Safeguarding

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.

This privacy notice explains what we do with your personal information, your rights and how we protect it.

This notice is 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 Council
Maidstone
Kent
ME15 6JQ

Phone: 01622 602000
Email: Data Protection Officer

You can find us in the Information Commissioner’s register of organisations.

What types of information do we collect from you?

Name
Address
Safeguarding concerns e.g. domestic abuse, mental health concerns and other personal information such as GP, social care provision etc.

Keeping your personal information

In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to safeguarding will be kept for 7 years from the end of the review.

Our legal basis for using your information is:

If we need to share special category personal data, the Data Protection Act 2018 includes ‘safeguarding of children and individuals at risk’ as a condition that allows practitioners to share information without consent

Information can be shared legally without consent, if a practitioner is unable to, cannot be reasonably expected to gain consent from the individual, or if to gain consent could place a child at risk.

Relevant personal information can be shared lawfully if it is to keep a child or individual at risk safe from neglect or physical, emotional or mental harm, or if it is protecting their physical, mental, or emotional well-being.

Sharing personal information

Where necessary we will also share information where required to by law or in the public interest, including:

Police including the West Kent MARAC and VISOR teams
National Probation Service (NPS) and Community Rehabilitation Company – soon to be part of the reformed NPS
Social Services
Kent County Council
Clinical health providers – including both mental and physical health
Support providers
Internal department within Maidstone Borough Council

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.
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.