Privacy: Community services

This privacy notice is designed to help you understand how we use personal information when delivering our community services. We have set out below the service types, the information we may use to deliver the services, who we may share it with, and how long we will keep it.

What services are covered by this privacy notice?

Active Essex

Exists to make sport and physical activity happen for you. You may sign up to our Ambassador Programme, or use our activity finder, or receive our newsletter.

Births and Deaths registrations

Maintains the public registers.

Citizenship ceremonies

Provides the opportunity take a citizenship oath and pledge to formalise registration as a British citizen.

Civil Partnership registrations

Maintains the public register and conducts ceremonies.

Community Link

Provides transport services for adult social care, special education needs children, local bus passengers and mainstream school children.

Coroner Service

Investigates deaths that appear to be sudden and of an unknown cause, unnatural or due to violence or occur in legal custody.

Communications and marketing

• Use of digital images: the provision of digital images to the council to support marketing and communications campaigns
• Use of Notify/GovDelivery: enables the council to provide newsletter/ blog updates on various council services
• Use of One News: enables the council to provide news/blog updates and response alerts to employees on employment information and various council services and achievements
• Use of employee communications: informs employees of and advertising the work done for the council and promotes activities whether related or unrelated to the employee’s role for the council

Culture, Heritage and Green Spaces

The service plays a fundamental role in enabling creative and heritage activities across the county. It brings together a unique and broad range of exciting services, facilities and events for the benefit of individuals and communities in Essex. This helps residents to understand and appreciate Essex’s history, heritage, coast and countryside. The service uses personal information for the purposes of its grants schemes, country parks data and bulletins and photo permissions associated with the Explore Essex function.

Customer experience, corporate complaints and statutory complaints

Supports general enquiries, comments and compliments, including ombudsman complaints.

Digital Triaging Tool

Enables residents to present with a need around the access to and affordability of technology/connectivity and the digital skills required to interact with the online world fully and to have that need addressed through signposted, location based support and initiatives.

Essex Opportunities

Essex Opportunities assists in training, CV writing, volunteering and job placements for residents in Essex.

Emergency Planning

Activities aimed at addressing the needs, including aftercare, of people affected by emergencies; for example large industrial accidents, aviation incidents, widespread flooding and terrorist attacks.

Essex Pedal Power

Community cycle project aimed at reducing inequalities, getting residents more active and improving cycle routes.

Essex Countywide Traveller Unit

Supports Gypsies and Travellers to access services, manage unauthorised encampments on Essex County Council, Highways and Essex Countywide Traveller Unit Partner land. In addition, we manage ECC’s 11 owned and 1 leased local authority residential sites for Gypsies and Travellers.

Essex Record Office

Essex Record Office collects and stores historical information in the form of written documents, digital files, audio and video recordings and analogue and digital photographs about the County of Essex, Borough of Southend and Borough of Thurrock.

The information collected and stored will include personal data and special category personal data.

Essex Record Office makes this information available to researchers visiting the Essex Record Office Searchroom, and in some cases, makes the information available online through the Essex Archives Online website.

Most collections are indexed and listed on Essex Archives Online. Our collections are made available to the public with due regard to the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985, Freedom of Information Act 2000, Environmental Information Regulations 2004, General Data Protection Regulation 2016 and the Data Protection Act 2018. Some documents however will be unavailable to the public if containing information of a sensitive nature or containing personal data about identifiable living individuals as defined in the General Data Protection Regulation 2016.

Essex Record Office is an institutional member of the Archives and Records Association (UK and Ireland), and therefore abides by their code of ethics when carrying out its activities. Essex Record Office is an appointed place of deposit for Public Records under Section 4 (1) of the Public Records Act 1958, a place of deposit for records of manorial courts and their administration under Section 144A (4) of the Law of Property Act 1922, a place of deposit for tithe records under Section 36 (2) of the Tithe Act 1936, and the appointed Diocesan Record Office for the Diocese of Chelmsford made under Section 7 (3) of the Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1978

We have obligations to allow for the inspection and copying of and to prepare indexes and guides to local government records under Section 1 (1) of the Local Government Act 1962 and have the power to acquire records of local significance under the same.

We are also responsible for putting into practice sections 224 to 229 of the Local Government Act 1972 in respect of the proper arrangements for the custody and inspection of local government records and therefore follow the guidance set out by Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) in 1999.

Health and safety

Provides advice on health and safety management to comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act and all subordinate regulations.

HGV Driver Training Programme for Essex Residents 

Provides training for people in Essex to help them learn new skills and find employment. 

Library services

Provides a county-wide library service, including requests for items we do not stock, ready and overdue notifications, Home Library service, book groups, Summer Reading Challenge and Library Ambassadors.

Library Volunteer service (Not requiring a Disclosure and Barring service check (DBS))

Supports library volunteers to help deliver the county-wide library service.

Library Volunteer service (Requiring a DBS)

Supports library volunteers to help deliver the county-wide library service.

Love Essex Champions

Volunteering opportunities to assist with this project to promote the environmental ambitions of the council.

Marriage notices and registrations

Supports our statutory obligations to register and conduct marriages, and associated licensing.

Petitions

Offers the chance to sign petitions regarding changes which affect you.

Public and guest wifi

Provides public and guest wifi access to visitors to Essex County Council buildings.

Public Health services

Commissions services to improve the health and wellbeing of citizens.

Research into health and wellbeing

Researches into health, wellbeing, lifestyle and social circumstances of children, young people, adults and families in Essex.

Research and Citizen Insight team

Supports and delivers primary and secondary research and intelligence across all business functions of the council. This includes, but is not limited to:

• gathering 'citizen insight' to better understand citizens' needs, behaviours, attitudes and 'lived experiences'
• market research about existing or new traded services population health intelligence and organisational performance
• oversight of online open data and consultation platforms, including public consultations and engagement
• advice and procurement of research services from specialist external providers

Service Design

Develops user-centred services for the residents and businesses of Essex, supporting the council’s digital ambitions.

Superfast Broadband

Manages the requests for broadband provision with network operators and uses this, together with other information, to inform future infrastructure rollout plans, giving customers the option to receive a regular newsletter.

Superfast Broadband champions

Manages the requests from residents and parish council representatives to become Broadband Champions, which are registered voluntary community ambassadors for the Superfast Essex programme.

Tourism

Supports businesses and visitors to enable tourism growth across Essex.

Trading Standards

Ensures businesses understand their legal obligations and trade fairly and safely; including licensing, fraud prevention, detection and prosecution and consultancy. Trading Standards officers wear body worn cameras to help protect staff and the public, discourage aggressive and abusive behaviour and provide evidence to support criminal investigations.

Wellbeing service

Offers support to employees and external clients to manage health and wellbeing in the workplace and a counselling service.

Working Families

Engagement activities with residents to better understand the experiences of working families in Essex, to inform services and community initiatives.

You are Hear activities and volunteering

Engagement activities with the public to promote the history and culture of Essex, and volunteering opportunities to assist with this project to promote the history and culture of Essex.

What personal information do we hold?

We only collect and use the minimum personal information required to deliver your service. Wherever possible we use non-identifiable personal information.

The services may use some or all of the personal information below:

• names, address and contact details
• family relationships and friendships
• lifestyle and social circumstances
• date of birth
• marital status
• occupation
• birth registration district and sub district
• library card number
• National Insurance Number
• gender
• school name (only for the Summer Reading Challenge)
• disclosure of criminal convictions (library volunteers only)
• Referee and emergency contact information including, name and contact details, relationship to you, job title
• health information
• housing needs
• physical or mental health details
• NHS number
• financial details
• ethnicity and/or nationality
• digital images
• visual images, audio, personal appearance and behaviour
• education and employment details
• your personal opinions and experiences (gathered as part of our research activities)
• online identifiers and reference numbers
• religious beliefs
• licences and permits held
• goods and services information
• offences (Trading Standards only) including audio and visual images from body worn cameras used by Trading Standards officers

We get most of this information from you, but we may also get some of this information about you from:

• health and education providers
• commissioned partners
• family members
• your legal representative
• children and family hubs
• referees
• employers
• regulatory bodies
• other internal Essex County council teams
• National Anti-Fraud Network
• other enforcement partners
• businesses
• open data sources including social media

How do we use your personal information?

We use your information for one or more of the following reasons:

• deliver the service, or handle your query
• to manage and support you as a volunteer
• to enable us to contact someone for you in case of an emergency
• to plan and improve the service we offer
• to detect and prevent crime or fraud
• for research, and as part of this it would also be used for training purposes and knowledge sharing. This would be in anonymised form unless we ask for your consent to use your personal information for this purpose
• to manage competitions with your consent
• to use your comments to publicise our services with your consent
• to evidence positive outcomes to central government funding agencies
• statutory and non-statutory consultation and engagement

Who else might we share your personal information with?

Sometimes we may need to share your information, but we will only do so where it is necessary or required by law. We will only share the minimum information for each circumstance.

We may sometimes need to share some of your personal information with one or more of the following:

• Epping Community Transport (supporting our Community Link transport)
• Thurrock Council and The Libraries Consortium (who share library stock and systems with us)
• Police (only for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime or fraud)
• other local authorities
• Family Operations Hub and Essex Social Care Direct (for safeguarding purposes)
• volunteers supporting service provision
• health agencies/providers
• employers
• published images are publicly available (marketing and communications only)
• local government and social care ombudsman (complaints)
• parliamentary and health service ombudsman (complaints)
• commissioned partners (who deliver services on our behalf)
• Information Commissioner’s Office (complaints)
• your legal representatives (e.g. a solicitor/advocate)
• judicial agencies
• central government departments, e.g. Department for Work and Pensions
• Children and Families Hub and Essex Social Care Direct (for safeguarding purposes)
• Home Office (for immigration and enforcement purposes)
• general public – all marriage notices are displayed on a screen in County Hall for 28 days
• Anti-Fraud Network partners
• DocuSign as Data Processors providing the system we need in order to offer digital signatures for documents.
• other internal Essex County Council teams

We may also use Data Processors to support these activities, for example by providing the systems we need to or delivering services on our behalf. These include:

• Epping \ Harlow Community Transport for Community Link service
• DUCL for Public and Guest Wi-Fi
• SirsiDynix for Library Services
• Lorensbergs for Library Services
• Bibliotheca for Library Services
• Talking Tech for Library Services
• Government Digital Service (GDS) for Notify
• Granicus (GovDelivery) for communications and marketing
• Aptean Respond for complaints management
• Adestra for Active Essex
• Astech supports our Petitions service
• The General Register Office and Stopford support registration services
• New Vision Group for tourism services
• Flexiroute for Community Link service, now part of the 365 Response Group
• Community Support Groups and commissioned partners
• Julian French IDB and CitA to support Trading Standards
• Better Impact for WasteBusters volunteering service
• Hotjar for improvements to website functionality
• CapitaPay 360 for taking payments and issuing SMS receipts. For SMS receipts, this information will be retained in GOV.UK Notify for 7 days then deleted. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
• Lookback for user research
• The Active Wellbeing Society for Pedal Power project
• Active Essex for sport and physical activities, to communicate via newsletters and to operate their online Activity Finder
• RMC for the ANPR cameras at Thorndon Country park
• Monday.com will assist Essex in the Pedal Power project
• Mandiant supports the Council by providing Incident response and enhanced expertise, enabling Essex County Council to protect its network from cyber security risks

Who is the Data Controller for this processing?

Essex County Council is the Data Controller for this processing with the exception of the Coroner Service where the Chief Coroner for Essex (Ministry of Justice) is the Data Controller for personal data processed for judicial functions and Essex County Council for administrative (non-judicial) functions.

The Data Protection Officer for Ministry of Justice can be contacted by email at data.compliance@justice.gsi.gov.uk.

The full privacy notice for the Judiciary can be found on the Judiciary website.

We may use your information for the prevention and detection of fraud and crime, this may include sharing your personal information with external agencies that could lead to some services being declined. Read more about how your information is processed.

What is the legal basis for our use of your personal information?

View the tables which show the legal basis we rely on to use your personal or special category (sensitive) personal information.

View a list of the full legal conditions we may rely on by looking at our full privacy notice.

View a list of the legislation we rely on when using your personal information to meet our legal obligations or public tasks.

Where we rely on your consent to use your personal information you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time by contacting our Data Protection Officer, and advising which service you are using.

Will my personal information be accessible outside the UK?

No personal information is routinely sent or held outside the UK. Should the transfer of personal information outside of the UK become necessary, it will only take place if permitted by law, and then only where there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect the information.

How long will we keep your personal information?

We will only use your information whilst delivering the service to you and to deal with any questions or complaints that we may receive about this, unless the law requires us to keep it for a longer period. In practice, this means that your information may be retained for:

Active Essex

We will stop using your information after 2 years from your last contact. Your information will be deleted immediately after we stop using it.

Birth and Death Registration

Your information will be permanently preserved.

Citizenship Ceremonies

We will stop using your information after 5 years and your information will be deleted as soon as we stop using it.

Civil Partnership Registrations

Your information will be permanently preserved.

Community Link

3 months from your last use of the service.

Coroner’s Service

We will stop using your information after the case is closed. Your information will be deleted 15 years after last action for deaths which do not proceed to an inquest, 2 years after last action for information relating to Treasure inquests and will be held in permanent form for information relating to deaths which proceed to an inquest. This will then be transferred to Essex Records Office for permanent preservation.

Communications and Marketing Digital Images

We will stop using your information upon request. Your information will be deleted as soon as the request is received by Picture Desk. Please note that published version of the images may still be in circulation.

For One News articles, we will stop using your information after 2 years from the point of collection and it will be deleted immediately after we stop using it.

Corporate Complaints and Customer Contacts

We will stop using your information after if you have not contacted us for 60 days after we have given you a response. Your information will be held for the remainder of the financial year when the complaint was closed, then for an additional financial year (maximum of 2 years, minimum of 1 year) before deletion.

Culture, Heritage and Green Spaces:

Information will be kept for up to 6 months after the closing date. If applications are successful, data could be kept up to a maximum of 7 years.

Statutory Complaints

We will stop using your information when the complaint is closed and your information will be deleted after 5 years.

Essex Opportunities

Information will be deleted or returned as soon as it is no longer required or at the customer's request.

Essex Pedal Power

We will hold your information for up to 2 years once after the bike has either been gifted or returned, after which the information will be deleted.

Essex Countywide Traveller Unit

We will stop using your information 7 years after we cease to deliver a service to you and it will be deleted 1 year after we stop using it. CCTV footage from ECC sites will be deleted after 31 days.

Health and Safety

We will stop using your information when the case is closed and your information will be deleted after 5 years.

Library Services

We will stop using your information no more than 3 years after you last used our library services, after which point it will be deleted.

Library Volunteers (non-DBS)

We will keep information on volunteers for 6 months after you leave your role.

Library Volunteer (DBS)

We will keep your information for 1 year after you have left your role or for 2 years after you have left if there was a positive result on your DBS check.

Love Essex Champions

We will stop using your information from the point you no longer wish to volunteer and your information will be deleted immediately after we stop using it. Your information is deleted from the Better Impact software if your profile is not accessed for 1 year.

Marriage Notices and Registrations

Your information will be permanently preserved.

Petitions

We will stop using your information once the petition has been heard and delete it.

Public and Guest Wifi - Public Wifi

8 hours after signing up and Guest wifi - 5 days after signing up and both will be deleted after 12 months from end of access.

Public Health Services

We will stop using your information at the end of our involvement and will retain it for 6 years.

Research

We will stop using your information after the research project you have been involved in has been completed. Any notes taken (handwritten or typed) during consultation sessions will be destroyed. The information will continue to be used in a summarised and anonymised form in any research reports or papers that are published. The anonymised information in the papers may be of historic interest and may be held in public archives indefinitely.

Research and Citizen Insight team

We capture research data in a variety of formats, including paper, electronic, voice and visual (taken with your permission). Identifiable personal data (such as participant contact details, research notes and voice recordings) will generally be kept for up to 6 months after a results report is published. Pseudonymised and anonymised data (such as research notes, partially analysed data and photographs with blurred faces) will be kept for up to 5 years. After this time, data will be reviewed and either securely destroyed or retained for permanent preservation in an anonymised format. Results reports and trend data (from large scale surveys) will be retained for permanent preservation in an anonymised format. Anonymised reports may be published in the public domain. In some cases we may keep your personal information indefinitely, such as:

• archiving purposes in the public interest
• scientific research purposes
• statistical purposes

Service Design

We will stop using your information after 1 year from the point of collection and your information will be deleted immediately after we stop using it.

Superfast Broadband and Champions

We will stop using and delete your information once this programme of works completes, currently expected to be 2022.

Tourism

We will stop using your information at the end of your involvement with us and will delete it immediately.

Trading Standards

We will stop using your information 6 years after our last contact and your information will be securely deleted 1 year from this point. Audio and visual images from body worn cameras used by Trading Standards officers are kept for 31 days. If it is needed for a case, it will be kept for the length of the investigation and for seven years following a court case.

Wellbeing Service

Your information is not used after the purpose for which it was collected is fulfilled, with the exception of legal requirements under COSHH and Asbestos, which is kept for 40 and 50 years respectively.

Working Families

We will stop using your information at the end of the project or upon request.

You are Hear

We will stop using your information after July 2018. Your information will be deleted 1 year after we stop using it. Visual images of activities and attendance information may be archived indefinitely as a record of the projects historical interest.

You are Hear Volunteers

We will stop using your information after the end of the project (July 2018) and your information will be deleted 6 months after we stop using it.

Your rights

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 can obtain further information about these rights from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to this summary notice, the full privacy notice or our processing activities with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

 

Contact us

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, you can contact our Data Protection Officer.