KCC residents and community information email
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 General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws
Personal information we collect and use
Information collected by us
In order for us to provide you with alerts, updates and other information relating to the services, policies and activities of the council and our partners, we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:
- contact email addresses (so we can send you emails)
- first name and last name (for the salutation in email we send to you).
In addition, Mailchimp automatically places single pixel gifs, also known as web beacons, in every email sent by customers of its service (in this case Kent County Council). These are tiny graphic files that contain unique identifiers that enable Mailchimp’s services to recognise when email recipients have opened an email or clicked certain links. These technologies record each email address, IP address, date, and time associated with each open and click for a campaign. Mailchimp use this data to create reports for us about how an email campaign performed and what actions recipients took, if any.
How we use your personal information
We use your personal information to provide you with updates and information from time to time, as well as alerts as required. This information will be provided by email using the email address you have asked us to use for this purpose.
How long your personal data will be kept
Your name and email address will remain on our list of recipients within MailChimp's database for as long as we continue to use MailChimp's services or until you remove yourself from our list. You can stop receiving update emails from us at any time using the unsubscribe link on the emails we send to you.
Reasons we can collect and use your personal information
By signing up you are giving us permission to send you update emails. This means we rely on your consent to use the personal information you provide. You can remove permission for us to email you at any time by using the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the emails we send you.
Who we share your personal information with
We use MailChimp to email the information, updates and alerts to you, and as such, we need to provide your contact email and name to them. Your name and email address will be stored on MailChimp’s servers located in the United States of America. Our relationship with Mailchimp is covered by their legally binding terms and conditions, including their Privacy Policy for Contacts (our subscribers) and their cookie policy.
In order to ensure we are only emailing real people we use the invisible version of Google ReCaptcha on our Mailchimp Sign Up Landing Page. This is offered as a recommended option within the Mailchimp service. Google reCAPTCHA is a system designed to tell humans and computers apart, so bots can't fill out forms maliciously on behalf of a human. The use of reCAPTCHA is subject the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
We will share personal information with law enforcement or other public authorities if required by applicable law.
Your rights
Under 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 Commissioner's Office
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 Commissioner's Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under GDPR.
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.
GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted on 03031 231113.