Data protection, your personal information and rights
By law you have rights over how your data is collected, processed and stored. These are:
- the right to ask for access to the personal information we hold about you
- the right to ask that your personal information is given to you, or another service provider of your choice, in a commonly used format
- the right to ask us to stop using or to delete your information
- the right to ask us to limit what we use your personal information for
- the right to ask us to change personal information you think is wrong.
The kind of information we hold
Depending on the specific circumstances, we hold information about people living in the city, or in other circumstances where individuals have a connection with the Council For example, records may be kept by: Library and Leisure Services, Education, Council Tax, Housing Benefit, Social Services, Planning and other services. See our Corporate Privacy Notice
The rules for dealing with your information
We process personal information in line with Data Protection legislation (including the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018), which give you certain rights and also places legal responsibilities on organisations such as the Council who process personal information.
Data protection legislation says that organisations "processing" personal information (such as by collecting, storing or using it) must be open about how it is to be used and must make sure that personal data is:
- Processed fairly and lawfully and transparently
- Collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes
- Adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed
- Accurate and where necessary, kept up to date
- Kept in a form which permits identification of individuals for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed
- Processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures
By law we are required to comply with these principles and must demonstrate that we are doing this.
Our Data Protection Policy sets out how we aim to comply with our obligations under data protection law. The policy also summarises the rights that you have in respect of your personal data.
Please also see our Data Management Policy.