Requesting personal data

We collect, hold and use personal data about people and organisations we work with to help us deliver services and support you.

This may include members of the public, current, past and prospective employees, clients, customers, contractors, partners and suppliers.

We may also be required to collect and use personal data to comply with our statutory obligations.

You have rights over your personal data as set out in the UK GDPR. These include:

• Article 14 - your right to be informed
• Article 15 - you can ask for access to the information we hold on you (right to see) - also known as subject access requests (SAR)
• Article 16 - you can ask to change information you think is inaccurate
• Article 17 – under certain circumstances you can ask for data to be deleted (right to erasure) (also known as the right to be forgotten)
• Article 18 – under certain circumstances you can ask us to restrict how we process your personal data
• Article 20 – where your data is being processed by automatic means you can request for the personal data you have provided be transmitted to another data controller in a structured commonly used way (data portability)
• Article 21 - your right to object where the Council cannot demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for processing
• Article 22 - your rights around automated decisions and profiling (if such process is being carried out)

Further information about these rights (including some restrictions such as those relating to portability in paragraph 3 of Article 19) can be found within the relevant listed UK GDPR Article and the Information Commissioners guidance on the ICO website.

Requests for information under subject access can be made in any way; however, we may request additional information to verify your identity.

An individual, their authorised representative or with power of attorney can request any or all of the following as part of their SAR:

• whether any personal data is being processed by the council
• to be given a description of the personal data, the reasons it is being processed, and whether the data is shared with any other organisations or people
• to be given a copy of the personal data, unless an exemption applies
• to be given details of the source of the data (where this is available)

When making a request we need you to provide the following information to help us fulfil your request quickly:

• try to be specific. Is your request in relation to information about complaints, your benefits records, or other services? If under the ‘right to see’ you ask for access to all your information, this could include calls you have made to us about missed bins, for example, and, while we are happy to provide this, it may not be what you need and may take longer than necessary for both the council and customer. Please include any account or reference numbers
• provide a date range for ‘right to see’ requests (is the information you want from the last year, five years or between specific points in time?)
• try to include any relevant previous names when making a rights request

Not all requests will be acknowledged. However, all requests made by email and online form will received an automated acknowledgement.

Unless clarification is required you will not normally hear back from us until the information you have requested is released. You will receive a response within one calendar month unless the request is complex in which case an extension will be agreed between ourselves and the customer.

In addition to individuals' rights around requesting personal data, organisations that have a crime prevention, tax collection, law enforcement or litigation function may require personal information held by the council to prevent or detect a crime, or apprehend or prosecute an offender, or for taxation/ benefit purposes.

These organisations (who must be registered with the ICO), can submit an external request for exempt personal data and return to [email protected].

More information can be found in the Access to Information Policy on our policies page.

Last updated 15 March 2024