Privacy notice - 'About You' survey
Overview
This privacy notice covers the equalities information that we collect through the ‘About You’ survey. The survey is used to support consultation, engagement and feedback activity, so may be asked as part of a survey, focus group or event.
East Sussex County Council takes data protection seriously. Please be assured that your information will be used appropriately in line with data protection legislation, will be stored securely and will not be processed unless the requirements for fair and lawful processing can be met.
What information is being used?
The ‘About You’ survey asks you to share your personal equality information with us. This may include your: age, sex, gender reassignment status, post code, ethnicity, disability, faith or religion, sexual orientation, whether you are pregnant or have had a baby in the past year, and whether you are married or in a civil partnership.
If you complete the survey using our online consultation hub, Delib our data processor, will collect your IP address (Internet Protocol address) to find out more about your visit – for example, what pages you visited, how long you were on the site and what browser you use – to help them improve the performance and features on the website. This information is not used directly by East Sussex County Council. For more information please read the Delib Privacy Policy
If you choose to receive a copy of your response to a consultation you will need to provide your email address. As soon as you have been sent a copy of your response Delib immediately deletes your email address from their system. We do not have access to your email address during this process.
How will your information be used?
Your information will only be used and reported anonymously to support the activity you have completed the ‘About You’ survey for. We will use your information to help us:
- understand the impact of our policies, practices and decisions on different groups and plan them more effectively,
- identify if there are any actions we can take to avoid discrimination and harassment, advance equality or foster good relations, and
- understand our performance and compare it to that of similar organisations nationally or locally.
We aim to maintain high standards, adopt best practice for our record keeping and regularly check and report on how we are doing. Your information is never sold for direct marketing purposes.
Our staff are trained to handle your information correctly and protect your confidentiality and privacy.
Your information is processed in the UK or in a country with an adequacy agreement with the UK.
What is the legal basis for processing your information?
We collect and process your equality information to enable us to comply with a legal obligation. The public sector Equality Duty means that we have to consider all individuals when carrying out our day-to-day work – in shaping policy, in delivering services and also in relation to our own employees.
In this case we have a duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 to have due regard to the need to:
- eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation
- advance equality of opportunity
- foster good relations
Also under the Equalities Act 2010, we must publish information annually relating to those affected by our policies and practices.
As some data collected on the about you form is special category data, there is also a substantial public interest in collecting and processing this data. The About You form helps us to understand differences in opinion and experience between different groups and how different people will be affected by our proposals.
How long will your information be kept for?
How long we keep your individual ‘About You’ information will depend on the consultation, engagement or feedback activity you have taken part in. Please get in touch with the named contact for more information.
Sharing your information
We won’t share your individual ‘About You’ information. It will only be reported as part of anonymous group statistics.
Any sharing of personal data is always done:
- on a case-by-case basis
- using the minimum personal data necessary
- with the appropriate security controls in place
- in line with legislation.
Information is only shared with those agencies and bodies who have a "need to know" or where you have consented to the sharing of your personal data to such persons.
We may use the information we hold about you to assist in the detection and prevention of crime or fraud. We may also share this information with other bodies that inspect and manage public funds.
Your rights
Under data protection legislation, you have the right:
- to be informed why, where and how we use your information
- to ask for access to your information
- to ask for your information to be corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete
- to ask for your information to be deleted or removed where there is no need for us to continue processing it
- to ask us to restrict the use of your information
- to ask us to copy or transfer your information from one IT system to another in a safe and secure way, without impacting the quality of the information
- to object to how your information is used
- to challenge any decisions made without human intervention (automated decision making)
Please visit data subject rights for further details.
How to find out more or complain
Should you have any further queries on the uses of your information, please speak directly to our service:
Email: Communications Team
Communications Team
East Sussex County Council
County Hall, St Anne’s Crescent
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 1UE
To complain about the use of your information, please contact our Customer Services Team or our Data Protection Officer.
Further information on making a complaint.
You can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for further information or to make a complaint:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Phone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate)