Privacy

Surrey Heath Borough Council Revenues and Benefits department processes and stores personal information about you in order to administer and enforce Council Tax, Business Rates and Collectively Camberley Business Improvement Levy. We also need your personal information so that we can assess your eligibility for benefits, grants or support payments that you may be eligible for, or to calculate the amount of any housing benefit and/or Local Council Tax Support that you may be entitled to.

What information do we collect from you?

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together follows:

• Identity data; includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, nationality, date of birth, gender, national insurance number, details of who else lives with you.
• Special Category data; includes Allowances and benefits, savings and investments, income and capital, bank details, immigration status, health data
• Communications data; includes your communications with us and our third parties including registration of services, emails, forms submitted, telephone conversations, complaints and compliments.

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Special Category Data by filling in forms on paper or online via the SHBC and associated website or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

• apply for our products or services including grants and benefits;
• subscribe to our service;
• give us some feedback
• to register you as a new customer
• To respond to queries or complaints
• Manage your Council tax account using the Citizens Access portal

Via third parties, including Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), HM Revenues and Customs (HMRC), Valuation Office Agency from your landlord on the amount of rent charged and any other information required to process an application for any type of benefit, grant or support payment.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we may use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please email data.protection@surreyheath.gov.uk(link sends email) if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Who we will share your data with?

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above.

• Specific third parties including; DWP, HMRC, VOA, Landlords, other Local Authorities, Government Departments, the Police when carrying out criminal investigation and other agencies that handle public funds and process benefits
• Internal departments of the Council to complete our statutory requirements including enforcement agents to undertake investigations, Housing to assist with housing and homelessness applications and claims and Electoral Services to ensure our residents retain their right to vote.

Where we do share your information we will only do so where we have your consent or where we are required to do so under additional legal requirements for example enforcing Council Tax under the Local Government Finance Act 1992, the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 and the Social Security Administration Act 1992.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.  We will only ever share the minimum information.

Transferring data outside of the EEA

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

How we handle data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

How we handle data breaches

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will we retain your information for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

What are my rights with regards to data?

Please see the Your Legal Rights section of the main Privacy Notice.