Citizens Advice Stroud and Cotswold Districts Ltd Privacy Policy

At Citizens Advice we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information we:

•only access it when we have a good reason

•only share what is necessary and relevant

•don’t sell it to anyone

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

•to comply with the law - for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’

•to protect someone’s life - for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’

•to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity - for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’

•for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest - for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’

•to carry out a contract we have with you - for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’

•to defend our legal rights - for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

 We handle and store your personal information in line with the law - including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

You can check our main Citizens Advice policy https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/citizens-advice-privacy-policy/your-information/ for how we handle most of your personal information.

This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.

What Citizens Advice Stroud and Cotswold Districts ask for

To find out what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/citizens-advice-privacy-policy/your-information/

How Citizens Advice Stroud and Cotswold Districts use your information

To find out how we use your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/citizens-advice-privacy-policy/your-information/

Working on your behalf

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, we’ll need to share information with that third party.

Organisations we share your data with must store and use your data in line with data protection law.

How Citizens Advice Stroud and Cotswold Districts store your information

We will store the record of your case in a secure case management system, which is only accessed by us. Paper copies of your information may also be stored securely and accessed by staff and volunteers of the Citizens Advice service.

How Citizens Advice Stroud and Cotswold Districts share your information

If you ask us to act on your behalf we might need to share some of your information with other organisations - we'll always tell you when we do this. For example if we contact your creditors about your debts, we might need to share your name, address and financial details with them.

If we refer you to another organisation for more advice, we might share information about your problem with them so they can help you more quickly-we’ll always tell you when we do this.

With your permission, we might share your information with other organisations to help solve your problem or to monitor the quality of our services.

Contact Citizens Advice Stroud and Cotswold Districts about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.

Unit 8, Brunel Mall,

London Road, Stroud,

GL5 2BP.

Telephone: 0808 8000510, open Monday to Friday 9am-4pm

Email: advice@ca-scd.org.uk

You can contact us to:

•find out what personal information we hold about you

•correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete

•request we delete your information

•ask us to limit what we do with your data - for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already

•ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service

•ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

The national Citizens Advice charity and your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system.

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.

You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

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