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Privacy Notice
This policy explains how and why we use personal information. It should be read in conjunction with our Cookies Policy further down this page.
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About Us
The Staffordshire Commissioner’s Office for Police, Fire, and Crime (SCO), is committed to protecting your personal data.
This Privacy Notice contains important information about what personal information we collect; what we do with that information; who we may share it with and why. It will also inform you of your choices and rights when it comes to the personal information you have provided us.
We may need to make changes to this Privacy Notice, so please check for updates
from time to time. If there are important changes, such as changes to where and how your personal information will be processed we will contact you to let you know.
This version of our Privacy Notice was last updated on 25th February 2021.
Who are we?
We are the Staffordshire Commissioner’s Office for Police, Fire, and Crime (SCO), we are a data controller for your personal information and are located in Block 9, Staffordshire Police HQ, Weston Road, Stafford, Staffordshire, ST18 0YY.
Your personal data – what is it?
“Personal data” is any information about a living individual which allows them to be identified from that data (for example a name, photographs, videos, email address, or address). Identification can be directly using the data itself or by combining it with other information which helps to identify a living individual (e.g. a list of staff may contain personnel ID numbers rather than names but if you use a separate list of the ID numbers which give the corresponding names to identify the staff in the first list then the first list will also be treated as personal data). The processing of personal data is governed by legislation relating to personal data which applies in the United Kingdom including the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation (the “UK GDPR) and other legislation relating to personal data and rights such as the Human Rights Act.
The types of data we may collect about you
In order to meet our obligations, we may need to collect and process your personal data. The type of data that may be collected by the SCO includes:
- Name
- Contact details such as email address, postal address and telephone number
- Gender
- Nationality
- Marital Status
- Information about your connecting device such as your phone, laptop and how you use our website
Our Legal Bases for Processing your Personal Data
When you use the SCO website or contact the SCO through the use of a web form, signup sheet or social media we may continue to process your data for the following reasons:
- To meet a legal requirement such as using the information gathered for fraud prevention or detection. This may also include information relating to statutory processes such as Police Appeals Tribunal or police complaint reviews.
- To meet our legitimate interests to improve and set default web options through you for cookies and web storage.
- Through consent provided as part of certain web forms.
More details about the way we gain, and use consent can be found in our Consent Statement.
The SCO will always ensure our commitment to following data protection law. This specifies that the personal data we hold about you must be:
- fairly, transparently and lawfully processed;
- processed for a specific, limited purposes;
- adequate, relevant and not excessive;
- accurate and up to date;
- not kept for longer than is necessary;
- processed in line with the data subjects rights;
- secure; and
- not transferred to other countries without adequate protection
Data Protection Officer
The SCO has an appointed Statutory Data Protection Officer (DPO). The DPO is responsible for ensuring compliance and can investigate breaches or failures of legal compliance. The DPO does not determine how data is managed or the purpose for which it is used.
If you wish to contact the DPO you can do so, by contacting: The Data Protection Officer, Commissioner’s Office, Block 9, Weston Road, Stafford, Staffordshire, ST18 0YY:
The DPO can also be emailed at dpo@staffordshire-pfcc.pnn.gov.uk
For how long is your data kept?
Personal data is stored for varying lengths of time depending on the purpose of its processing. For example, it is good practise to keep financial information for 7 years. Full details about how long we store your data can be found in our Retention Policy.
Information Security
The SCO is committed to ensuring that your personal information is stored securely. We employ multiple physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we hold on you in order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure. Our security measures include:
- Secure, restricted access work areas.
- Access control on all work stations and systems.
- Information security awareness and data protection training for all staff.
Sharing Your Personal Data
In order to provide a good service and fulfil our duties we may engage the services of commercial and non-commercial companies to store, process and manage the information your provide us on our behalf. For example, we currently employ a system managed by NetInspire in order to keep our newsletter subscribers up to date.
Where we have such arrangements there is always a contract, or information sharing agreement put in place to ensure we meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR.
Your Rights as a Data Subject
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
- Right to be informed
- Right to Access – The Right of Access guidelines are here with the application form. You may also call us on 01785 232457 or email: rightofaccess.pfcc@staffordshire-pfcc.gov.uk
- Right to Request Rectification
- Right to Erasure
- Right to Restrict Processing
- Right to Data Portability
- Right to Object
- Rights Relating to Automated Decision Making
Further information on your personal rights as a data subject can be found here in the ICO Guidance on Personal Rights.
Use of Cookies
This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. As required by legislation, where applicable this website uses a cookie control system, allowing the user to give explicit permission or to deny the use of /saving of cookies on their computer / device.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer’s hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.
Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors or use the cookie control system if available upon their first visit.
Please see the table below for a list of the cookies used on the website.
Website Visitor Tracking
This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. The software will save a cookie to your computer’s hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information.
Adverts and Sponsored Links
This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, to whom may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.
Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertisers’ website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computer’s hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
External Website Links & Third Parties
Although we only look to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. These mainly include local authority contacts and activity providers’ details.
Shortened URL’s; URL shortening is a technique used on the web to shorten URL’s (Uniform Resource Locators) to something substantially shorter. This technique is especially used in social media and looks similar to this (example: https://staffordshire-pfcc.gov.uk/privacy/ could become https://bit.ly/2TtgOUQ . Users should take caution before clicking on shortened URL links and verify their authenticity before proceeding.
We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite our best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
Social Media Policy & Usage
We adopt a Social Media Policy to ensure our organisation and our staff conduct themselves accordingly online. While we may have official profiles on social media platforms users are advised to verify authenticity of such profiles before engaging with, or sharing information with such profiles. We will never ask for user passwords or personal details on social media platforms. Users are advised to conduct themselves appropriately when engaging with us on social media.
There may be instances where our website features social sharing buttons, which help share web content directly from web pages to the respective social media platforms. You use social sharing buttons at your own discretion and accept that doing so may publish content to your social media profile feed or page. You can find further information about some social media privacy and usage policies in the resources section below
Downloads & Media Files
Any downloadable documents, files or media made available on this website are provided to users at their own risk. While all precautions have been undertaken to ensure only genuine downloads are available users are advised to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.
We accept no responsibility for third party downloads and downloads provided by external third-party websites and advise users to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.
Contract & Communication
Users contacting us through this website do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use.
Where we have clearly stated and made you aware of the fact, and where you have given your express permission, we may use your details to send you newsletters, notification of events, or other information through a mailing list system. This is done in accordance with the regulations named in ‘The policy’ above.
Changes to this Notice
We believe data protection should be an iterative process, and we keep this Privacy notice under regular review.
