Healthy Start privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review, it was last updated in April 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 that Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

Healthy Start offer support services for mothers and children effected by financial hardship.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of providing Healthy Start support and services we collect the following information when you provide it to us:

  • personal details (such as name, address and contact details)
  • household information (number of people in the house and ages)
  • organisation name and contact details that you are associated with (if applicable)
  • information related to our relationship with you (such as agreements, correspondence, meeting notes and attendance at events).

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

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

  • Article 6(1)(a) – Consent: the individual has given clear consent to process their personal data for a specific purpose.

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 interests. 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.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

  • work with you to assess your needs and how they can best be met
  • support you in your working relationship with us (including sharing resources)
  • maintain a record of people and organisations who are supporting Healthy Start
  • process applications for support
  • investigate claims of the project or scheme’s misuse
  • evaluate, impact assess and quality assure the services we provide
  • inform future service provision and the commissioning of services
  • communicate information to you about Healthy Start opportunities, events and other initiatives
  • promote the Healthy Start scheme on social media and other marketing methods for case studies (with consent)
  • respond to enquiries and comments.

Who we share your personal information with

We will share your information with:

  • teams within KCC working to improve outcomes for Kent residents
  • commissioned providers of local authority services
  • other local councils (such as borough, city, district, parish and town councils)
  • partners and stakeholders improving Healthy Start and similar support for young families (such as NHS and Family Hubs)
  • commissioned suppliers to conduct evaluation, impact assessments and quality assurance on the service we provide.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information securely and retain it for a maximum of 10 years, after which the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed.

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, 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.