We created the Council Tax Benefits Advice Project Privacy Notice in June 2022 and will keep it under review.
When we use your personal data, City of York Council complies with data protection legislation, and is the registered ‘Controller’. Our data protection notification is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – reference Z5809563.
This privacy notice explains how the Council Tax Benefits Advice Project will use your information.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice contact the council’s Data Protection Officer.
View the privacy and transparency information for all of the City of York Council (CYC).
- Personal data
- Using personal data
- Our legal basis for using personal data
- Sharing personal data
- Retaining personal data
- Further processing of personal data
- Your rights relating to personal data
Personal data
We will collect and use:
- name and address
- date of birth
- National Insurance number
- email and telephone numbers
- details of income for you and your household
- details of your characteristics, including gender, language and ethnicity
- where appropriate, relevant medical information for you and/or your household for the purposes of welfare and council tax benefits advice
- any additional personal information that's necessary for us to assess your application and provide you with the service you require
- any previous and current involvement with specialist services
If we need any other details to maximise the effectiveness of our service to you, we will ask you for this and explain why we need it.
If you do not provide the personal information requested by us, we may not be able to consider your involvement in this project or help you apply for other financial support.
The information we collect will be included in reports and returns to central government where required. Any information for publication or use outside of the council staff who need to use it for this project, will be anonymised and will not identify any individuals.
We will:
- only ask you for the information that is necessary
- protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn’t
- ensure you know if you have a choice about giving us information
- make sure we don’t keep it for longer than is necessary
We ask that you:
- give us accurate information
- tell us as soon as possible of any changes
- tell us as soon as possible if you notice mistakes in the information we hold about you
See further details about how we define personal data and non-personal data.
Using personal data
We collect and use your personal data including sensitive/special categories of personal data for the following purposes:
- to support you by providing appropriate and accurate information, advice and guidance
- allowing us to make suitable referrals where necessary and with your permission
- to consider your eligibility and, if appropriate, make an application for any financial support e.g. Discretionary Council Tax Reduction, Discretionary Housing Benefit, York Financial Assistance Scheme, etc
From time to time we may conduct or ask you, to take part in a survey to get your feedback, comments and opinions to help us improve our services. You can choose not to take part in these.
Our legal basis for using personal data
We collect and use your information because you are asking us to provide accurate and suitable support and guidance. We are aiming to provide guidance on matters relating to welfare and council tax benefits and applicable support services. We may not be able to do this, if you do not provide us with this information. We will only use your information in accordance with data protection legislation, and for the purposes stated in this privacy notice.
Where we ask you to take part in any feedback, surveys or consultation etc you can choose not to take part. If you do, we will provide you with a privacy notice that explains what we will do with the information you provide as part of the feedback, survey or consultation etc.
Sharing personal data
Where you have provided details of a support worker, adviser or other person supporting you, we may discuss your situation and information provided with them.
Where suitable guidance or a referral to another service is made, we will pass your contact details and other information needed for the service/benefits agency (such as Gov.uk) to best support you.
We have an agreements in place with Healthwatch and the Centre for Housing Policy at University of York, to work with us and evaluate this project. If you do choose to take part, there will be a privacy notice that explains what we will do with the information you provide as part of the feedback, survey or consultation, etc.
We must protect public funds and may use personal information and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, collect taxes and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. To do this, your information may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds including the Audit Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police.
Sharing data under Data Protection legislation
We may be required or permitted, under data protection legislation, to disclose your personal data without your explicit consent, for example if we have a legal obligation to do so, such as for:
- law enforcement
- fraud or tax investigations
- regulation and licensing
- criminal prosecutions
- court proceedings
City of York Council must protect public funds and may use personal information and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, collect taxes and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. To do this, your information may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds including the Audit Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police.
Retaining personal data
We will keep your personal data for 7 years and then we will delete or destroy it securely.
At the end of the retention period, we may pass any relevant information to the City Archives where it is required or appropriate to do so.
Further processing of personal data
If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Notice, then we'll provide you with a new notice.
The new notice will:
- explain this new use before we start the processing
- set out the relevant purposes and processing conditions
Where and whenever necessary, we'll seek your consent to the new processing, if we start to use your personal data for a purpose not mentioned in this Privacy Notice.
Your rights relating to personal data
To find out about your rights under data protection law, you can go to the Information Commissioners Office website.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, want to exercise your rights, or if you have a complaint about how your information has been used, please contact us on email: information.governance@york.gov.uk or on telephone: 01904 554145, or write to the Data Protection Officer, City of York Council, West Offices, Station Rise, York, YO1 6GA.
When we collect your personal data we'll tell you how we are going to use it. Where we process your personal data, you have a number of rights under data protection law.
See further details of your rights relating to personal data.
Also see
- Website terms and disclaimer
- Data Protection Policy Statement
- Accessibility statement
- Cookies policy
- Copyright statement