Privacy Notice
Introduction
In the UK, laws around holding your personal information are changing. This is to make sure we look after your information properly and safely. We are letting you know exactly why and how we hold information on the people we work with.
This document gives you a clear explanation of how we are meeting the new requirements and looking after your information securely.
Information we hold
So that we can provide the best possible services, we need information about your individual needs. This will include all the usual information such as name, address, contact details and date of birth, but will also include details about your health and wellbeing. This is often given to us by another organisation, such as social services, as part of a referral process. We may also carry out our own assessment to see if there is anything else we might need to know in order to provide the best service.
Why we hold that information
Under the new laws we need to tell you what the reason is for using your information. For Carlisle Mencap, it fits within the legal basis of Legitimate Interests. This means that we could not do our job without this information. We will also ask you for your consent to hold this information wherever possible.
What we do with that information
We use this information to ensure we can identify individuals correctly, and provide them with the right support for their individual needs. We also use this information to report back to the people that fund our services to prove that we are doing what we said we would. At times, we may also need to share some information on your behalf, for example, if we are supporting you at the hospital.
How we hold it
We receive email and paper information from social services and other organisations who refer people to us. We hold this information in paper and electronic forms. The paper based information is held securely in a locked cabinet in our head office. This is supervised during the day and locked at night. The information that we hold electronically is securely held and we have a specialist IT Company who check our systems regularly to make sure it is still secure. We also back up our work every day and this is held securely by our IT company.
Your rights under the new regulations
The new regulations give you rights about what we do with your information. These are similar to how we have always looked after your data but include some changes. So you know exactly what your rights are, they are listed below:
- The right to be informed
- The right of access
- The right of rectification
- The right to erasure
- The right to restrict data processing
- The right to data portability
- The right to object
- The right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling
If you would like to know about this, please see our Data Protection Policy.
If you want to see the information we have on you.
You are freely able to see the information we have on you. To do this you need to give us a Subject Access Request, and we will provide you with that information within 1 calendar month. We may need to charge for providing this information. (Please see our policy for more details on how this happens).
How long we hold data on you
We will make sure that we do not hold information on you any longer than we need to. In some cases, we are required to keep your information for a specific number of years after you have left our service. For example, we are legally required to keep health and safety information for 7 years.
If you are not happy about how we are doing this
You have the right to complain to us if you are not happy about how we are looking after your data. (See our How to complain guide). You can also contact the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), www.ico.org.uk and complain to them, although we would hope that you would give us the chance to sort out any problems first.
