Personal data can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when put together with other information can then identify a person. For example, this could be your name and contact details.

Some information is ‘special’ and needs more protection due to its sensitivity. It is often information you would not want widely known and is very personal to you. This is likely to include anything that can reveal your: 

• sexuality and sexual health

• religious or philosophical beliefs

• ethnicity

• physical or mental health

• trade union membership

• political opinion

• genetic/biometric data

We may need to use some information about you to: 

• deliver services to you;

• manage those services we provide to you;

• train and manage the employment of our workers who deliver those services;

• help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services;

• keep track of spending on services;

• check the quality of services; and

• to help with research and planning of new services

There are a number of legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information.
 
The privacy notices for individual services explain which legal reason is being used.  Generally we collect and use personal information where: 

• you, or your legal representative, have given consent

• you have entered into a contract with us

• it is necessary to perform our statutory duties

• it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency

• it is required by law

• it is necessary for employment purposes

• you have made your information publicly available

• it is necessary for legal cases

• it is to the benefit of society as a whole

• it is necessary to protect public health

• it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes

If we have consent to use your personal information, you have the right to remove it at any time. If you want to remove your consent, please contact the Data Protection Officer at DPO@antrimandnewtownabbey.gov.uk and tell us which service you’re using so we can deal with your request.

Where we can, we will only collect and use personal information if we need it to deliver a service or meet a requirement. 
  
If we don’t need personal information we will either keep you anonymous or we won’t ask you for it. For example in a survey we may not need your contact details and we will only collect your survey responses.
 
If we use your personal information for research and analysis, we will always keep you anonymous or use a different name unless you’ve agreed that your personal information can be used for that research.
 
We don’t sell your personal information to anyone else.  

The law gives you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us. 

You have the right to ask for all the information we have about you – this is called a Subject Access Request (SAR).  When we receive a request from you in writing, we must give you access to everything we’ve recorded about you. 

However, we can’t let you see any parts of your record which contain:  

Confidential information about other people; or
Data a professional thinks will cause serious harm to your or someone else’s physical or mental wellbeing; or
If we think that giving you the information may stop us from preventing or detecting a crime

This applies to personal information that is in both paper and electronic records. If you ask us, we will also let others see your record (except if one of the points above applies). 
 
If you wish to make a Subject Access Request please complete and return this form.

You should let us know if you disagree with information we hold about you.
 
We may not always be able to change or remove that information but we will correct factual inaccuracies and may include your comments in the record to show that you disagree with it.  

In some circumstances you can ask for your personal information to be deleted, for example:  

• Where your personal information is no longer needed for the reason why it was collected in the first place

• Where you have removed your consent for us to use your information (where there is no other legal reason us to use it)

• Where there is no legal reason for the use of your information

• Where deleting the information is a legal requirement

• Where your personal information has been shared with others, we will do what we can to make sure those using your personal information comply with your request for erasure.

 
Please note that we can’t delete your information where:  

• we are required to have it by law

• it is used for freedom of expression 

• it is used for public health purposes

• it is for, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes where it would make information unusable

• it is necessary for legal claims 

You have the right to ask us to restrict what we use your personal information for where: 

• you have identified inaccurate information, and have told us about it

• where we have no legal reason to use that information but you want us to restrict what we use it for rather than erase the information altogether 

When information is restricted it can’t be used other than to securely store the data and with your consent to handle legal claims and protect others, or where it is for important public interests of the UK.
 
Where restriction of use has been granted, we will inform you before we carry on using your personal information.
 
You have the right to ask us to stop using your personal information for any council service. However, if this request is approved this may cause delays or prevent us delivering that service. 
 
Where possible we will seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or use information because we are required to by law.

You have the right to ask for your personal information to be given back to you or another service provider of your choice in a commonly used format. This is called data portability.
 
However this only applies if we are using your personal information with consent (not if we are required to by law) and if decisions were made by a computer and not a human being. 
 
It is likely that data portability won’t apply to most of the services you receive from the Council. 

You can ask to have any computer made decisions explained to you, and details of how we may have ‘risk profiled’ you.
 
You have the right to question decisions made about you by a computer, unless it is required for any contract you have entered into, required by law, or you’ve consented to it. 
 
You also have the right to object if you are being ‘profiled’.  Profiling is where decisions are made about you based on certain things in your personal information, e.g. your health conditions. 
 
If and when the Council uses your personal information to profile you, in order to deliver the most appropriate service to you, you will be informed. 
 
If you have concerns regarding automated decision making, or profiling, please contact the Data Protection Officer who’ll be able to advise you about how we are using your information.  

We use a range of organisations to either process personal information or help deliver our services to you. Where we have these arrangements there is always an agreement in in place to make sure that the organisation complies with data protection law. 
 
We may complete a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) before we share personal information to make sure we protect your privacy and comply with the law.
 
Sometimes we have a legal duty to provide personal information to other organisations.  We may also share your personal information when we feel there is a good reason that’s more important than protecting your privacy. This doesn’t happen often, but we may share your information in order to find and stop crime and fraud or if there are serious risks to the public, our staff or others.  For all of these reasons the risk must be serious before we can override your right to privacy. 
 
If we are worried about your physical safety or feel we need to take action to protect you from being harmed in other ways, we will discuss this with you and, if possible, get your permission to tell others about your situation before doing so. 
 
We may still share your information if we believe the risk to others is serious enough to do so.  There may also be rare occasions when the risk to others is so great that we need to share information straight away. 

We will do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we will only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Examples of our security include: 

• Controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it

• Training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong

• Regular testing of our technology and ways of working including keeping up to date on the latest security updates (commonly called patches)

• Encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password). This is done with a secret code or what’s called a ‘cypher’. The hidden information is said to then be ‘encrypted’

• Pseudonymisation, meaning that we will use a different name so we can hide parts of your personal information from view. This means that someone outside of the Council could work on your information for us without ever knowing it was yours

The majority of personal information is stored on systems in the UK but there are some occasions where your information may leave the UK either in order to get to another organisation or if it is stored in a system outside of the EU. Any transfers made will be in full compliance with all aspects of Data Protection legislation.

There is often a legal reason for keeping your personal information for a set period of time, we try to include all of these in our retention and disposal schedule
 
For each service the schedule lists how long your information may be kept for. 

If you have any worries or questions about how your personal information is handled please contact our Data Protection Officer, at DPO@antrimandnewtownabbey.gov.uk or by calling 028 9446 3113 
 
For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at:
 
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House 
Water Lane 
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
 
Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number.
 
Alternatively, visit ico.org.uk or email casework@ico.org.uk.