Review of Polling Districts, Places and Stations Privacy notice

Who the Council is and what the Council does

The Forest Dean District Council is a data controller under the Data Protection Legislation (UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018) as the Council collects and processes personal information about you in order to for the performance of a public interest task which has a clear basis in law.

The Council is required to undertake a review of polling districts and places by the Representation of the People Act 1983 Section 18 and will collect your personal data where you have contributed comments to the Polling Review.

The Polling review covers:

Polling districts - areas created when constituencies (for general elections) or wards (for local elections) are split into smaller parts to allow people to vote in a convenient way
Polling places - the location, normally the buildings, in which polling stations are sited within the polling districts

Any questions regarding our privacy practice should be sent to:

Data Protection Officer (DPO)
Forest of Dean District Council
Council Offices, Coleford, GL16 8HG
Email: data.protection@fdean.gov.uk
Tel: 01993 861194

Why the Council needs your information and how the Council uses it

The Council will use the data provided to contact you regarding the Polling Review and the comments that you have provided. Your comments will be published on the Council's website and personal details will be redacted. As well as redacting personnel information the Council will use its discretion to summarise comments. Please note that websites can be seen throughout the world, and not just in the United Kingdom, where UK law applies

The lawful basis for processing your information are:

UK GDPR Article 6(1)(c) - processing is necessary for compliance with legal obligation to which the Council is subject
UK GDPR Article 6(1)(e) - processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest in the exercise of official authority vested in the Council - Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013

What type of information is collected from you

In order to administer our Polling Review the Council collects the following information from you:

name
address
email address
Comments

Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)

We are collecting your data under the legal obligation clause of the Data Protection legislation, therefore if you do not provide this data we will be unable to undertake the Polling Review.

Your information will not be passed on to any third parties.

Anonymisation

Your personal information may be converted ('anonymised') into statistical or aggregated data in such a way that ensures that you cannot be identified from it. Anonymised data cannot, by definition, be linked back to you as an individual and may be used to conduct research and analysis, including the preparation of statistics for use in our reports.

How long the Council keep your information (retention period)

Your information will be retained by the Electoral Services Team for the duration of the Consultation and for 12 months following

The Council has retention schedules in place to ensure that information is only held for as long as it is needed. We will not keep your information for longer than is required to by law.

Your information will be disposed of in a controlled and secure manner in accordance with the Council’s Policy.

How the Council protect your information

All the information The Council collects is stored securely on our IT system and manual filing systems. The Council has strict procedures for the way this is done. Any and all information about you is treated as confidential and with respect. There are also clear rules and guidance about storing, recording and sharing information which staff receive training on.

The Council will not transfer your personal data outside the EU without your consent.

The Council has implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personal data from loss, misuse, or unauthorised alteration or destruction.

Please note however that where you are transmitting information to us over the internet this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

If you use your credit or debit card to make payments, the Council passes your card details securely to our payment processing partner as part of the payment process. The Council does this in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Security Standard, and doesn’t store the details on its website. The information you give to the Council when using our online payment system will only be used for the recording of your payment.

The Council will notify you promptly in the event of any breach of your personal data which might expose you to serious risk.

Your rights

You have rights under the Data Protection Legislations:

to access your personal data
to be provided with information about how your personal data is processed
to have your personal data corrected
to have your personal data erased in certain circumstances
to object to or restrict how your personal data is processed
to have your personal data transferred to yourself or to another business in certain circumstances
to be told if the Council has made a mistake whilst processing your data and the Council will self-report breaches to the Commissioner.

How you can access, update or correct your information

The Data Protection law gives you the right to apply for a copy of information about yourself. This is called a ‘Subject Access Request'.

If you wish to see a copy of your records you should contact the Data Protection Officer. You are entitled to receive a copy of your records free of charge, within a month.

The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. We are working to make our record keeping more efficient. In the meantime, if you change your address or email address, or if any of your circumstances change or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date please email us or write to us at:

The Electoral Services
Forest of Dean District Council
Council Offices, Coleford¸ GL16 8HG
Email: elections@fdean.gov.uk

Further information

If you would like to know more about how the Council uses your information, or if for any reason you do not wish to have your information used in any of the ways described here, please tell us. Contact the Data Protection Officer at data.protection@fdean.gov.uk

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner: https://ico.org.uk

The Council reserves the right to update this privacy notice from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.