Elected Members privacy notice

Personal data is information relating to a living person who can be identified from that data. Identification can be based on the information alone, or in-conjunction with any other information. Personal data is information such as your name, address, date of birth, or a unique identifier such as your National Insurance number. When I process personal data, I need to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. Together these pieces of legislation are commonly known as the Data Protection Legislation (DPL).

When you ask for my help and assistance I will need to collect some information from you. This will generally include personal data such as your name, address and contact information (email /mobile number) together with details of your concern. Only personal data that is needed to provide you with relevant information, services and support will be requested and collected. It may be necessary to collect, information such as your date of birth, national insurance number, information about your health needs, details of family members and or other special category data from you where it is of relevance to the request you are making. Special category data is information that reveals racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership, and data concerning health or sex life/orientation.

I will only process your personal data where it is lawful to do so. As an Elected Member, the most common reason, under law, is the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. In relation to special category, the lawful basis is that of substantial public interest. While I do not need your consent to act on your behalf, I may ask you to sign a form to help me clarify your concerns or interests and ensure we both understand how your personal data will be treated and in case I need information from other organisations to assist in resolving your query.

On occasions when I do need your consent, for example, to ask you to subscribe to my mailing list, I will ask you for it. You can withdraw your consent at any time, at which point I will stop using your personal data.

As an Elected Member of Brent Council, I may need to pass your personal details and the circumstances of your query/complaint to Council officers to allow the Council to look into the issue. I may also need to pass your personal data on to a third-party in order to resolve your query, for example, other local authorities, government agencies, public bodies, health trusts and regulators. Any third parties with whom I may share your data with are obliged to keep your details securely, and to only use your data for purposes communicated to you.

I will not pass personal data of constituents to anyone else unless I am required to do so by law or where this is in connection with a criminal investigation. By law, I may be required to share personal data for the prevention or detection of crime. These requests will generally come from the police, or another law enforcement agency.

I will not use your personal data in a way that goes beyond your reasonable expectations in contacting me. If you specifically ask me not to disclose information identifying you to other third parties it is necessary for me to contact, I will respect that. However, please be aware that it may not be possible to progress a matter for you on an anonymous basis. It is not unusual for constituents to raise issues with me about other bodies and therefore if that happens I will need to refer the question/complaint to them.

I will process your personal data until I have resolved your issue and store electronic data and paper records for the duration of my term in office. This is to allow me to build up case history and to return to your records when further matters arise. Any information I hold at the end of my term in office is either passed to the appropriate council representative or securely destroyed.

Your personal data will be stored and processed on Brent Council equipment. Your personal data will be stored on servers based within the United Kingdom. While it may sometimes be necessary to transfer personal data overseas, any transfers will be in full compliance with the DPL.

You have the following rights:

• Access to your information – you have the right to request a copy of the personal data that is held about you.

• Correcting your information – you may ask me to correct any personal data about you that you believe is incorrect.

• Deletion of your information – you have the right to ask me to delete personal data about you where:
  
  - You think that I no longer need to hold the personal data for the purposes for which it was originally obtained;
  
  -  I am using that personal data with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent – (see more below);
  
  - You have a genuine objection to me using your personal data –(see more details below); and
  
  - The use of your personal data is contrary to law or other legal obligations.
  
  
• Objecting to how I may use your personal data -you have the right at any time to tell me to stop using your personal data for direct marketing purposes. I will only use your personal data to provide you with general updates on my activity as a Councillor, and on events within my ward, with your consent.

• Restricting how an Elected Member may use your information -in some cases, you may ask me to restrict how I use your personal data. This right might apply if I no longer have a basis for using your personal data but you don't want them to delete the data. Where this right is realistically applied will mean that I may only use the relevant personal data with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

• Withdrawing consent to use your information -where I use your personal data with your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time and I will stop using your personal data for the purpose(s) for which consent was given. Please email me directly to withdraw your consent, copying in the dpo@brent.gov.uk

If you are unhappy with the way that I have dealt with your personal data, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer and they will try to resolve the issue.

However, if you remain dissatisfied you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.