This privacy notice explains how and why Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and City of York Council Housing Services (CYC) use your personal information. When we say ‘we’ in this privacy notice, we mean MHCLG and where applicable, CYC.
It sets out:
- what data we collect about you
- what we use your data for
- how long we keep your data
- what your rights are
This privacy notice is written in line with the UK’s data protection legislation and best practice, including:
- UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
- Data Protection Act 2018
- Data (Use and Access) Act 2025
- guidance from the Information Commission
This privacy notice:
- was created in October 2026 and it will be reviewed regularly.
- is authored by MHCLG and CYC but it is not intended to replace Housing Services Privacy Notice – City of York Council or City of York Council Employees Privacy Notice – City of York Council
- should be read in conjunction with other CYC privacy notices that are available in our Privacy Notice and/or CYC policies and procedures.
What Local Transcribe is
Local Transcribe is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that uses audio recordings of conversations to generate transcripts and conversation summaries. The tool is being used by some employees in CYC housing services.
Who we are
Local Transcribe is owned and run by the Local AI division in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
CYC has signed an agreement with MHCLG so it can use Local Transcribe with members of the public who access council housing services. This means that MHCLG and CYC are joint data controllers – each must comply with applicable data protection legislation in respect of the processing of personal data.
This privacy notice is written by MHCLG. It does not replace CYC’s own, service-specific privacy information. CYC is responsible for determining the appropriate usage of Local Transcribe, and for providing appropriate transparency information to members of the public.
You can contact the:
- MHCLG data protection officer: dataprotection@communities.gov.uk
-
CYC’s Data Protection Officer at information.governance@york.gov.uk or on 01904 555719, or write to the Data Protection Officer:
City of York Council
West Offices
Station Rise
York, YO1 6GA
When appropriate we will provide a ‘just in time’ notice to cover any additional processing activities not mentioned in this privacy notice.
- How we collect your information
- What personal data we process and why
- Automated decision making
- Collecting information automatically
- Childrens information
- Lawful basis for processing your personal data
- How long we keep your personal data
- Data sharing
- Data processors and or third parties
- Transfers of personal data
- How we protect your information
- Your rights in relation to this processing
How do we get your information
We will collect your data in 3 possible ways:
- from the recording of your conversation with your client (member of the public) – if they agree to Local Transcribe being used
- from activities that help us evaluate Local Transcribe as a product – CYC might share audio data from recordings made without Local Transcribe, or data from its case management system(s)
- during any user research or engagement activities you take part in
What personal data we process and why
The data we collect might contain personal data which can identify you, for example your:
- name
- role
- local council
- local council department
- email address
We collect your personal data while you’re using the Local Transcribe product, and during activities that support the product.
This includes:
- testing and collecting user feedback
- user research and design
- engaging with CYC’s employees to understand their workflows – this will inform how we develop Local Transcribe
- onboarding users
- sharing audio data, survey data or data from council case management systems between CYC and MHCLG – for example, to support operational testing or evaluate the accuracy of Local Transcribe’s transcripts and documents
- service improvement metrics, value benefit metrics and analytics
- Local Transcribe team members accessing data within the tool to help them support users
It might also contain criminal offence or special category data from members of the public, if this comes up in your conversation, or in case management system records and this is covered in the privacy notice for members of the public.
Automated decision making
The AI components in Local Transcribe do not make decisions about your case. Every transcript and conversation summary generated by Local Transcribe must be reviewed by you, and, if necessary, updated to ensure it is accurate. Any decisions about the case are made by a human, not a machine.
Collecting information automatically
Please see Cookies policy – City of York Council for further information about the information we collect automatically when you use CYC’s website.
Children’s information
Where CYC provides services directly to children or young people, the information in the relevant parts of this notice applies to children and young people, as well as adults.
Lawful basis for processing your personal data
Data protection legislation sets out when we are lawfully allowed to process your data. The lawful basis for Local Transcribe is Article 6(1)(e) of UK GDPR – public task. Public task means we are processing your personal data because it is necessary for us to carry out our official functions in the public interest.
We will always use your personal data in line with our legal responsibilities under data protection law.
Any personal data and special category data that CYC processes about individuals is done so in accordance with one or more of the following Articles 6 and 9 of the UK GDPR and Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018).
- Article 6(1)
- (e) Public task: the processing is necessary for us to carry out our official functions in the public interest
- Article 9(2)
- (g) Reasons of substantial public interest (with a basis in law)
This is supported by Schedule1, Part 2 (6) of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the following legal framework:
- Housing Act 1996
- Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
Where CYC process information relating to criminal convictions, offences, alleged offences, court proceedings, investigations, or related security measures, it will only be where it is necessary and where we are authorised to do so by law and in accordance with Article 10 UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. This may be for the purpose of carrying out our statutory duties and powers, safeguarding children and adults, preventing and detecting crime or fraud, undertaking regulatory and enforcement activities, protecting the public, managing legal proceedings, or complying with legal obligations. Appropriate safeguards are applied to protect individuals' rights and freedoms, and access is limited to those who need the information to carry out their official duties.
Some of the Schedule 1 conditions for processing special category and criminal offence data require an Appropriate Policy Document (APD) to be in place, which sets out and explains the procedures for securing compliance with the principles in Article 5 and policies regarding the retention and erasure of such personal data. This document explains this processing and satisfies the requirements of Schedule 1, Part 4 of the DPA 2018 and supplements this privacy notice
Our Appropriate Policy Document – City of York Council provides further information about this processing.
MHCLG’s Appropriate Policy documents are available by contacting
- MHCLG data protection officer: dataprotection@communities.gov.uk
How long we keep your personal data
MHCLG starts processing your personal data as soon as CYC begins any of the following Local Transcribe activities with MHCLG:
- using Local Transcribe as a live product
- you can store recordings, transcripts and conversation summaries within the Local Transcribe tool for up to 30 days – we keep this data for a further 14 days for disaster recovery purposes, so in total this data is stored for a maximum of 44 days
- processing of personal data in event data and logs derived from audio data stops after 90 days
- Local Transcribe evaluation – we keep this data for up to 12 months
- user research or engagement – we keep this data for up to 6 months
Alternatively, processing of personal data might stop sooner if CYC requests to have its data deleted.
When information is deleted or disposed of, it will be done securely and confidentially.
You can find details on how long CYC keeps records at Council retention schedule – City of York Council
Data sharing
We will only share your information where it is appropriate to, with:
- employees of MHCLG, and the Local Transcribe team.
- members of the Local Transcribe team, including contractors from third parties
- third party suppliers, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, who help make the Local Transcribe product work
- internal and external auditors
In some circumstances, such as under a court order or safeguarding, we are legally obliged to share your information.
We will always satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information and document our decision making.
Additionally, CYC are required under the Public Records Act 1958 (as amended) to transfer records to the City or National Archives (TNA) for permanent preservation. Full consideration will be given to Data Protection and Freedom of Information legislation when making decisions about whether such records should be open to the public.
Data processors and or third parties
When we have third parties providing parts or all of our services, systems, software, platforms, applications (apps) etc for us, we have contracts or agreements in place with them. These include:
- third party suppliers, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, who help make the Local Transcribe product work
- third-party contractors from Softwire and Sparta Global, which support the delivery of Local Transcribe process personal data on MHCLG’s instruction.
- service providers acting on MHCLG’s instructions for secure hosting, speech-to-text transcription, summarisation, product analytics, performance monitoring and error tracking
Transfers of personal data
Data will be transferred to the European Economic Area (Sweden and Germany) for:
- processing by speech-to-text and large language model (LLM) services
- performance monitoring
- error tracking
No data is stored outside of the UK by speech-to-text and LLM services, and no data is retained or used for AI training. Data is stored in the EEA for performance monitoring and error tracking only.
Where data is transferred or stored outside of the UK, we have appropriate safeguards in place, and it is done in accordance with the UK data protection and privacy legislation.
How we protect your information
We are committed to keeping personal data safe and secure. We use a range of technical and organisational measures to protect information, including:
- securely store all personal data within Local Transcribe, and from activities between your council and MHCLG
- use third-party software, such as Microsoft SharePoint, to store personal data collected during user research or engagement activities
- aggregate and anonymise information, where possible, for product analytics
- ensure that protective technical and organisational measures are in place
Your rights in relation to this processing
For information about your rights under data protection law, please visit the Information Commission's Office (ICO) website: For the public | ICO
You can also find information about your rights in Our Privacy Notice – City of York Council
The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have rights that affect what happens to it.
You have the right to:
- know that we are using your personal data
- see what data we have about you
- ask to have your data corrected, and to ask how we check the information we hold is accurate
- ask to restrict how we use personal data or object to certain processing
- ask for your data to be deleted
- complain to the Information Commission
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, would like to exercise your rights, or wish to raise a concern or complaint about how CYC Housing Services or MHCLG has handled your personal data, you can contact:
City of York Council
Email: information.governance@york.gov.uk
Phone: 01904 555719
Post: Data Protection Officer, City of York Council, West Offices, Station Rise, York,YO1 6GA
MHCLG Data Protection Officer
Email: dataprotection@communities.gov.uk
If you remain dissatisfied, or would like independent advice about data protection, privacy, or information sharing, you can contact the Information Commission's Office (ICO):
Or you can write to them at:
Information Commission's OfficeICO Head Office
4th Floor, No.3 Circle Square
5 Hawkshaw Street
Manchester
M1 7BL