Privacy notices and cookies

Personal information: This can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person, for example, name and address. 

'Special category' information: Some types of information about you are more special and need further protection, as they are sensitive. These are called special category information:

• Political or philosophical beliefs 
• Sex-life and sexuality
• Health
• Ethnicity
• Trade union membership
• Genetic or biometric data (fingerprints or facial      recognition technology)
• Criminal records

We need to use information about you in order to:

• Offer you services and support  
• Manage services
• Help investigate complaints 
• Check the quality of services 
• Ensure that expenditure is appropriate 
• Help research and plan new services 

There are a number of legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information.

We will tell you the reason when we are collecting this information from you.  Usually, we will do that where:

• you have given your permission
• you have a contract with us
• it is necessary so that we can carry out our statutory duties
• it is necessary in order to protect someone in an emergency
• the law says that it must be done
• it is necessary for employment reasons
• It is necessary in order to provide health or social care services
• you have already made your information public
• it is necessary for legal cases
• it is necessary in the interest of society
• it is necessary to protect public health
• it is necessary for the purposes of archiving, research or statistical purposes.

Where we rely on your consent to use your information, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time.  Contact the Council's Data Protection Officer if you wish to remove your consent (contact details on bottom of page).

Where possible, we will only collect and use personal information if it is needed to provide a service or respond to a request. 

The law gives you a number of rights:

Asking for information about yourself 

You have the right to ask for all the information that we have about you. 

However, we cannot give you information if the record includes:

• Confidential information about other people; or
• Information that a professional believes would cause serious harm to the physical or mental welfare of yourself or someone else; or
• If providing the information would prevent us from preventing or solving a crime

Request information about yourself 

Up to one month is allowed to respond to requests; however, this could be extended by up to a further two months if the application is bulky or complex.

Asking us to correct information that you believe is incorrect

You should inform us if you believe that information about you is incorrect.

It may be possible that we will be unable to change or delete the information on every occasion but we will correct anything that is factually incorrect. 

Up to one month is allowed to respond to requests; however, this could be extended by up to a further two months if the application is bulky or complex.

Ask us to delete information (right to be forgotten)

You may ask us to delete your information where there is no good reason for us to continue to hold on to it, for example:

• Where your personal information is no longer needed
• Where you have withdrawn your consent
• Where your information has been used illegally
• Where there is a legal requirement to delete the information  
• Where you have objected to the processing of your information
• Where data has been collected as part of an on-line service for children (uploading an app or social media)

We cannot delete your information where:

• The law states that we must keep it
• It is used for freedom of expression  
• It is used for public health purposes in the public’s interest
• It is used for research or statistical purposes 
• It is necessary for legal claims.

Asking us to restrict the use made of your personal information 

You have the right to ask for this where:

• You have found that information about you is incorrect and you have informed us
• You have objected to processing and we need time to determine whether our basis outweigh the rights of the individual 
• We do not have a legal right to use the information but you wish us to restrict the use rather than delete it completely 
• We do not have any reason to retain it but you need it to establish, execute or defend a legal claim 
• Up to one month is allowed to respond to requests; however, this could be extended by up to a further two months if the application is bulky or complex.

Asking us to move your information to another provider (data portability)

You have the right to ask for your personal information in a common format or for it to be given to another service provider.

However, this can only happen if:

• We use your information with your permission or through a contract
• The processing is done automatically (by a computer)

It is unlikely that data portability will apply to most of the Council's services.

Objecting to the processing of information 

You have the right to object under the following circumstances:

• We have processed your information on the basis of legal interests or an official public/authority task;
• Where there is public marketing;
• For processing due to research or statistics

We will comply with the request unless:

• There are strong, legal reasons for processing 
• There is a need to establish, execute or defend legal claims.

Claims in relation to automated decisions and profiling  

You have the right to ask for an explanation about any decisions made by a computer (i.e. decisions without any intervention by an individual).

You can query any decisions made by a computer about you, unless this needs to be done for a contract, there is a legal requirement, or you have given your permission for this to happen.

It is also possible for you to object to any 'profiling', namely when decisions are made about you that are based on your personal information, e.g. health condition.  

We will inform you if we use your personal information to profile you. 

We share your information with a large number of external organisations so that we can provide a service to you. 

We will provide details about these organisations when we collect the information from you. 

Sometimes, we have a legal duty to share information with others, e.g. the courts, DWP and HMRC. We may also share information with external bodies for the purpose of detecting and preventing fraud, for example, the National Fraud Initiative.

It should be noted that we will also collect and share information with the Auditor General Wales in connection with his audit work and studies. In terms of joint working, the data sharing may take place pursuant to the duty at Section 33 of the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009.

We will also share information if it is felt that there are specific risks to the public or staff or in order to safeguard children or vulnerable adults. 

We have signed the Wales Accord on the Sharing of Personal Information WASPI, namely a set of consistent standards for the sharing of information about users across the public, private and third sectors in Wales.  

Therefore, in some cases, there will be a specific protocol for the sharing of information under the Wales framework.  The agreement between all partners will explain which information is shared, when, how and with whom. 

How do we protect your information?

We take specific steps to protect your records, whether paper or electronic records.

This is done, for example, by ensuring that access to information on systems is managed so that it is only available to the people who need to know, that information is transferred using appropriate methods (use of encryption), and by training staff. 

How long do we keep your information?

This will vary from service to service.  We have a retention schedule which states the length of time for which different types of records should be kept.

View privacy notices for Gwynedd Council's services

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