Privacy Notices - Freedom of Information request Privacy Notice

You need to be aware of this Privacy Notice if you are making a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) or the Environmental Information Regulations (2004).

A Privacy Notice is a statement issued by an organisation, which explains how personal and confidential data about individuals is collected, used and shared.

Swindon Borough Council is the data controller. The data controller decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. The processing of data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (the “DPA”).

When you contact us, we will collect certain personal information from you in order for us to process your request, for example your name and relevant contact details, which may include your address, email address and/or telephone number. This is to ensure that we are able to respond to your enquiry. If you choose not to provide some of the required information, we may not be able to progress your request for information.

The information you provide will be used to administer and process your request, including via the Council’s MyAccount website portal. We will not share your data with any third party except where explicitly stated, or where we are required to do so by law.

We will do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we will only make them available to those who have a right to see them.

Examples of our security include:

• Encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password). This is done with a secret code, or what is called a 'cypher'. The hidden information is said to then be 'encrypted'.
• Pseudonymisation, meaning that we will use a different name so we can hide parts of your personal information from view. This means that someone outside of the Council could work on your information for us without ever knowing it was yours.
• Controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it.
• Training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong.

Regular testing of our technology and ways of working including keeping up to date on the latest security updates (commonly called patches).

We keep your personal data for three years after a request has been made.

The law gives you a number of rights to control what and how your personal data is used by us.

In the event that you wish to complain about the way that your personal data has been handled by Swindon Borough Council, you should write to the Data Protection Officer, or email us at DataProtection@swindon.gov.uk and clearly outline your case. Your complaint will then be investigated in accordance with our customer complaint procedure.

If you remain dissatisfied with the way your personal data has been handled, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. You may refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office whose contact details are below:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Email: casework@ico.org.uk

The ICO’s website also contains information on data protection and your rights and remedies.

You are viewing the Privacy Notice for a Freedom of Information request.

Read the main Privacy Notice