Citizens Advice Greater Essex Privacy Policy

At Citizens Advice we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information we:

  • only access it when we have a good reason

  • only share what is necessary and relevant

  • don’t sell it to anyone

We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation. We’ll always explain how we use your information.

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

  • to comply with the law – for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’

  • To protect someone’s life – for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’

  • to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity – for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’

  • for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest – for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’

  • to carry out a contract we have with you – for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’

  • to defend our legal rights – for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law – including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

You can check our main Citizens Advice policy for how we handle most of your personal information. This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.

What Citizens Advice Greater Essex asks for

To find out what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy

How Citizens Advice Greater Essex uses your information

To find out how we use your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy’

Working on your behalf

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, we’ll need to share information with that third party.

How Citizens Advice Greater Essex stores your information

Aside from national systems – as explained by our national Citizens Advice privacy policy we may also store your data using:

  • Microsoft 365 cloud services

  • Google Shared Services

  • Online form services – currently Jot Form

  • Breathe HR - applies to employees and job applicants

Use of the above cloud service is limited to the following circumstances:

  • Online form submissions – where you or a third party contact us online using our website.

  • Through the provision of reports to our funders – where data that may include your address and postcode is included we will ask your specific permission beforehand.

When processing data in this way we will apply the following additional protections:

  • Strong credentials policies

  • Regular deletion of data and in particular as soon as it has been added to our “core” client database (Casebook), thus limiting the number of places it is stored

How Citizens Advice Greater Essex shares your information

We will share your information with 3rd parties with your permission in accordance with the above- mentioned controls. Data stored on Casebook (see below) is shared within the Citizens Advice service. Data submitted via webforms may be shared with Local Citizens Advice offices within the Citizens Advice Greater Essex consortium through means other than casebook but subject to controls and safeguards applied by those local offices.

Contact Citizens Advice Greater Essex about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.

Citizens Advice Greater Essex
Council Offices
Princes Road
MALDON
Essex
CM9 5DL

You can contact us to:

  • find out what personal information we hold about you

  • correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete

  • request we delete your information

  • ask us to limit what we do with your data – for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already

  • ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service

  • ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

The national Citizens Advice charity and your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system.

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.

You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.