Trading Standards Safeguarding Victims privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and it was last updated on 1 July 2022.

Kent County Council (KCC) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Who we are

Kent County Council 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. We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information.

Kent County Council Trading Standards has a role to safeguard the vulnerable and protect victims of crime.

Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of providing activities that safeguard and protect victims of crime, we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • Name
  • Contact details (address, telephone number, email addresses)
  • Financial information (account numbers, sort code, transaction history)

We also collect the following ‘special category data’ (personal data which is more sensitive and is treated with extra care and protection) when you provide it to us:

  • Relevant medical conditions.

We may also obtain personal information from other sources as follows:

  • Kent Police
  • Kent County Council Social Care services.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to provide services that enable you to live independently and to safeguard you from criminal activities.

The information we gather may also be used to direct criminal investigations.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We rely on Article 6(1)(e) as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal data, that ‘processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties’.

We rely on Article 9(2)(g) as the lawful basis on which we may collect and use your special categories of personal data (relevant medical conditions), namely that ‘processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest; for preventing or detecting unlawful acts or for protecting the public against dishonesty and preventing fraud for any details received as part of a complaint or regulatory requirements for details shared with the appropriate bodies (Schedule 1 Data Protection Act 18).

We take the following appropriate safeguards in respect of your special category data when relying on the conditions above:

  • we have a Special Category and Criminal Records Appropriate Policy Document in place when using your special category and/or criminal records data
  • this policy is retained throughout the time we use of your data and for 6 months after we cease to use it
  • we have a Retention Schedule which explains how long data is retained
  • we maintain a record of our processing in our ‘Record of Processing Activities’ and record in it any reasons for deviating from the periods in our Retention Schedule.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information for:

  • Three years following the last action taken by us.

Where a criminal investigation is instigated, your personal information will be stored securely for six years from the conclusion of the investigation and/or formal proceedings that may take place.  After this date, the entire case file will be securely destroyed.

Who we share your personal information with

We do not routinely share your personal information.

We may share personal information with partner agencies as discussed with you, such as Kent County Council Community Warden service, Kent Fire & Rescue Services, so that a range of services can be delivered to you to assist you.  These partners are signatories to the Kent and Medway Information Sharing Agreement (the KMISA) and a record of processing is kept for this sharing.

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

Your rights

Under the UK GDPR you have a number of rights which you can access 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
  • 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:

  • object to how we are using your information
  • 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
  • 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.

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 the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation.

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.

Who to 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.

The United Kingdom 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.