Fair Processing Notice (FPN)
Rochdale Borough Council is registered as a ‘data controller’
under the Data Protection Act as we collect and process personal
information about you.
We process and hold information in order to provide public
services. This notice explains how we use and share your
information. Information may be collected on a paper or online
form, by telephone, email, CCTV or by a member of our staff.
Why do we collect information about you?
We may need to collect and hold information about you, in order
to:
- Deliver public services.
- Confirm your identity to provide some services.
- Contact you by post, email or telephone.
- Understand your needs to provide the services that you
request.
- Understand what we can do for you and inform you of other
relevant services and benefits.
- Obtain your opinion about our services.
- Update your customer record.
- Help us to build up a picture of how we are performing at
delivering services to you and what services the people of Rochdale
Borough need.
- Prevent and detect fraud and corruption in the use of public
funds.
- Allow us to undertake statutory functions efficiently and
effectively.
- Make sure we meet our statutory obligations including those
related to diversity and equalities.
We may not be able to provide you with a product or service
unless we have enough information, or your permission to use that
information.
How we use your information
We will use the information you provide in a manner that
conforms to the Data Protection Act. We will endeavour to keep your
information accurate and up to date and not keep it for longer than
is necessary.
We may process your information for the following purposes:
- For the service you requested, and to monitor and improve the
council’s performance in responding to your request.
- To allow us to be able to communicate and provide services and
benefits appropriate to your needs.
- To ensure that we meet our legal obligations.
- Where necessary for law enforcement functions.
- To prevent and detect fraud or crime.
- To process financial transactions including grants, payments
and benefits involving the council, or where we are acting on
behalf of other government bodies, e.g. Department for Work and
Pensions.
- Where necessary to protect individuals from harm or
injury.
- To allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the
provision of services.
We will not pass any personal data on to third parties, other
than those who either process information on our behalf, or because
of a legal requirement, and it will only do so, where possible,
after we have ensured that sufficient steps have been taken to
protect the personal data by the recipient.
We will not disclose any information that you provide ‘in
confidence’ to us, to anyone else without your permission, except
in the few situations where disclosure is required by law, or where
we have good reason to believe that failing to share the
information would put someone else at risk. You will be told about
this.
We only transfer your information overseas in individual cases
and when required, but only with your consent or where we are
obliged to do so by law.
Information sharing
We may need to pass your information to other people and
organisations that provide the service. These providers are obliged
to keep your details securely, and use them only to fulfil your
request. If we need to pass your sensitive or confidential
information onto a third party, we will only do so once we have
obtained your consent, unless we are legally required to do so.
We may disclose information to other partners of the council
where it is necessary, either to comply with a legal obligation, or
where permitted under the Data Protection Act, e.g. where the
disclosure is necessary for the purposes of the prevention and/or
detection of crime.
Where we need to disclose sensitive or confidential information
to other partners of the council, we will do so only with your
prior explicit consent or where we are legally required to.
We may disclose information when necessary to prevent risk of
harm to an individual.
At no time will your information be passed to organisations
external to Rochdale Borough Council for marketing or sales
purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express
consent.
Improving customer records
We are working to make our record keeping more efficient and to
be able to provide relevant services more quickly across Rochdale
Borough Council.
Your basic customer record typically comprises of your name,
address, date of birth, gender, contact details (telephone/email),
information which can be used to confirm your identity, a brief
summary of your contact with the council, an indicator of the
services used, and a unique reference number. This will not contain
extensive details of the services you have received. However, this
will also act as an index to other council systems, and be able to
feed information into them, e.g. so you can tell us once of changes
to your address and contact information.
Detect and prevent fraud or crime
Rochdale Borough Council is required by law to protect the
public funds it administers. We may use any of the information you
provide to us for the prevention and detection of fraud. We may
also share this information with other bodies that are responsible
for auditing or administering public funds including the Audit
Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions, and other local
authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police.
In addition to undertaking our own data matching to identify
errors and potential frauds, we are required to take part in
national data matching exercises undertaken by the Audit
Commission. Data matching involves comparing computer records held
by one body against other computer records held by the same or
another body to see how far they match. This is usually personal
information. Computerised data matching allows potentially
fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is
found it indicates that there is an inconsistency that requires
further investigation. No assumption can be made as to whether
there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation
is carried out.
The Audit Commission currently requires us to participate in a
data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of
fraud usually once every two years. We are required to provide
particular sets of data to the Audit Commission for matching for
each exercise, and these are set out in the Audit Commission’s
guidance, which can be found at Audit Commission - National Fraud
Initiative.
The use of data by the Audit Commission in a data matching
exercise is carried out under its powers in Part 2A of the Audit
Commission Act 1998. It does not require the consent of the
individuals concerned.
In limited situations we may monitor and record electronic
transactions (website, email and telephone conversations). This
will only be used to prevent or detect a crime, or investigate or
detect the unauthorised use of the telecommunications system and
only as permitted by the Telecommunications (Lawful Business
Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000.
Emergency response management
Data matching may also be used to assist the council in
responding to emergencies or major accidents, by allowing the
council, in conjunction with the emergency services, to identify
individuals who may need additional support in the event of e.g. an
emergency evacuation.
Telephone calls
Ordinarily we will inform you if we record or monitor any
telephone calls you make to us. This will be used, to increase your
security, for our record keeping of the transaction and for our
staff training purposes.
Emails
If you email us we may keep a record of your contact and your
email address and the email for our record keeping of the
transaction. For security reasons we will not include any
confidential information about you in any email we send to you. We
would also suggest that you keep the amount of confidential
information you send to us via email to a minimum and use our
secure online services or by post.
Using our website
Details about how we deal with information from users of this
website is included in our terms and conditions section of this
site.
CCTV
We have installed CCTV systems in some of our locations used by
members of the public, for the purposes of public/staff safety and
crime prevention/detection. In all locations, signs are displayed
notifying you that CCTV is in operation and providing details of
who to contact for further information about the scheme.
We will only disclose CCTV images to others who intend to use
the images for the purposes stated above. CCTV images will not be
released to the media for entertainment purposes or placed on the
internet.
Images captured by CCTV will not be kept for longer than
necessary. However, on occasions there may be a need to keep images
for longer, for example where a crime is being investigated.
You have the right to see CCTV images of yourself and be
provided with a copy of the images.
How we protect your information
Our aim is not to be intrusive, and we won't ask irrelevant or
unnecessary questions. The information you provide will be subject
to rigorous measures and procedures to make sure it can't be seen,
accessed or disclosed to anyone who shouldn't see it.
We have a set of information security policies, provide training
to staff who handle personal information and treat it as a
disciplinary matter if they misuse or do not look after your
personal information properly.
We will not keep your information longer than it is needed or
where the law states how long this should be kept
We will dispose of paper records or delete any electronic
personal information in a secure way.
Your rights
You have the right to request that Rochdale Borough Council stop
processing your personal data in relation to any council service.
However, this may cause delays or prevent us delivering a service
to you. Where possible we will seek to comply with your request but
we may be required to hold or process information to comply with a
legal requirement.
You are legally entitled to request access to any information
about you that we hold, and a copy.
We try to ensure that any information we hold about you is
correct. There may be situations where you find the information we
hold is no longer accurate and you have the right to have this
corrected.
Please contact the service holding the information or our
Customer Services Centre to exercise any of these rights, or if you
have a complaint about how your information has been used.
Further information
If you would like to know more please contact us. This notice
can be made available in a different format i.e. large print, audio
or a language other than English from any Customer Service Centre
of Rochdale Borough Council or:
Telephone: 01706 925505 or
Email: foi@rochdale.gov.uk
Changes to this Fair Processing Notice
This Fair Processing Notice is valid from September 2010
onwards. However, we will periodically review and update it to
reflect changes in our services and feedback from service users, as
well as to comply with changes in the law.