Customer Privacy Notice

This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information when you make contact with us or use one of our services.

South Cambridgeshire District Council is registered (Z5418062) with the data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as an organisation that makes decisions about how personal data is used (a Data Controller).

In this privacy notice, we will tell you:

The first part of the notice is information we need to tell everybody.

What personal information we collect

You can view our entry details on the ICO website, under reference number Z5418062 to see what information about you we collect. You can see service specific information in the sections below.

Telephone calls

When you call our main contact centre (01954 713 000) we record our calls for security and training purposes and keep them for 30 days. However, we do not record payment transactions or if the call is passed onto another member of staff who works outside of the contact centre.

AI chatbot and voicebot

We use an AI-powered chatbot and voice bot to assist customers with common queries and improve access to council services. These tools help provide quick responses to frequently asked questions, offer guidance on council services, and direct users to relevant online resources.

When interacting with the chatbot or voice bot, the system may process information such as your questions, responses, and any details provided to help resolve your enquiry.

This data is used to enhance customer support and improve the accuracy of the AI system over time.

The chatbot and voice bot do not make decisions about council services or policies but can assist in guiding you to the appropriate team if further support is needed. Any personal information shared during these interactions is handled securely and redacted immediately after the conversation so that customers will not be identifiable after the fact.

My South Cambs customer portal

Our portal, "My South Cambs" enables you to:

register an account
log into your account securely
access submitted eForms
view history
track queries and/or enquiries.

Once registered you have the choice to enter the required fields manually or to use social media to sign up.

The social media will auto populate your personal data with the following fields:

name
date of birth
address.

The above information is only used to verify your account.

Please note that your social media account is not managed by the council and any data breaches pertaining to your social media accounts should be directed to the third party.

If you have any queries regarding your personal data in the customer portal please email: mysouthcambs@scambs.gov.uk#

CCTV

We have installed CCTV systems in some of our premises used by members of the public, for the purposes of public and staff safety and crime prevention and detection. CCTV is also installed on the outside of some of our buildings for the purposes of monitoring building security and crime prevention and detection.

They are installed in our recycling sites for the purposes of public and staff safety, crime prevention and detection, and the abuse of council policies.

We also have some camera mounted on vehicles to improve the safety of our staff and assist with health and safety investigations.

In all locations, signs are displayed notifying you that CCTV is in operation and providing details of whom to contact for further information about the scheme.

Images captured by CCTV will not be kept for longer than necessary. However, on occasions there may be a need to keep images for longer, for example where a crime is being investigated.

You have the right to see CCTV images of yourself and be provided with a copy of the images.

Low income tracker platform

We are working with Policy in Practice to use their Low Income Family Tracker platform. This will be used to target more proactive and preventative support to households in South Cambridgeshire. As part of this, we may use your personal data to model your circumstances and assess eligibility for further support. We may contact you regarding this.

We will process data relating to your benefit entitlement, debt owing to the Council, and other personal information to be able to provide you with further support. The data processing work undertaken by Policy in Practice is covered under Article 6(1)(e) GDPR, Public Task, to support our statutory duties in respect of Housing Benefit and Council tax administration.

What purpose we are collecting your information for

We may not be able to provide you with a product or service unless we have enough information. Some of the services we offer, that we cannot complete without your information, are below:

deliver public services
confirm your identity to provide services
contact you as you want us to
understand your needs in order to advise you on the correct service and then provide that service
ask your opinion about our service
update your customer record
help us understand how we are performing at delivering services and if we provide what our residents need
process financial transactions
prevent and detect fraud in the use of public funds
allow us to undertake statutory functions efficiently
enable us to meet our statutory obligations including those related to diversity and equalities

You can see service specific information in the section below. However, we mostly process data because the law tells us we have to. Further details of these are laws can be viewed on the government website.

How we use your information

We will use your information transparently. We will not keep it for longer than is necessary. We will try to keep your information up to date and accurate. We will always make sure you understand why we need the information. We will not collect irrelevant information.

In general, we process your information for the following reasons:

for the service you have requested, to monitor and improve our performance in responding to your request
to allow us to communicate effectively with you and provide services appropriate to your needs
to the things the law tells us to do
to carry out our law enforcement functions
to prevent or detect fraud or crime
to process financial transactions
to collect money owed to us
to protect individuals from harm or serious injury
to analyse data to improve our services

We will not pass any personal data on to third parties, other than:

those who process information on our behalf (our suppliers sometimes need access to information to deliver services for us)
because of a legal requirement (such as needing to send certain information on benefits to the Department for Work and Pensions)
organisations that we engage with in joint working (such as other councils and NHS bodies)

We will only do so, where possible, after we have tried to make sure that other organisations will also safeguard your information and use it lawfully.

Information Sharing

We may share your personal data within the Council, with other public authorities or government agencies in order to provide services to you and to prevent and detect fraud. The Council is a signatory to the Cambridgeshire Information Sharing Framework, which sets high standards for secure and safe practices in information sharing within the County and beyond.

Information will not be sold, or provided to anyone else, or used for any purpose that is not related to any of the Council's statutory functions, unless you have been advised that we will do so or it is required by law. Where we need to disclose sensitive or confidential information such as medical details to other partners, we will take all appropriate safeguards.

How long we hold your information for

We will not keep your information any longer than needed to provide the services you require. We may keep your data longer if we need to retain it for legal, regulatory or best practice reasons. The Retention Schedule [PDF, 1MB] sets out details of how long we keep data.

How we protect your information

The information you provide will be subject to thorough measures and procedures to make sure it can’t be seen, accessed or disclosed to anyone who shouldn’t be allowed to see it.

We have a comprehensive set of Information and Security policies that we work with. We provide training to staff who handle personal information and treat it as a disciplinary matter if they misuse or do not look after your personal information properly.

In terms of payments, we use a PCI-DSS compliant provider for secure electronic payment systems. All transactions carried out via our payments provider website are protected by Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology. This is to ensure that any information you provide, when transmitted over the internet, is encrypted and secure.

If something goes wrong with how we manage your information and this will cause serious harm, we will tell you and notify the regulator, the ICO, within 72 hours.

If you have any concerns about the way we have handled your personal data please contact the Data Protection Officer by emailing infogov@3Csharedservices.org. Your complaint will be answered as soon as possible and within 20 working days.

The Council takes a ‘data protection by design and default’ approach when we develop policy, strategy, or initiatives that have privacy implications including technological changes. We will carry out Data Protection Impact Assessments for uses of personal data that are likely to result in high risk to individuals’ interests. We’ll carry out a screening checklist at the outset of a project (small or large) so that where there are potentially significant risks to individuals privacy this will be appropriately assessed and measures to mitigate the risk if applicable, will be actioned.

International transfers

None of our core systems host or store data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Where we do transfer data internationally, it is through the use of websites such as Eventbrite. You use these services only with your consent and we avoid transferring any sensitive information.

If we do need to transfer any data outside the EEA, we do so with data processing agreements that meet our obligations under the Data Protection Act.

Profiling and automated decision making

Automated decision making

We do not make automated decisions generally, with the following exceptions, using the information you have provided:

Some changes in circumstances relating to existing claims for benefit
Change of address, Single Person Discount and change of payment method for council tax, where this information is provided via an e-form

Detect and prevent fraud or crime

We are required by law to manage public finances. We may use any of the information you provide to us for the prevention and detection of fraud.

We may also share this information with other bodies responsible for auditing, administering public funds, or where undertaking a public function, in order to prevent and detect fraud. This includes the Cabinet Office’s National Fraud Initiative, the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and the Police.

Your information rights

The Council recognises that individuals have specific enhanced rights dependant on the lawful condition for processing, and maintain procedures for individuals to exercise those rights.

The council has a month to respond and comply with a request you make. This is a maximum period. The council will take measures to assure ourselves of your identity and may ask you to provide photographic ID before addressing any request.

No charges will be made for supplying this information. Where we hold a lot of information about you, we may ask you to narrow the scope of your request. Requests about your rights will be coordinated by the Information Governance team. You can make a request by writing to us at infogov@3csharedservices.org or write to us at the Council address

Right of access (Subject Access)

You have the right to ask the council what personal information we are processing about you and obtain:

A copy of the personal data
The purposes for which the data is being processed
Categories of data being processed
Who it is shared with
How long the council will keep the data
Source of the data (where it is not the data subject)
Their right to rectification, restriction or erasure
Their right to lodge a complaint with the ICO

Right of rectification

You have the right to have inaccurate personal data corrected without undue delay.

Right to erasure (right to be forgotten)

Under certain circumstances you can ask for your data to be erased. The council must comply with this request if:

The data is no longer necessary
It is being processed on the condition of consent and this consent is withdrawn
The subject objects to direct marketing using that data
The grounds for processing are unlawful
There is a legal obligation to erase the data
The data concerned a child and it was processed online on the basis of parental consent.

The council does not have to comply if processing is necessary for:

Exercising freedom of expression
A legal obligation, lawful authority, a public task, or in the public interest
In the public interest in protecting public health
Archiving in public interest or scientific or historical research
Establishing, exercising or defending legal claims

You will be notified of outcome of the request without undue delay and no later than a month after a request has been made.

Right to restriction of processing

You can ask us to stop using your information for certain purposes and in a number of circumstances:

When its accuracy is contested and the authority is considering their position
When you are using your right to object to processing (see below) and the authority is considering the balance of their grounds for processing against those of yours
When the processing is unlawful but you don’t want it to be erased (for example, if you are pursuing a complaint)
You need the data to establish, exercise or defend legal claims (even if the Council no longer needs to process the data)
When processing is restricted the Council is allowed to store the personal data, but not to process it further. The data the Council hold on its systems should at least be marked as unavailable, but other measures will be considered such as a restriction of access by staff
If the personal data in question is disclosed to third parties, the Council will inform you about the restriction on the processing of the personal data, unless it is impossible or involves disproportionate effort to do so

Right to data portability

The right to data portability allows you to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services. You can request only the data you have supplied to a controller (under either ‘Consent’ or ‘Contract’ lawful conditions only) to be provided in a ‘structured, commonly used and machine readable format (for example, CSV). You can request that this information is supplied directly to another data controller on your behalf.

The Council will ensure the data is transmitted securely.

Right to object

You have the right to object to the use of your data if it is processed for

Legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest
Direct marketing (including profiling)
Processing for purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics
The data must be restricted whilst the authority is considering the balance of their grounds for processing against yours.
Right to object to automated decision making

You have the right to object to any decision made by solely automated means. You can ask for human intervention on any decision, to express the Councils point of view and to obtain an explanation of the Councils decision. You also have the right to challenge the decision.

Where possible we will seek to comply with your request but we may be required to hold, retain or process information to comply with a legal obligation or as a public task.

How to complain

If you wish to raise a complaint about your personal data privacy or information rights please view our complaints and feedback information.

If you wish to make a complaint direct to the Data Protection Officer please email: foi@scambs.gov.uk

You have the right to complain to the supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Contact details for which are on the ICO website.

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