Libraries

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 the Council requires your data, and the legal basis on which it does this.

This privacy notice relates to the Council’s library service. It provides additional information that specifically relates to this particular service, and should be read together with our general privacy notice, which provides more detail.

This service uses personal information, such as:

• full name
• date of birth
• gender
• address and postcode
• email address
• telephone number
• book requests and records of items you have borrowed
• school name / work place (for reading challenges only)

If you visit our libraries, we may also capture CCTV images of you. We may also collect photographs if you donate items or if you attend events organised by our libraries. To find out more information about CCTV, please view the CCTV privacy notice on our website.

We also ask for more sensitive information about you, commonly known as ‘special category personal information’. You are not required to provide us this information, but we ask for these extra details because they help us to monitor and improve our services:

• disability information
• ethnic origin.

The information you provide is administered by employees of the Manchester Library service and our Community library partners. When you join the library, the personal information you provide us is entered into our electronic library management system.

We use your personal information to:

• set up your library account so you can use the library facilities, including assigning you to an appropriate borrower type (e.g. adult or child)
• provide the library services you have subscribed to
• send you information relating to your account e.g. notifications about requested or overdue items
• keep and maintain our membership records
• when applicable, record and administer library fines
• with your consent, contact you about upcoming events and activities being hosted by ourselves and third parties at our libraries
• carry out statistical analysis so that we can monitor and improve our services
• carry out analysis of who uses our library services, including the range of people who attend the library, and where they have travelled from. This helps us to understand our library users, and to promote the library as a cultural events venue to event organisers, meaning that we can host events at the library which are the most interesting to the people who visit us.
• assist with NHS Test and Trace procedure relating to containing the Covid-19 pandemic. We will retain this data for 21 days.
•  

We only use your personal information where it is necessary to perform our public tasks by providing and maintaining the library service under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 (Art 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation ‘UK GDPR’).

From time to time, we send out information to library users about upcoming events. We will only contact you with promotional or marketing information if we have your explicit consent to do so (Art 6(1)(a) ‘UK GDPR’)

However there may be circumstances where we are required to use your information by law (Art 6(1)(c) ‘UK GDPR’), or to protect someone in an emergency (Art 6(1)(d) ‘UK GDPR’).

Where you have provided us with any special category information, we will only use or share this information if you have given explicit consent to do so (Art 9(2)(a) ‘UK GDPR’).

Only staff of Manchester Council’s Library Service have secure access to your personal information. In some circumstances your personal details may also be disclosed to other employees of Manchester City Council. This can happen when other departments are required to help us provide the services you have requested or when it is necessary to answer an issue you have raised that is beyond our expertise.

We will not normally share your information with organisations, without your consent.

There may be certain circumstances where we would share personal information about you without your consent. For example, where we are required to do so by law (Art 6(1)(c) of the UK GDPR), and in emergency situations (Art 6(1)(d) of the UK GDPR).

In order to carry out analysis of who uses our library service, we sometimes work with an external third parties who help cultural organisations to build their audiences and extend their reach. We provide postcode data in order to gain information about where you and other library users are visiting us from. We do not provide third parties with full postcodes; all postcodes have the final number removed so there will be multiple households linking to each. Therefore you would not be personally identifiable from this information.

Your personal data is not subjected to automated decision making or profiling.

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.