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 engineering activities it is necessary that we collect the following personal information from you:

  • name, telephone number, e-mail address, address
  • records of communications by telephone, post or email
  • document relating to Land and property claims, including Land registry search details
  • flooded property lists and accompanying photo log, including damage sustained by properties from flooding
  • information supplied by you in response to communications and consultations
  • information collected from other sources

we also obtain personal information from other sources as follows:

  • we may obtain and share information within the Assets & Infrastructure and Legal sections of Dorset Council
  • we may receive information from other departments within the council, other government agencies and third-party partners
  • we may receive information from contractors or consultants that have been employed to undertake work on our behalf, for example a public consultation
  • we may receive information from member of the public such as photos of flooding

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 use the data to deliver effective asset management and maintenance and to ensure compliance with consequential contractual and legislative obligations. We will use the data to process land and property claims.

Who we share your personal information with

In order to exercise the above activities in an efficient way, we routinely share data contact information with contractors or consultants employed to carry out work on our behalf and to deliver effective asset management and maintenance and to ensure compliance with consequential contractual and legislative obligations. We may also share information relating to flooding with other government agencies and councils to identify properties at flood risk and process land and property claims.

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:

  • assets and infrastructure
  • insurance
  • revenues and benefits
  • legal and finance sections of Dorset 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 deliver effective asset management and maintenance and to ensure compliance with consequential contractual and legislative obligations. We will inform you at the point of collecting information from you, whether you are required to provide the information to us. Failure to provide information when required could mean you or us may not comply with contractual or legislative obligations.

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 contractual information, or such other period as we are required to retain such records under statute such as those relating to constructed assets or schemes.

We will hold address details relating to flooded properties for as long as the property is at risk of flooding, but personal contact detail records will only be retained for a period of six years after you have left the property, or such other period as we are required to retain such records under statute.

Reasons for collecting and using your personal information

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

  • with the specific and informed consent of the data subject
  • the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract, or at the data subject’s request when taking steps prior to entering into a contract
  • the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation
  • the processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller, or by a third party, except where those rights are overridden by the rights of the data subject

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. You can also exercise any of those rights or find out more by visiting Data protection . Alternatively you can get in touch with 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 eg a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill
  • 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 .

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.

Data Protection

Email: data.protection@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk
Full contact details

You need extra help

Contact us if you'd like this notice in another format, for example audio, large print or braille.