Shorne Parish Council and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- Your personal data – what is it?
Personal data is information and documentation relating to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone, or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. The processing of personal data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”).
For the most part, the data held by Shorne Parish Council is restricted to public information, such as names and addresses of adult residents within the parish, or the names and addresses of business or property owners within the parish. This level of information is not confidential, as it is publicly available from the Electoral Roll, Companies House, Planning Applications, or from the Land Registry.
- How do we process your personal data?
Shorne Parish Council complies with its obligations as the data controller under the “GDPR” by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure; by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data; by keeping personal data up to date; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; and by securely deleting or destroying it when it is no longer needed.
We use your personal data for the following purposes: –
- To fulfil our statutory duties and powers as a local authority;
- To maintain our accounts and records;
- To respond to enquiries from parishioners;
- To communicate with parishioners and volunteers;
- To inform you of news, events, and activities affecting the parish.
- What is the lawful basis for processing your personal data?
The lawful basis for holding this information is to enable the Parish Council to carry out its public task as part of its local government statutory duties and powers.
Where parishioners have made contact with the Parish Council, by telephone, email, or other means of correspondence, we may also hold their telephone numbers and/or email addresses. This information has been freely provided by the parishioner, and is used purely for communication purposes.
Parishioners may have also contacted the Parish Council to express an interest in supporting the community, such as in delivering leaflets or Annual Reports, or participating in voluntary litter patrols and other activities. Contact details of these individuals may be kept on separate database groups as a legitimate interest so that they may be informed of activities which they have expressed an interest in or have participated in the past. When contacting these parishioners, action will be taken to ‘blind copy’ or otherwise withhold their contact details from other members of the group.
- How do we secure your personal data?
All electronic information, correspondence and databases held by Shorne Parish Council shall be securely password-protected, and protected by reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Hard copies shall be securely filed and protected from unauthorised access. Personal data including correspondence from parishioners to Shorne Parish Council shall remain confidential at all times and shall not be divulged or shared with other parties without the express permission of the parishioner.
- How long do we keep your personal data?
We retain and dispose of your personal data in accordance with our retention policy.
Specifically, we retain electoral roll data while it is still current; financial records for up to 6 years after the calendar year to which they relate; and parish council minutes permanently.
Correspondence shall be retained only as long as is absolutely necessary, and shall in any event be deleted or destroyed by shredding after a period not exceeding two years following the resolution of the complaint or enquiry, unless it is considered likely that the matter may be referred to again.
- Your rights and your personal data
Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data: –
- The right to request a copy of any personal data held by the Parish Council;
- The right to request that the Parish Council corrects any personal data that is found to be inaccurate or out of date;
- The right to request your personal data, such as correspondence, telephone numbers, and email addresses, is erased where it is no longer necessary for the Parish Council to retain such data; (this does not apply to public information, or information necessary to enable the Parish Council to fulfil its duty and public tasks as a local government organisation);
- The right to be removed from any communication databases at any time;
- The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing;
- The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office.
- Contact Details
To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints, please in the first instance contact:
The Clerk
Shorne Parish Council
c/o Shorne Village Hall
The Street
Gravesend
Kent DA12 3EA
Email: clerk@shorneparishcouncil.org
Tel: 01474 526332
You can contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email to https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or by writing to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF.