Privacy notice - Home to school transport services
Overview
This privacy notice covers the provision of the home to school transport service from the application stage through to delivering transport arrangements. This covers:
- All applications for SEN home to school travel assistance
- All applications relating to statutory free school transport to a mainstream school as per our home to school transport policy.
- All applications where the parent or carer requests to pay for transport on a school transport service as part of the vacant seat scheme.
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?
- Child or young person’s name
- Child or young person’s home address
- Child or young person’s date of birth
- Child or young person’s gender
- If the child or young person is “looked after” or “previously looked after”
- If the child or young person has an EHCP
- Parent/carer/applicant’s name
- Parent/carer’s address
- Parent/carer/applicant’s telephone number (optional)
- Parent/carer/applicant’s email address
- Details of other children in the household (name, date of birth, school attended)
- Proof of parent medical conditions or disability (where required for consideration of discretionary offers of assistance)
- Proof of medical conditions/disability for the child (required where it is not reasonable for the child to walk to school)
- Financial data (where relevant)
- Evidence to support grounds of religion or belief (under extended rights eligibility for those attending a faith school)
- Photograph (when required for photo card travel passes)
- Personal family circumstances (where required for consideration of discretionary offers of assistance)
How will your information be used?
It will be used to determine any entitlement to transport assistance and enable East Sussex County Council to make suitable transport arrangements for children and young people.
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?
Usually, we collect and hold your information to enable us to comply with a legal obligation or because we are acting in the public interest or exercising our official authority.
The purpose of providing the information allows the council to make transport arrangements to those entitled to it by law (article 6(1)(c)) and local policy and administered by the County Council as part its public task (article 6(1)(e)). In line with article 9(2)(b) your consent for any sensitive (health) data will be sought.
The Vacant Seat Scheme is a paid for service and administered with your consent (article 6(1)(a)). Payments are administered for pupils eligible for the Post-16 SEN transport.
Smart cards allow details of where and when your pass has been used to be recorded anonymously. The Council may reidentify you from this data in the following circumstances:
Analysing usage for carrying out renewals (Article 6(1)(e))
Identifying fraudulent use (Sch. 8 Para. 8(1)(b)(ii) Data Protection Act 2018)
Safeguarding vulnerable individuals (Sch. 8 Para. 4(1) Data Protection Act 2018).
How long will your information be kept for?
Please see the Records Retention and Disposal Schedule for the Council.
Sharing your information
Information will only be shared with those involved in the application process or to provide transport services which may include trusted external organisations.
Some of the organisations we may share your information with include:
- Ofsted
- your child’s school
- your child’s doctor
- Councillors
The County Council will share information regarding the times and locations that public bus passes have been used in the event that the police are carrying out safeguarding investigations relating to persons they believe to be vulnerable.
Any organisation commissioned by the Council will be under contractual obligation to comply with data protection legislation.
Any sharing of personal data is always done:
- on 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.
Use of third party organisations
East Sussex County Council may share your information with trusted external organisations to process your data on our behalf.
For those in receipt of a bus pass, your name, address and photo will be shared with our partner organisation, Euclid, who produce, and issue passes on the Council’s behalf.
For those in receipt of SEN transport, the minimal amount of data to ensure a suitable transport service will be shared with transport providers (taxi/minibus companies).
Any organisation commissioned by the Council will be under contractual obligation to comply with data protection legislation.
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:
For queries about applications and eligibility for transport to mainstream schools, please contact:
Admissions and Transport team
Phone: 0300 330 9472
Email: Admissions and Transport team
For queries about applications and eligibility for SEN transport, please contact:
Discretionary Transport
Phone: 01273 481625
Email: Discretionary Transport
For queries about operational matters and the provision of transport services after eligibility has been determined, please contact:
Transport Hub
Phone: 01273 335075
Email: Transport Hub
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)