This document explains how your information will be held about you and processed by Dorset Council. You can also find out about the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 1998 and your rights at Data protection.
Who we are
- why we collect your personal information
- the legal basis for using your information
- who we may share your information with
- how you can access the information we hold about you
- how long we keep information about you
- further information and data protection officer
Who we are
Economic Development will be the Data Controller for the personal information you provide. Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This could be your name and contact details. As the Data Controller, Economic Development will use your information to provide you with our services.
Why we collect your personal information
We will collect enough personal information in order to provide you with services (and/or goods*) for the purpose of Economic Development.
We are not permitted to collect information we do not need or will not use. This document covers information you have provided direct to the council and information which has been shared with us by other organisations.
If we don’t need your personal information we will either keep your details anonymous, if we already have it for another service or we won’t ask you for it. If we use your personal information for research or analysis, we will always keep your details anonymous or use a pseudonym.
We do not sell your personal information to anyone else.
The legal basis for using your information
According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 1998, we must have a reason to collect and use your information. This will be:
- to deliver services and support you
- to enable us to manage the services we provide
- to train and manage our workers who deliver those services
- to investigate any worries or complaints you may have about our goods or services
- to check the quality of our goods and services
- to help with research and planning of new services
There are a number of legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information. For this service that reason is consent: you, or your legal representative, have given explicit consent
Accessing the information we hold about you
You have the right to request, in writing, details of the information that is held about you and also the right to access a copy of the information. This may be by the council providing copies of documents or by inviting you to view the records at one of its offices, if appropriate. Please see Data Protection for further information about how to make a subject access request.
Economic Development will not charge a fee to access your information. Sometimes there may be information that we are not allowed to show you, such as:
- legal information or advice
- crime prevention and detection records
- information that we believe may be harmful to you and your well-being
- details about or provided by other people – this is called third party information (e.g. information from the Police or Department for Work & Pensions)
You may also ask us to:
- stop processing your information if this causes or might cause damage or distress
- stop processing your information for direct marketing
- make decisions about you using your information by automated means (e.g. using computers to decide on an entitlement)
- amend any of your data which you feel is inaccurate. You can also ask for information to be blocked, erased or destroyed.
- transfer your information electronically to another service provider.
- consider a claim for compensation for any damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection regulations.
If you give consent for us to use your information, you may withdraw this at any time. However, this may affect our ability to continue to provide you with a service.
How long we keep information about you
We will retain this information for 7 years as stated in our retention schedule.
Further information
If you have a concern about how we are using your information, we would ask you to contact our Data Protection Officer in the first instance using the address below:
Information Commissioner
For further information about Information Rights legislation, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office