Business rates

This privacy notice explains what personal information is collected, what it is used for and who it is provided to. The notice also describes why we require your data, and the legal basis on which we do this. This privacy notice relates to our Business Rates Service, provides additional information that specifically relates to this particular service, and should be read together with our general privacy notice, which provides more detail.

We use personal information, such as:

• name
• address
• telephone number
• date of birth
• information held about you in files
• email address.
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We sometimes use special categories of personal data such as health information or other sensitive information, for example about your finances.We also use information about criminal convictions and offences where people or companies fail to provide requested information.

We use your personal data for the following reasons:

• to work out and collect business rates
• to resolve complaints made about the service
• collecting debts owed to us
• for crime prevention or detection of fraud, including the use of data-matching initiatives designed to protect public funds
• to ensure safe systems of work for staff visiting / meeting with customers, for example in their homes.

We will use your personal data in accordance with law enforcement purposes, as set out in Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 ('the 2018 Act'). 

The term ‘law enforcement purposes’ relates to the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences, or the execution of criminal penalties (including the safeguarding against, and the prevention of, threats to public security.)

We may need to process sensitive personal data for law enforcement purposes, where it relates to a pressing social need, which cannot reasonably be achieved through less intrusive means. Such processing will only take place if either one of the law enforcement purposes set out in the 2018 Act is satisfied, or you have given your consent.
 

We collect and use this information to make sure we can undertake our public duties in the administration and collection of Business Rates (Art 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation), and where we are under a legal obligation to do so (Art 6(1)(c) of the UK GDPR).

If you do not provide the requested information you will still be liable as owner/occupier of the business property and if you do not pay when required could be subject to enforcement action. We collect and use special category personal information for reasons of substantial public interest based upon the law (Art 9(2)(a) of the UK GDPR).
 

The majority of personal information will be provided by you. We sometimes receive information from other organisations such as Government bodies including the Valuation Office Agency, the Land Registry, Companies House and landlords and their managing agents.

Your personal data is shared securely with the following organisations where it is both necessary and appropriate to do so:

• representatives of the person or company whose personal data we are processing;
• other Council departments;
• debt collection and tracing agencies;
• local and central government;
• ombudsman and regulatory authorities;
• courts and tribunals;
• police forces;
• data processors;
• regulatory bodies;
• customs and excise;
• law enforcement and prosecuting authorities.
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Our retention schedule sets out how long we keep personal information for.

You can find out more about your rights regarding the personal information used for this service. Your rights apply to the information held by the Council as a data controller, and the information we hold on behalf of the other data controllers.

If you have any questions or concerns about how we use your personal information, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you're unhappy about how we process your information.