Customer Services privacy notice

We are committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy when you contact or visit our customer service centre. This notice explains how we collect, hold, use, protect and share your personal data for general enquiries not related to a specific service area. If accessing a specific service, please refer to the separate privacy notice for that service.

Information that we collect

We may collect the following information:

• Your name, contact details, and any information you provide when contacting us. Sometimes we collect other information that you may feel is sensitive to you. This might be financial, employment or health information, for example.
  • Telephone call recordings for customer service, quality and complaint handling purposes
  • CCTV recording is in place in our customer service centre for safety and security

Why we collect and use this information

We use your data to:

• Respond and deal with your enquiries
• Provide services to you and other residents in the district
• Enable us to carry out specific functions for which we are responsible including ensuring that you receive other council services to which you are entitled
• Prevent and detect crime including fraud and abuse of public funds
• Investigate and resolve complaints
• Improve our services and staff training
• Ensure the safety and security of staff, visitors and premises
• Comply with legal or regulatory obligations
• to provide by law.  For us to do this, you must provide your personal information to us.  Other services we provide is because it is in the wider public interest to do so.  If you do not give us your personal information, we may be unable to provide these services to you. 

Some of these services we are required to provide by law.  For us to do this, you must provide your personal information to us.  We provide other services because it is in the wider public interest to do so.  If you do not give us your personal information, we may be unable to provide these services to you. 

Your personal information will be treated as confidential, but it may be shared with other Council services to ensure our records are accurate and up-to-date, and to improve the standard of the services we deliver. We will only use your information in ways which are permitted by the General Data Protection Regulation and the current UK Data Protection law.  We won’t use it for any other purposes without your consent or without telling you first.

Lawful basis for processing

We process personal data because it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations.  Our lawful basis for processing will depend on the nature of your contact with us.  If you are unsure which lawful basis applies, you can contact us to confirm.  Processing will usually be based on:

• Legal obligation: To meet regulatory or legal requirements, including services we are required by law to operate (such as collection of council tax)
• Legitimate interests: To improve services, maintain safety and manage complaints
• Public task: To perform a task in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority
• Contractual necessity: To provide discretionary services you have requested, which may be provided on a commercial basis (such as collection of garden waste).

Legislation is in place to allow the Council to provide assistance to any person in their area, including by helping the most vulnerable residents in meeting their need for support or to help people cope with special difficulties.

Sharing your information

We only share your data where necessary, including:

• With authorised staff or service providers acting on our behalf
• With law enforcement or regulatory authorities when required by law

Inbound calls to 01562 732928 - options 3 and 4 - are recorded.  Recording stops when the call is transferred to another council department except for Council Tax & Business Rates where the call continues to be recorded.  Outbound calls from our customer service teams are also recorded where you will be advised accordingly. 

CCTV video images are recorded in our customer service centre in Kidderminster.  The live imagery and footage we record is used for the prevention and detection of crime and to protect public and staff safety. Where fixed CCTV cameras are operating, there will be signs clearly displayed.

Who we share this information with

Where other departments of the Council have a legal right to data we hold, information shall be provided which is relevant to their legal powers.

We will only share call recordings and CCTV footage where we are legally obliged to do so, or where we are allowed to do so under certain exemptions - for example, for the prevention or detection of crime.

This may involve making a copy of the storage media or a screen print, which may be used as evidence in any subsequent civil/criminal court proceedings. In cases of suspected criminal activity, the storage media will normally be passed to the police for investigation and possible prosecution. The police and other law enforcement agencies may, on showing good cause, request copies of storage media or access to monitoring screens. In general such requests will be complied with.

Our software providers will store your information but only on our instructions.  They won’t use it for any other reasons, and they must look after it in the same way we would.

Where you request a referral to an agency or one of our partner services, they will also use your information.  They may use it for their own reasons that are different from the Council  but they still must look after it in the same way.

Storing this information

We retain personal data, call recordings, and CCTV footage only for as long as necessary for the purposes above or to comply with legal obligations. Retention periods are reviewed regularly.

Your data will be securely held electronically and will not be stored in a country outside the UK.

Call recordings are kept for a period of 12 months and then deleted. Recordings can only be accessed by authorised staff.

CCTV video images are recorded in real time onto a secure CCTV locked system which is stand-alone and not connected to any internal or external network. CCTV recordings are kept for 30 days and images can only be viewed by authorised staff. 

Other information is held on a secure electronic database hosted on the Council’s secure internal network and both are fully access restricted / auditable.

Further information on our data retention guidelines.

Requesting access to your personal data

Under the UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Access your personal data (Subject Access Request)
• in certain circumstances, have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed; and
• Request erasure of data, where applicable
• Object to or restrict processing in certain circumstances
• claim compensation for damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection regulations

To request a copy of a call recording or CCTV footage, please submit a written request with details including the date, time, and location to help us locate the material. Any request would need to be received before the recording or footage is deleted, as set out in “Storing this information”.

Contact

To request your personal information, contact the Data Protection Officer, Wyre Forest District Council, Wyre Forest House, Finepoint Way, Kidderminster, Worcestershire DY11 7WF.

For questions about this notice or your personal data, please contact us:

• Email dataprotection@wyreforestdc.gov.uk
• Website: Subject Access Request

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, we request that you raise your concern with us in the first instance. Alternatively, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Further information

For enquiries about this privacy notice and for deletion of data held under consent, please email customer services 

This privacy notice is designed to explain how we collect, process, hold and share your personal data for general enquiries not related to a specific service area.  If accessing a specific service, please refer to the separate privacy notice for that service.