Ipswich Borough Council is a controller of personal data.  We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office and our registered number is Z649690X. We have a Data Protection Officer who works with us to make sure we process personal information only in the way the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018 say that we should.

What is personal information?

Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when put together with other information can then identify a person. For example, this could be your name and contact details. Some information is ‘special’ and needs more protection due to its sensitivity. It’s often information you would not want widely known and is very personal to you. This is likely to include anything that can reveal your:

• sexuality and sexual health
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• ethnicity
• physical or mental health
• trade union membership
• political opinion
• genetic/biometric data
• criminal history

Why we need to use your personal information

The Council may need to use some information about you.  For example:

• to maintain our accounts and records
• to manage our property and housing
• to provide leisure and cultural services
• to carry out surveys
• to collect taxes and pay benefits
• licensing and other regulatory activities
• protecting public money by taking part in local, regional and national fraud initiatives
• crime prevention including the use of CCTV
• to provide services to our residents and visitors
• to support and manage our employees
• to manage archived records for historical and research purposes

The legal basis for processing your personal information

Generally, we collect and use personal information where:

• it is necessary to perform our statutory duties
• you have entered into a contract with us
• it is required by law
• it is necessary for employment purposes
• it is necessary for legal cases
• it is to the benefit of society as a whole
• it is necessary to protect public health
• you, or your legal representative, have given consent
• it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency

We will only collect and process the information that we need.

How long we keep your data for

We will only keep your information for as long as it is required by us in order to comply with legal and regulatory requirements or for other operational reasons. The retention period is either dictated by law or by our discretion and is documented in our retention schedule. Once your information is no longer needed it will be securely and confidentially destroyed.

Why we share data and who we share it with:

Sharing with the Three Councils For Suffolk partners The District and Borough Councils in Suffolk are all jointly promoting and working together on the Three Unitary Councils for Suffolk proposal. As part of this work, where necessary, the council’s will work together on responding to questions or feedback provided by you, which may require sharing your information with the other councils in the group. Ipswich Borough Council will collect information you provide to us when you use the “Contact Us” section of this site, however, a specific question or piece of feedback may be better responded to by a different district or borough, or considered by more than one. In those cases, Ipswich Borough Council would share the information provided in your email to the other relevant council(s). The other councils are listed below, with links to their privacy information:

• Babergh District Council – Privacy Policy
• East Suffolk District Council – Privacy Notice
• Mid Suffolk District Council – Privacy Policy
• West Suffolk District Council – Privacy statement

Information shared with another local authority becomes their responsibility, and they become the controller of the information they hold. The privacy notices above detail how they will process and protect your information.

Joined up services – sharing basic details across council services

The Council is serious about delivering accessible, appropriate, timely and effective services and it is important that it can properly coordinate what it does for your benefit. To achieve this, it aims to improve its centralised customer database so that it acts as a hub for all services. This means, for example, that the system can report any change of address to all the services that use the database, so you won’t have to repeat it every time you contact the Council. Over time the Council’s aim is to ensure that it has one master record containing your basic details, together with information about the nature of your transactions. The database is not designed to provide specific details of the services you have received but rather to ensure that the Council is not asking you to repeat basic information for each service you require. It will also help the Council to tailor services to meet your needs and ensure that your requests are being dealt with effectively and help to prevent them getting lost in the system. You will always have the right to opt out of this or any other data sharing initiatives. However, remember that the Council is only collecting the data for the purpose of improving the services on offer to you. It will not use your information for other purposes without your permission and will certainly not supply it for third party marketing purposes.

Sharing information with other councils, community partners and other agencies

The Council has a responsibility to promote social wellbeing and to work with other councils and community partners in order to preserve life, reduce accidents, reduce crime and improve health. The Council may need to share your personal and sensitive information with these other councils and partners. If the Council needs to share your sensitive personal data with a third party, it will only do so once it has obtained your consent and in all circumstances the Council will be open and informative about why the sharing is necessary and whom it will be shared with. Wherever possible your consent will be secured at the time the information is collected, for example, on the application forms for council services. You need to be aware that the Council is periodically required to share your information with other agencies to help reduce crime or investigate fraud. An example of this is in reducing Housing Benefit fraud and involves the Council sharing Council Tax, Housing Benefit, Electoral Registration and other licensing and registration data to ensure that claimants are not claiming illegally. This is done under the direction and security of a National Government Agency known as The Cabinet Office. The shared data is not used for any other purpose. The need to share this information for promoting social wellbeing will only be for the Council’s legitimate business purposes and community projects where the balance of benefit to you and the community far outweighs the remote possibility that you or any other individual could suffer any detriment. The likelihood of any such detriment will also be further reduced by strict data sharing protocols between the Council and partners and tight security in terms of the transfer of information. Access to your sensitive personal information will also be restricted to authorised individuals only and strictly on a ‘need to know’ basis.