Privacy Notice
This Privacy notice explains how Harlow
District Council (the Council) collects, uses and protects personal
information that you give us when you visit this website.
Data Protection Act 1998
To ensure that the Council treats personal information
correctly, we seek to adhere in full to the eight principles set
out in the Data Protection Act 1998.
The Data Protection Act refers to obtaining, recording, holding
and dealing with personal information as ‘processing’. The
Council has notified the Information Commissioner’s Office of the
types of personal information it processes and the purposes for
which it does so.
The Information Commissioner's Office is the independent body
responsible for overseeing the Data Protection Act and maintains a
public register which contains the name and address of Data
Controllers with a description of the kind of processing they
do. Anyone can access this register and if you wish to view
the Council’s entry you can access it via the Information Commissioner’s Office
website. Also if you have questions about the use
of your personal information, the Information Commissioner’s
website offers useful advice and guidance.
Under the Data Protection Act 1998, we have a legal duty to
protect any information we collect from you. We use leading
technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and
keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access
to it. Our website contains full details of Harlow
District Council’s Data Protection Policy which forms part of our
Access
to Information Policy.
Visitors to our website
You can visit our website without telling us
who you are or giving us any personal information. The
Council does not capture or store any personal information about
individuals who access this website, except where you voluntarily
choose to give us your personal information via e-mail or by using
an electronic online form.
By entering your personal information (e.g.
name and e-mail address) in the fields requested in our electronic
online forms, you enable the Council and its service providers to
provide the services you requested.
However, we do use cookies to collect standard
internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns
when someone visits our website. We do this to find out things such
as the number of visitors to the various parts of the Harlow
Council’s website. We collect this information in a way which does
not identify anyone. We do not make any attempt to find out the
identities of those visiting our website.
The cookies we use are:
Website Analytical Tool
We use SiteAnalyze to help
analyse use of our website. This analytical tool uses 'cookies',
which are text files placed on your computer, to collect standard
internet log information and visitor behaviour information in an
anonymous form. The information generated by the cookie about your
use of the website (including your IP address) is transmitted to
SiteAnalyze. This information is then used to evaluate visitors’
use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website
activity for Harlow Council.
Website Accessibility Tool
A cookie is placed on your computer if you take advanage of
a certain accessibility tool which
allows to you change the way that www.harlow.gov.uk (Harloweb) is
displayed in your browser. If you would like the site to be
displayed in the same way every time you return to it, there is a
'Remember me' button which the visitor clicks to enable this. If
this button is clicked the user has, in doing so,consented to a
cookie being placed on their machine which will remember their
settings. The opt in is clearly stated in text below the 'Remember
me' button.
Website Translation Tool
The RokTalk 'text to speech'/'translation' toolbar can be
activated from an icon in the middle of our front page and from an
icon in the menu column on the left hand side of every other page
in our site. When you click on that icon to use the toolbar, a
cookie is placed on your machine, this does not collect personal
information. This company is working on a clear opt in function to
be added to this toolbar which we hope will be available very soon.
As soon as it is available, we will implement the changes.
Local Development Framework - JDi
Solutions
JDi Solutions is a consultation software
system that is used by Harlow Council to support the preparation of
its Local Development Framework (LDF) documents. The JDi
e-consultation portal allows the Council to deploy planning
documents on the internet to enable the general public and other
stakeholders to view and access them online and to make
representations on proposed plans and policies.
The only cookie
sent from the JDi site specifically is the PHP session cookie
(PHPSESSID) which keeps users logged in and in multilingual systems
remembers which language they have chosen. This cookie is
still generated for anonymous users but is never used. If
users disable cookies the ID stored in this cookie is appended to
the end of the URL in order to keep the user logged
in.
When copying corporate website
styling JDi also takes copies of any other associated files which
sometimes include javascript files which generate cookies.
Any cookies created by these files are not used by JDI in any
way.
To delete cookies or reject
cookies:
The information collected helps us provide a
better service. However, if you do not want to receive
cookies from this website, select cookie settings under the privacy
settings in your browser, then add our domain to the list of
websites you do not want to accept cookies from. Under
settings you can also delete individual cookies or any cookies that
your browser has stored.
To find out more about cookies, including how
to control and delete them, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
If you set your browser to refuse cookies, please be
aware that there may be functionality on various websites that does
not work.
Harlow Council will not (and will not allow
any third party) to use the statistical analytics tool to track or
to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to
our site. We will not associate any data gathered from this site
with any personally identifying information from any source as part
of our use of the statistical analytics tool. Harlow Council will
not link, or seek to link, an IP address with the identity of a
computer user.
Sharing and disclosing your information
Depending on the purpose for which we originally obtained your
personal information and the use to which it is to be put,
information may be shared with other organisations.
For example, information may also be shared, where necessary,
with other organisations that provide services on our behalf such
as contracts carrying out repairs to Council houses. In such cases,
the information provided is only the minimum necessary to enable
them to provide services to you.
Personal information about you may also be provided to other
local authorities. An example would be when you have moved from one
local authority to another and the new authority requires
confirmation of the services you were receiving.
In most cases we will not disclose personal data without
consent. However, there are situations where consent would
not be required such as:
- Where the Council is required to provide the information by
law
- Where the information is needed to prevent or detect a
crime
- Where the Council is obliged to publish the information by
law
- Where disclosure is in the vital interests of the person
concerned
Internal market information system
If you make any application online which is processed and
regulated by the Council it may fall within the scope of the EU
Services Directive. If that is the case we may use your
details provided in the application to help us process the
application using the IMI System (Internal Market Information
System).
The IMI is a web based portal developed by the EU Commission. It
allows authorities to share information in a secure way and
complies with data protection legislation.
IMI will only be used to exchange information regarding service
providers who are within the scope of the directive. Information
provided will be deleted from the system 6 months after the closure
of the request.
When a request is sent or received authorities will need to show a
good reason for asking or sharing requests. Only authorities
genuinely involved in the request for information will be able to
see the information supplied.
If we were to supply sensitive data using the IMI such as criminal
sanctions we will notify you that this has happened.
Audit Commission's data matching exercise
Harlow District Council is required by law to protect the public
funds it administers. It may share information provided to it with
other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public
funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.
The Audit Commission appoints the auditor to audit the accounts
of this authority. It is also responsible for carrying out data
matching exercises.
Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one
body against other computer records held by the same or another
body to see how far they match. This is usually personal
information. Computerised data matching allows potentially
fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is
found it indicates that there is an inconsistency which requires
further investigation. No assumption can be made as to whether
there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation
is carried out.
More information about this data matching exercise can be
obtained via the Data Protection page on
our website.
Data sharing with Credit Reference Agencies
Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit are social security
benefits that are administered by Local Authorities. The law allows
the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to share information
about its customers with Local Authorities for Housing Benefit or
Council Tax Benefit purposes so that they can calculate the correct
amount of benefit to pay. Local Authority staff with
responsibility for administering Housing Benefit and Council Tax
Benefit has electronic access to the DWP information they need for
this purpose.
The law also allows DWP to data match Housing Benefit and
Council Tax Benefit with information held by Credit Reference
Agencies. Data matching is where information held on one
computer system is compared electronically with information from
one or more other computer systems. DWP may compare the
information from the Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit system
with that on systems used by the Credit Reference Agencies to
identify possible fraud or error.
DWP currently has a contract with the Credit Reference Agency
Experian to carry out data matching for each Local Authority to
identify undeclared Living Together benefit fraud. The
contract stipulates that no electronic ‘footprint’ will be left on
individual customer’s credit accounts. This means that the data
matching will not affect people’s credit ratings. The
contract also specifies that Experian must not use the DWP data for
any other purposes.
Access to your information
The Council tries to be as open as it can be
in terms of giving people access to their personal information.
Individuals can find out if we hold any personal information by
making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection
Act.
More information on making a request can be obtained via
the Data Protection page on our
website.
Changes to this privacy notice
If this privacy notice changes in any way, we will place an
updated version on this webpage. Regularly reviewing this page
ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we
use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with
other parties.
Complaints or queries
The Council tries to meet the highest standards when collecting
and using personal information. For this reason, we take any
complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage
people to bring it to our attention if they think that our
collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or
inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for
improving our procedures.
Please note that this privacy notice does not provide exhaustive
detail of all aspects of the Council’s collection and use of
personal information. However, we are happy to provide any
additional information or explanation needed.
If you have any enquiries, contact details are provided
below.
Contact details:
Marie Bentley
Corporate Information Manager
Harlow Council
Civic Centre
The Water Gardens
Harlow
Essex CM20 1WG
Tel: 01279 446736
E-mail: marie.bentley@harlow.gov.uk