Your privacy is important to us. All employees who have access to your personal data or are associated with the handling of that data must comply with data protection law.
We have security policies in place to safeguard your information and prevent unauthorised access to it. We will only hold your personal information for as long as necessary.
Our websites may try to set and access small text files known as cookies on your computer. Go to our use of cookies page for information on how we use of cookies and ways you may opt-out of accepting them. We also collect IP (Internet Protocol) addresses from visitors to our websites.
Our websites contain links to other websites, including those of government departments, public authorities and of private and voluntary organisations. Third-party websites should have their own privacy statement and information about their use of cookies. You should always be aware when you are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of those sites that collect personal information.
Fair processing
Thurrock Council is the Data Controller for information collected through this website and or printed forms that refer to this privacy notice.
Our officer responsible for data protection is the 'Strategic Lead – Information Management' – contact details are at the end of this page.
We will use the information you supply us to provide you with an appropriate, timely and effective service.
The information about you that we hold will be stored securely and made available to authorised officers only.
Go to our fair processing page to read more about how we use personal data, including how to access it.
Information sharing
We may need to share the personal information you have given to us with partner organisations such as the police or other government bodies.
Information will only ever be shared when it is necessary to help us provide effective services.
Where possible, the data that we process or share will be anonymised, pseudonymised or de-personalised. Special categories of personal data includes – but is not limited to – information about race, religious beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health. We will not pass it to any other parties unless required to do so by law.
There are some circumstances where your consent may not be sought. This could be when we feel there is a good reason that's more important than protecting your confidentiality – for example:
- to prevent serious harm to others
- to help prevent or prosecute crime or fraudulent activity
- as a requirement of statute law
- because a court has asked for it
We have a duty to protect the public funds we administer, and may use or share the information held about you for the prevention and detection of fraud and other lawful purposes – we do not need your consent to share data in these circumstances.
We may share some of your personal information between our services so we can:
- provide services that are appropriate, timely, effective and beneficial to you
- keep our information on you as up-to-date as possible
- improve our service to you
Our staff can only access the information they need to do their job.
We have specific data sharing agreements with local agencies. Sometimes the law requires that we may have to pass your details on to a third party.
We won't sell or give your information to any third party for marketing purposes unless we have your permission.
We will not share personal data with third parties that are in a country or territory outside the European Economic Area (EEA) unless either:
- that country or territory has an adequate level of protection is in place for the processing of personal data
- we have made sure other safeguards are in place to protect your data
How long we keep personal information
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as it is needed, and remove it when that purpose has been met. Details are provided in our document retention schedule.
In the case of an online service, your personal information is stored until you no longer wish to continue to receive the service, in accordance with the retention scheme above.
If you have registered for an account on our websites, you have the option of deleting your account at any time. This will permanently delete your information and you will not be able to recover data. However, if any information from the online account is saved in the computer systems used by that particular service, then it will be retained in accordance with the retention schedule above.
If you wish to have all data held about you erased from our systems, you should send your request to us using the contact details at the end of this page.
Public Health
We have additional responsibilities when processing Public Health data. Details are given in the document below.
In response to the outbreak of a communicable disease or other risks to public health, we may be required to share confidential patient information to persons and organisations permitted, by law, to process that information.
In such situations, confidential patient information may be processed with a view to:
- diagnosing communicable diseases and other risks to public health
- recognising trends in such diseases and risks
- controlling and preventing the spread of such diseases and risks
- monitoring and managing such diseases and risks
The processing of confidential patient information for these purposes may be undertaken by:
- the Public Health Laboratory Service
- persons employed or engaged for the purposes of the health service
- persons employed or engaged by the government or other public authority in communicable disease surveillance
Shared Care Record
We are part of My Care Record, a partnership project to improve care by joining up health and care information. Local health and social care organisations may hold records about you separately such as your
- GP
- hospital
- community health teams
- mental health teams
- social care teams (Thurrock Council)
Having records in different places can make it difficult to give you the best possible care.
We are working with partners within Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System (ICS) to develop and implement the new Mid and South Essex Shared Care Record. The Shared Care Record brings together essential information from separate medical records to help health and care professionals provide faster, more effective care for you. Wherever possible, health and social care professionals will be able to access your records from other services, or view information from the records we hold about you, when it is needed for your care.
You can find out more about My Care Record by visiting the My Care Record website or the Shared Care Record at the Mid & South Essex ICS website.
Use of artificial intelligence (AI)
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) to help us analyse information, suggest options and manage processes. We do not use AI to make automated decisions about you.
At the present time, use of AI is limited to:
- finding ways to support tenants who are having difficulties paying their rent
For more information, read our service-level privacy notices below.
Service-level privacy notices
Our service-level privacy notices state, for each service area:
- why we collect personal information
- the information we collect
- who we share the information with
- our purpose for processing the information
- how long we keep the information
Offensive or inappropriate content
If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content to us or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on any of our services, including on social media channels, we may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.
Where we reasonably believe that you are or may be in breach of any national or international law, we may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as social media channel providers or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.
Contacting us about privacy matters
Questions or concerns about privacy or our use of personal data should be sent to us below.