Arun and Chichester Citizens Advice Privacy Policy
At Arun and Chichester Citizens Advice, we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people's lives.
This privacy policy explains how we use your information and what your rights are. We handle and store your personal information in line with data protection law and our confidentiality policy. The following pages tell you more about how we use your information in more detail.
Our network
Citizens Advice is a membership organisation made up of the national Citizens Advice charity and many local offices across England and Wales, including Arun and Chichester Citizens Advice. Arun and Chichester Citizens Advice is an independent charity and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity.
All members of the Citizens Advice network are responsible for keeping your personal information safe and making sure data protection law is followed.
Members of the network also run some jointly designed services and use some of the same systems to process your personal data. In these instances we are joint data controllers for these activities.
Jointly controlled data
All offices in the Citizens Advice network use some joint systems to carry out our activities. These include joint case management systems, telephony platforms and more.
Staff from a different local Citizens Advice can only access your personal information in a joint system if they have a good reason. For example when:
We have rules and controls in place to stop people accessing or using your information when they shouldn’t.
Tell an adviser if you’re worried about your details being on a national system. We’ll work with you to take extra steps to protect your information - for example by recording your problem without using your name.
National Citizens Advice has a privacy notice available on their website that covers general advice and nationally managed systems, including our case management systems. This policy covers the processing we carry out in our office.
How we use your data for advice
This section covers how we use your data to provide you with advice.
For general advice and nationally funded advice programmes please see the national Citizens Advice privacy notice.
How we collect your information
We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you're comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential. We ask you to complete a form if you are attending in person, by email, or webchat, and if you are contacting us by telephone our adviser will verbally obtain the information.
What information we collect
For the purposes of the advice we will ask for information that's relevant to your problem. Depending on what you want help with, this might include:
personal information - for example about family, work, or financial circumstances, or if you're in a vulnerable situation or at risk of harm
We occasionally ask for details about someone else like a neighbour or your partner so we can deal with an enquiry.
If you don't want to give us certain information, you don't have to. For example, if you want to stay anonymous we'll only record information about your problem and make sure you're not identified.
What we use your information for
The main reason we ask for your information is to help solve your problem. Data protection law lets us do this as long as we have an appropriate legal basis to do so. For example we have a legitimate interest to access your data:
All advisers and staff accessing data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.
Our confidentiality policy
At Citizens Advice we have a confidentiality policy which states that anything you tell us as part of advice will not be shared outside of the Citizens Advice network unless you provide your permission for us to do so.
There are some exceptions to this such as needing to share:
Who we share your information with
We might share your information with other organisations so we can:
Organisations we share your data with must store and use your data in line with data protection law. They'll have their own privacy policies for how they handle your information and keep it safe.
There might be specific organisations we share your information with, depending on what service you access.
Organisations we commonly share information with are:
Our lawful basis for using your information
We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you under one of the following legal basis
Activity | Lawful basis for collecting personal data | Lawful basis for collecting special category or criminal convictions data |
General advice provision and funded services (unless listed below) | Legitimate interests - we have a legitimate interest to provide advice to our clients | Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims - where we are helping clients establish their legal rights Substantial Public Interest (provision of confidential counselling, advice or support) - where we are providing advice to clients which doesn’t relate to their legal rights. |
Consumer service and energy advice | Public task - we have a statutory obligation to provide consumer and energy advice | Substantial public interest (statutory obligation) - we have a statutory obligation to provide consumer and energy advice |
Debt relief orders | Public task - we have a public task through our funder the Money and Pensions Service to assist with debt relief orders | Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims - where we are helping clients establish their legal pension rights |
Accessibility requirements | Legal obligation - we have legal obligations in accordance with the equalities legislation | Substantial public interest (statutory obligation) - obligations under equalities legislation. |
Marketing new advice services | Legitimate interests - we have a legitimate interest in promoting advice services which could benefit our clients Consent - where marketing rules require consent to do so | N/A |
Maintaining quality and standards | Legitimate interests - we have a legitimate interest in ensuring that our service is run properly and that standards are maintained | Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims Substantial public interest (protecting the public against dishonesty etc) - where we are carrying out functions to protect against: - dishonesty, malpractice or other seriously improper conduct - unfitness or incompetence - mismanagement in administration |
Safeguarding | Public task - in complying with safeguarding obligations | Substantial public interest (Safeguarding of children and of individuals at risk) |
Fraud prevention | Legitimate interests - we have a legitimate interest in defending against fraudulent activity Legal obligation - in some circumstances there are legal obligations to disclose actual or suspected cases of fraud | Substantial public interest - (preventing and detecting unlawful acts, preventing fraud, Suspicion of terrorist financing or money laundering)
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How we use your data for research, feedback and statistics
We might use your data to help with research, feedback and statistics. We'll collect information from you by either:
How we collect your information
We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you're comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential. We might ask you to complete feedback, where a third party contacting you to gather feedback.
What information we collect
We only ask for the information we need to tell your story, and you can opted out. Depending on how we want you to help us, this might include information about:
What we use your information for
We use some information to create statistics about who we're helping and what problems are the most common. We might use the information you’ve told us and your answers to the Client Experience survey. This information is always anonymised - you can't be identified.
We share these with funders, regulators, government departments and publicly on our blogs, reports, social media and press releases.
The statistics also inform our policy research, campaigns, or media work.
We might use a research company to help us analyse the information. We have an agreement with them to make sure they store data securely and follow data protection laws. We’re still responsible for keeping your personal information safe and making sure we follow data protection law. This means we're the ‘data controller' for your information.
Who we share your information with
Any data shared with any third parties for the purposes of research, feedback or statistics will be anonymised so that you are not identifiable.
Our lawful basis for using your information
Under the Data Protection act 2018 we have a legitimate interest to use the data for the purposes of research, feedback and statistics.
How long we keep your data for
We keep your information for 6 years. If your case has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute we keep the data for 16 years.
Third party processors
Third party processors are other organisations that carry out data processing on our behalf. Third party processors don’t use data for their own purposes and we have agreements in line with data protection law.
Your data protection rights
You have rights in relation to your personal data that we hold. Your rights include being able to request:
These rights are not absolute and may not apply in every circumstance. For more information about your rights you can visit the ICO website.
To make a data protection rights request you can do so by emailing individualrights@citizensadvice.org.uk.
Raising a concern about how we use your information
You can also contact the national charity if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal data or wish to raise a concern about how a local office has handled your personal data. To do so you can email us at DPO@citizensadvice.org.uk
Contacting the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
You can also raise your concern with the Information Commissioner's Office which regulates data protection law in the UK. if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information. They will normally expect you to have made a complaint to us directly in the first instance.
Address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
