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School transport privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and was last updated on 11 June 2024.

This notice explains what personal data (information) we hold about you, how we collect, how we use and may share information about you. We are required to give you this information under data protection law.

Who we are

Kent County Council (KCC) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

KCC’s Transport Eligibility Team assesses Kent mainstream and Special Educational Need (SEN) children’s eligibility for free school transport, using KCC’s school transport criteria.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of assessing your child’s eligibility for free school transport assistance we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • your personal information (such as your name and address)
  • your child’s personal information (such as their name, address, date of birth and any photo of their likeness that is provided with their application)
  • special category information (Education Health and Care Plan status and detail of any SEN)
  • details about your household income, where parents apply for low income assessment

We also obtain personal information from the following other sources:

  • confirmation of Education Health and Care Plan status and detail of any Special Educational Need from KCC’s SEND service
  • your child’s monthly attendance where parents have been provided a Personal Transport Budget

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to assess your child’s eligibility for free school transport assistance.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information securely and retain it from the child/ young person’s date of birth until they reach the age of 25, after which the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We collect and use your personal information to carry out tasks in the public interest. We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

  • Article (6)(1)(e) - Public task: the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions (task or function has a clear basis in law)

When we collect or share special category personal data, we rely upon the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

  • Article 9(2)(g) - Reasons of substantial public interest. We rely on the ‘equality of opportunity or treatment’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(g) to process your special category data.

Who we share your personal information with

  • Teams within KCC working to improve outcomes for children and young people
  • Transport teams with KCC
  • Commissioned providers of local authority services (such as education services)
  • Schools
  • The Kent Intelligence Network (KIN) to detect, prevent and deter fraud and corruption affecting Kent authorities’ public services. View the KIN privacy notice for more information.
  • The gov.uk Notify Service, which sends out postal correspondence and text messages on our behalf (information is encrypted and only held for 7 days)
  • Service improvement consultants.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have rights which you can exercise free of charge which allow you to:

  • know what we are doing with your information and why we are doing it
  • ask to see what information we hold about you (subject access request)
  • ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
  • object to direct marketing
  • make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office
  • withdraw consent at any time (if applicable)

Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:

  • ask us to delete information we hold about you
  • have your information transferred electronically to yourself or to another organisation
  • object to decisions being made that significantly affect you
  • object to how we are using your information
  • stop us using your information in certain ways

We will always seek to comply with your request however we may be required to hold or use your information to comply with legal duties. Please note: your request may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you.

For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under UK GDPR.

If you would like to exercise a right, please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Contact

Please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk to exercise any of your rights, or if you have a complaint about why your information has been collected, how it has been used or how long we have kept it for.

You can contact our Data Protection Officer, Benjamin Watts, at dpo@kent.gov.uk, or write to: Data Protection Officer, Sessions House, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1XQ.

UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with Information Commissioner, who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.