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Privacy notice

Read Suffolk County Council's corporate privacy notice and find other service specific privacy notices.

Suffolk County Council (SCC) collects and uses personal data to provide and manage services.

We are committed to protecting your privacy. If you have any queries about this notice, please contact the Data Protection Manager:

Constantine House,
5 Constantine Road,
Ipswich 
IP1 2DH

Email: data.protection@suffolk.gov.uk

Personal information

Personal data includes information about living individuals who can be identified from the data we hold about them.  

Our reasons for using personal information include:

  • delivery of services and support to you
  • managing our services
  • training workers
  • investigating complaints about our services
  • monitoring and protecting public spending
  • monitoring the quality of our services to ensure they are delivered in the most efficient and effective way
  • helping us to improve and plan new services
  • complying with laws that require us to provide personal information to other organisations, such as health organisations and courts

We are usually allowed to use your information because we are complying with a specific public task or because the service we are providing is set out in law.

However, there may be circumstances when we need your consent to use your information. We will tell you if that is the case and ask you for your permission before you receive a particular service.

Your rights

You have several rights regarding your personal data. These are:

Access to records

You can ask for copies of information we hold about you.

Correction of inaccurate information

If you think information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete you can ask for this to be corrected.  

Portability

You can ask us to provide any electronic data we may hold about you in a format that allows you to transfer it from one service to another.

The right to erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten)

You can ask for personal information we hold about you to be deleted or removed in some circumstances. For example, where we no longer need to use it.

We will not always be able to agree to the request but in those cases, we may at least be able to restrict the processing.

Objections

You can ask us to stop processing your information for certain purposes, such as direct marketing.   

However, this may delay or prevent us from being able to deliver a service, and we will not always be able to agree to your request, particularly where this relates to our public task functions.

Restrictions

You can ask us to restrict the processing of your data, even though we still hold it.

For example, where you are challenging the accuracy, or where we have to continue hold the data for legal reasons, even though you have objected.

Automated decision making and profiling

You are entitled to protection against damaging decisions being made about you due to automated processes based on digital or other information we hold, and without human intervention, except for some situations where this is authorised by law.

For more information about your rights, please contact data.protection@suffolk.gov.uk.

Security

Suffolk County Council has a range of security controls in place to safeguard the personal data we process, including:

  • encryption of data (and other methods to make personal data not identifiable as it is shared and stored)
  • controls on access by personnel
  • audit and adequate training

How long do we keep your information?

We will only keep your personal data for as long as we need to provide services or fulfil our obligations, and to comply with any legal requirements for keeping certain types of data.

The department providing a service to you will inform you of how long we expect to hold your data.

Who will we share your information with?

We will not sell or give personal information to any other organisation for direct marketing purposes without your consent.

SCC has contracts with some other organisations to help us provide services in certain areas, or to manage information. Those contracts and other arrangements have procedures in place which require the organisations to comply with data protection law, so that the information will only be used to discharge those functions.

SCC will not share your personal information with third parties generally, though there are some situations in which we have a legal duty to do so, which may override your right to confidentiality in that particular circumstance. These include:

  • court proceedings
  • detection and/or prevention of crime or fraud
  • to protect a child
  • to protect a vulnerable adult

We will always aim to share the minimum information that will enable us to fulfil our legal obligation and will try where possible to protect your information by anonymising it. We will keep you informed about what information we have shared and with whom, where we are legally able to do so.

We’ll sometimes share data with third parties to help us, for example, to deliver our services to you. If this happens the department providing the service to you will tell you which organisations your information has been shared with.

Independent advice

If you would like independent advice on this privacy notice or other matters about personal information, including complaints, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at:

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Email: casework@ico.org.uk

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Service specific privacy notices

If you are receiving or using SCC services, you will receive a privacy notice explaining in more detail how the department providing the service will collect, store and handle your data.

Read how specific services collect and use your personal information:

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