Revenues and benefits
Your privacy and the protection of your personal information is very important to us and we are committed to robust compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.
These privacy notices explain what we do with your personal information, your rights and how we protect it.
These notices are for all our service users and clients. This version of the notice was adopted in November 2020 and will be kept under review.
Who we are
Maidstone Borough CouncilMaidstone
Kent
ME15 6JQ
Phone: 01622 602000
Email: Data Protection Officer
You can find us in the Information Commissioner’s register of organisations.
Collection and recovery of Business Rates
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Email address
- Financial
- Court Proceedings
- Employment.
- Customer ID
- Account number
- Property reference
- Business address
- Property description
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to the collection and recovery of business rates will be kept for 6 years plus 1 year from the end of service.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Compliance with a legal obligation
Sharing personal information
Where necessary we will also share information where required to by law or in the public interest, including:
- Valuation Office Agency
- One Maidstone (the Business Improvement District)
Collection and recovery of Council Tax
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Email address
- Health/Disability
- Financial information
- Employment
- Landlord and agent details
- Criminal background
- Court proceedings.
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records will be kept for 6 years plus 1 year from the end of service.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Compliance with a legal obligation.
Sharing personal information
This authority is under a duty to protect the public funds it administers and we may share information provided to us with other services within the Council, or other bodies responsible for auditing and administering public funds that have a legitimate reason to request the disclosure e.g. the prevention/detection of fraud.
Council Tax investigations
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Email address
- Health/Disability
- Financial Information
- Employment
- Landlord and Agent details.
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records will be kept for 6 years plus 1 year from the end of service.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Compliance with a legal obligation.
Sharing personal information
Where necessary we will share information where required to by law or in the public interest, including:
- Kent Intelligence Network
- Local Authorities
- Central Government
- Police
- Housing Associations
- Credit Agencies
- Destin
- Intec
- National Anti Fraud Network – NAFN
- Locta
- Retriever
We sometimes use our Facebook page MBC Fraud and Compliance to assist in these investigations.
Discretionary Housing Payments
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number,
- Email address
- Health/Disability
- Financial Information
- Employment
- Reason for application
- Other members of the household
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to Discretionary Housing Payments will be kept from the end of service plus seven years.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Official authority/public task.
Sharing personal information
Where necessary we will share information where required to by law or in the public interest, including:
- Housing Associations
- Your landlord (or an agent of the landlord)
- The party payment is paid to under section 8 of Discretionary Housing Payment Policy
We may also share personal data with anti-fraud and law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime.
We will share personal data with our parent department(s) in Central Government in line with statutory functions.
As part of interagency initiatives, and Maidstone Task Force, we may share personal data with our partnership organisations including Kent Police, Kent County Council, One Maidstone, housing associations and voluntary organisations when it is necessary and lawful for us to do so.
Exceptional Hardship Payments
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Email address
- Health/Disability
- Financial Information
- Employment
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to Exceptional Hardship payments will be kept for 6 years plus 1 year from the end of service.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Compliance with a legal obligation.
Sharing personal information
We do not share this information.
Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Email address
- Health/Disability
- Financial Information
- Employment
- National Insurance
- Identification
- Visas
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit claims will be kept for 6 years plus 1 year from the end of service.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Compliance with a legal obligation.
Sharing personal information
Where necessary we will also share information where required to by law or in the public interest, including:
- Central Government
- South East Water
- Policy in Practice
- Citizens Advice Bureau
Housing Benefit investigation
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Email address
- Health/Disability
- Criminal background
- Vehicle registration
- Financial information
- Court proceedings
- Employment
- Date of birth
- National insurance
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to housing benefits investigations will be kept for 6 years plus 1 year from the end of service.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Compliance with a legal obligation.
Sharing personal information
Where necessary we will also share information where required to by law or in the public interest, including:
- Central Government
- Housing Associations
- Credit Agencies
- Police
- Local Authorities
- Kent Intelligence Network
- Destin
- Intec
- National Anti Fraud Network – NAFN
- Locta
- Retriever
We sometimes use our Facebook page MBC Fraud and Compliance to assist in these investigations.
Reviews
What types of information do we collect from you?
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Email address
- Health/Disability
- Financial information
- Probate details
Keeping your personal information
In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to reviews will be kept for 6 years plus 1 year from the end of the review.
Our legal basis for using your information is:
Compliance with a legal obligation.
Sharing your personal information
Where necessary we will also share information where required to by law or in the public interest, including:
- Central Government
- Local Government
- Police
- Housing Associations
We will use your information to:
- Provide you with services.
- Retain a record to permit us to audit and quality assure those services.
- Contact you for user satisfaction surveys.
- Plan and manage our services and to meet the requirements of external regulators.
- Conduct Council Tax and Housing Benefit investigations.
- Give you a better experience on our website and to improve the relevance of online advertising you see. Please see our Privacy Statement.
- Keep visitors and colleagues safe and secure, we also use CCTV at our premises which records images.
Automated decision-making
There are no automated decisions in this process.
Your rights over your personal information
- Access – you can request copies of your personal information that is held by the Council.
- Rectification – you can ask us to correct any incorrect information.
- Deletion – you can ask us to delete your personal information. The Council can refuse to delete information if we have a lawful reason to keep this.
- Portability – you can ask us to transfer your personal data to different services or to you.
- Limit processing – how it is going to be used in the future.
- Right to object - you have the right to object to how your data is being used
Find out more information on the ICO website.
Staying in touch
We want to keep in touch with clients and service users to tell you about our services, by post, email, text or social media.
We will not do this if you opt out or object, and you can change your mind at any time. Just get in touch using the contact details at the top of this notice or unsubscribe within any of our awareness-raising communications.
We will not use your personal information to send you marketing communications by email or text without your consent.