for us to process this information.
Employee data
We only employ one person, the Parish Clerk. We process the Parish Clerk’s name, address, contact details, bank details, contract, salary and pension details to allow us to perform our contract with the employee, and to enable us to comply with our legal obligations as an employer.
Information related to burials
We maintain name, address and signature information relating to the holders of burial rights. We are legal obliged to retain this data in perpetuity.
If you are a local club or society
If you provide us with details of your local club or society, we will maintain this information for as long as it is current and for the purposes of providing the information to our Parishioners. This may be via our website, our noticeboards or during general discussion at Parish Council meetings. You will have provided us with the information for a specific purpose and we will only use the data for that purpose.
If you receive a Parish Council grant
If you apply for a grant, your name, contact details, grant application and bank details will be processed for the purposes of providing you with the funding, but also to retain a record of our grants for legal and local council purposes. Information about your grant application and grants provided will be kept for up to six years (plus the current year).
Supplier or contractor data
If you provide services to the Council, we will maintain a record of your name, contact details and bank details for the purposes of entering into a contract with you and to process payment, where required. This information is kept for up to six years, from when the work or services were provided for legal and accountancy purposes.
The Parish Clerk may also retain your contact details within their email application or via business cards that you may provide to us.
Other data we may process
We may also process your data collected from other sources, such as the Electoral Register and planning information. Where we do so we will only process this information for the specific purpose it is required
Electoral Register information is used for the purposes of delivering our services and for compliance with a legal obligation.
Planning information is processed for the purposes of carrying out our duties, as a Parish Council as part of consultation with the local council and to consider planning applications.
Retention of personal data
Unless stated elsewhere in this document or in our terms of services we only store the data necessary to provide the services we provide to you. We will keep this data for as long as it is lawful for us to do so (this may be for as long as you are a customer or because of a legal obligation to retain the information, whichever is the longest).
Third party processors
We use a number of third-party cloud-based services for the purposes of effectively running the Council and providing our services. We also use a number of third-party organisations, e.g. accountants, HR support, etc. where required.
In all cases where we are using a third-party service or company, we will only provide the minimal amount of information for the purposes of delivering the service to us and to meet our requirements.
Where required we will always carry out due diligence against a third-party suppliers for the purposes of ensuring their compliance with data protection, maintaining adequate security of your data and ensuring they apply adequate data protection principles to the processing of the data we supply. We also make sure a legally binding contract (sometimes called a Data Processing Agreement or DPA) is also in place to protect your data.
Your rights
Under current data protection legislation in the UK, you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the data we store and process about you. You can find more information about your rights on the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/
If you would like to exercise your rights, or if you have any questions, please use the following contact details: voapc@outlook.com.
How to withdraw consent and object to processing
Where we are processing your data and needed to ask your permission to do so, you are able to withdraw your consent at any time. If you wish to stop receiving our email updates you can do so, by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email or logging into your WordPress account.
You should also contact us, if you wish to raise concerns about the way we are processing your data or would like to raise an objection to the processing.
Keeping your data up to date
It is important that any of your data that we process is kept up to date. If you wish to update any information we hold about you, please contact us with your updated details.
Erasure of your data (the “right to be forgotten”)
Under some circumstances you may request us to delete your data from our systems. Where this is possible (e.g. we don’t have any legal purpose for continuing to process your data) we will erase it from our systems. If it’s not possible for us to delete your data, we will explain the reasons why.
Portability
Your right to portability allows you to request a machine-readable format of the data you supplied to us and associated service logs (where we store them).
Access to your data (a so-called Data Subject Access Request)
You have the right to ask us about what data we hold about you, how we process it and to ask us to provide you with a copy of the information, free of charge and within one calendar month of your request.
To make a request for any personal information we hold and process about you, we would prefer it if you could put it in writing or in an email to the addresses above. We will need to verify your identity before providing the information and where necessary may contact you further to ensure we understand what data you are requesting.
Sharing your information
We may be required by law or for other reasons to share your personal data with third-party organisations. This will typically to meet our duties and obligations to report to Dorset Council.
Complaints
If you feel this privacy notice does not go far enough in explaining how we have used your personal data, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to voapc@outlook.com.
If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, we’d rather you brought it to us in the first instance, but of course you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in their capacity as the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK – https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
More information
For more information about your data rights and privacy or data protection in general visit the Information Commissioner’s Office website: https://ico.org.uk
Changes to our privacy notice
We may change or update elements of this privacy notice from time to time or as required by law. The most current version of our privacy notice is available on our website at http://valeofallen-pc.gov.uk/vale-of-allen-parish-council-privacy-notice