Use of Cookies - Privacy Notice

Who the Council is and what the Council does

Forest of Dean District Council is a data controller under the Data Protection Legislation as the Council collects and processes personal information about you in order to provide services and meet their statutory and regulatory obligations.

The Information Technology service works with all Council services; we are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors. In this Privacy Policy we explain how we will treat your personal information. We will ask you to consent to our use of cookies when you first visit our website.

Any questions regarding our privacy practices 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

We collect information via your interaction with our website and it will be used for the purposes specified on the relevant pages of the website. Additionally your personal data may be used to:

Administer our website and Council business
Personalise our website for you and enable your use of the services available on our website
Communicate with you e.g. send notifications or newsletters that you have specifically requested

Cookies may be either "persistent" or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, will expire at the end of the user session when the web browser is closed. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

We use both session and persistent cookies on our website.

We use cookies to recognise a computer when a user visits the website, track users as they navigate the website, improve the website's usability, analyse the use of the website, administer the website, prevent fraud and improve the security of the website and personalise the website for each user.

We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Our analytics service provider generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Data gathered from our website by Google Analytics may be shared with Google to help improve Google's products and services. Our analytics service provider's privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy

What is the legal process for collecting and processing this data

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018, the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information is:

Your consent (to use of cookies). You can agree to accept all cookies on our site or you can set a personal preference using our cookie banner or you can configure your device by adjusting your browser preferences if you prefer cookies to be refused. However, as certain website functions rely on cookies, refusing cookies may affect your use of this website. Visit aboutcookies.org.uk for information on how to adjust your cookie settings in the most popular web browsers.

What type of information is collected from you

Personal details, which may include:

Name
Address
Other contact details that you provide to us when using or subscribing to our services e.g. email address, telephone number
information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths

Special categories of personal data

We will not purposely collect any special category or criminal data.

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

Your data is shared internally only with the appropriate staff where it is necessary for the performance of their roles.

Data gathered from our website by Google Analytics may be shared with Google to help improve Google's products and services.

Apart from where previously stated, we do not pass your details to third parties without your consent or unless we are lawfully required do so.

How long the Council keeps your information (retention period)

We will only retain your personal information for as long as we are required to do so by law and the purpose we collected it for. In the case of cookies this retention period is 30 days.

Once your data is no longer needed it will be securely and confidentially destroyed or disposed of in line with our retention schedules.

How the Council protects your Information

Your data is stored securely on our systems and accessed only by authorised officers using their own username and password created in line with pre-defined user credentials. Personal data is also held in electronic files on the council’s network drives. These are only accessible through personal logon credentials and access privileges to specific drives. Access to our council sites require a personal electronic pass to access staff only areas. 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 have 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.

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 the following 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 have 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.

In certain circumstances access to your records may be limited, for example, if the records you have asked for contain information relating to another person.

The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. The Council is 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 the Council holds is inaccurate or out of date, please email us or write to us at:

ICT Support Services
Forest of Dean District Council
Council Offices, Coleford, GL16 8HG
Email: data.protection@fdean.gov.uk
Tel: 01993 861194

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 in this privacy notice, please 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 reserve the right to update this privacy notice from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.