Why do we need your personal information and what do we do with it?

You are giving us your personal information to allow us to process your Subject Access Request and provide you with a response.  We will also need to process your personal information if you ask us to review the way that we have handled your Subject Access Request or if you make a complaint to the UK Information Commissioner.  We also use your information to verify your identity where required, contact you by post, email or telephone and to maintain our records.  

Legal basis for using your information

You are entitled to make a Subject Access Request for information that we hold about you as part of our role as your local authority.  You can find more details of our role on our Privacy pages.

Processing your personal information is necessary for (i) the performance of a task carried out in the public interest by the council; and (ii) the compliance with our legal obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018. Where you provide us with more sensitive personal information about you, we will process this information for reasons of substantial public interest as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018.

Who do we share your information with?

We are legally obliged to safeguard public funds so we are required to verify and check your details internally for fraud prevention. We may share this information with other public bodies (and also receive information from these other bodies) for fraud checking purposes.  We are also legally obliged to share certain data with other public bodies, such as HMRC and will do so where the law requires this.  We will also generally comply with requests for specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate. 

This data sharing is in accordance with our Privacy Policy and covered in our full privacy statement on our website. It also forms part of our requirements in line with our Records Management Plan approved in terms of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.

Where you make a complaint to the UK Information Commissioner we are legally obliged to share your information with them.

How long do we keep your information for?

We only keep your personal information for the minimum period amount of time necessary.  Sometimes this time period is set out in the law and in some cases it is based on the business need.  We maintain a records retention and disposal schedule which sets out how long we hold different types of information for.  

West Dunbartonshire Council follow the Scottish Council Archivists Records Retention Schedule (SCARRS) for document retention policies.

SCARRS website

You have the right at any time to tell us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes. 

Your rights under data protection law

  • access to your information - you have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you.
  • correcting your information- we want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Therefore you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
  • Deletion of your information-you have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you were:

I - you think that we no longer need to hold the information for the purposes for which it was originally obtained

II - you have a genuine objection to our use of your personal information - see Objecting to how we may use your information below
III - our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.

Objecting to how we may use your information 

You have the right at any time to tell us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Restricting how we may use your information

In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information.  This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold about you or we are assessing the objection you have made to our use of your information.  This right might also apply if we no longer have a basis for using your personal information but you don't want us to delete the data.  Where this right is realistically applied will mean that we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Please contact us if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

Complaints

We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office, who can be contacted by post at: 

Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

By phone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745.

Visit their website for more information at- https://ico.org.uk/concerns.