Assets, infrastructure estates privacy notice

We ask that you read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

Who we are

Dorset Council collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

The personal information we collect

Information collected by us

In the course of property management and maintenance activities it is necessary that we collect the following personal information from you:

• name, telephone number, e-mail address, address, payment arrangements including bank account details, VAT status, copies of related legal documents and records of communications by telephone, post or email
• business/financial information supplied as part of letting, licensing, ownership lease or licence transfer and disposal processes
• information supplied by you in response to communications and consultations
• information supplied by you as part of continuing tenancy or licensing arrangements including lease/licence and rental/licence fee negotiations

Information collected from other sources

we also obtain personal information from other sources as follows:

• when taking up references (if referees are proffered)
• when making enquiries to verify information supplied if available from public records or through commercial and professional organisations i.e. credit references or publicly lodged accounts
• we may obtain and share information within the Assets and Infrastructure, Insurance, Revenues and Benefits, Legal and Finance Sections of Dorset Council
• we may receive information from other departments within the council and other third-party partners.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information, in the manners specified below, in order to ensure that we are able to deliver the highest quality service to you:

• we will process your personal data in order to assess your suitability as potential occupiers or users of the council’s land and buildings
• we will use the data to initiate, manage and terminate our contractual relationships
• we will use the data to deliver effective asset and estates management and maintenance and to ensure compliance with consequential contractual and legislative obligations
• we will use the data to support debt recovery
• we will use the data to support insurance obligations and claims

Who we share your personal information with

In order to exercise the above activities in an efficient way, we routinely share data identifying you as an occupier with other organisations including but not exclusively our insurers (if we insure the property), with any contractors, applicants and our agents to enable proper management, inspection, survey, valuation and maintenance of our assets and for any purpose related to the management of contractual or legislative obligations arising from the council's relationship with you as an occupier or holder of rights over the council’s land.

We will share data identifying you as an occupier or right holder identifying related financial information to other organisations when seeking recovery of debts, enforcement of contractual or legislative obligations.

We may share information within the Assets and Infrastructure, Insurance, Revenues and Benefits, Legal and Finance sections of the council.

This data sharing enables us to ensure the best service is delivered. We do not anticipate that our data-transferring arrangements will involve a transfer outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).

On occasion we may be required to share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law. Where this occurs we will attempt to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place.  We will not share your personal information with any other third party.

Whether information has to be provided by you, and if so why

The provision of the personal data (as set out above) is required from you to enable us to form contractual relationships with our occupiers and those who hold rights over the council's land. Withholding such data is likely to prejudice the formation of the relationship or its continuance. We will inform you at the point of collecting information from you, whether you are required to provide the information to us.

How long your personal information will be kept

• we will hold the personal data provided by you for a period of twelve years for any property occupancies, or such other period as we are required to retain such records under statute
• we will however only hold the personal data provided by you for a period of six years from the date that any property is subsequently sold or transferred to a third party

Reasons for collecting and using your personal information

We rely on the following as the lawful bases on which we collect and use your personal data:

• where we are exercising a function that we are legally required to provide as a local authority, the basis of processing will be public task
• where we are exercising a function that we are under no legal obligation to provide, then the basis for processing will in that instance be performance of, or steps taken prior to entering into, a contract

Your rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation you have a number of important rights that may be exercised free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:

• fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your use personal information
• access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this privacy notice is already designed to address
• require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold
• require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations
• receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations
• object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing
• object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information
• otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances

For further information on each of those rights you can visit the Information Commissioner's Office

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer

In order that we can comply with such a request as soon as possible, it would be useful if you could provide the following information within your initial request:

• enough information to identify you (eg reference, account number, user name, registration details),
• proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill), and
• the information to which your request relates

If you would like to unsubscribe from any email newsletter you can also click on the ‘unsubscribe’ button located at the bottom of the email. It may take up to 28 days for this to take place.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you would to find out more about protecting your personal information, please visit Get Safe Online which is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

How to complain

We hope that our Data Protection Officer can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information.

The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner's Office

Changes to this privacy notice

This privacy notice was published on 1 April 2019. There are no amendments since publication, when amendments are made to this page we will update this section. We recommend that you review this section from time to time so that you are aware of the latest version of this notice.

How to contact us

Please contact our Data Protection Officer if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you.

Do you need extra help?

If you would like this notice in another format (for example: audio, large print, braille) please contact us.