Personal information

Personal information is information which identifies you as an individual, such as your name and address. Other types of personal information held by the county council might include library membership, or details of help provided through children's or adult's social services. The way your personal information is obtained, held or used is protected by the Data Protection Act (DPA).

The Freedom of Information Act does not allow us to release personal information that we hold if:

• it is a request for your own personal data – but you can get this information under DPA rules and not under the FOI Act rules
• someone could not get access to his or her own personal data under the DPA, no-one else should be able to get access to it under the FOI Act
• the general DPA rules about handling personal data would prevent disclosure.

If you would like to know what information we hold about you, see our pages about Data Protection.