Privacy Notice - Blue Badge

Privacy notice - Blue Badges

Who we are

We are a Local Authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and have our Headquarters at Newtown St Boswells, Melrose, TD6 0SA.

You can contact our Customer Advice and Support Service by email CustomerAdvice@scotborders.gov.uk or phone 0300 100 1800.

Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted using the contact details above or by emailing dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk.

How we will use your information

The personal information we hold about you may be collected by:

  • online application form
  • paper application form

We need your personal information to allow us to process your application for a Blue Badge, in carrying out our statutory duty under The Disabled Persons (Badges for Motor Vehicles) Scotland Regulations, 2000. We also use your information to verify your identity where required, contact you by post, email or telephone and to maintain our records.

We process personal data and special category data. Personal data is information which can be used to identify you such as your:

  • name
  • previous name
  • address
  • date of birth
  • phone number
  • email address

Special category data may be used in connection with assessing your entitlement to a blue badge and includes information such as your medical or health information

Who we may share your information with

Your information will be accessed by our staff who need to do so in order to provide the service described above.

We may share this information with the DWP and Transport Scotland for fraud checking purposes.

We are also legally obliged to share certain data internally and with other public bodies, such as all UK Police authorities, Transport Scotland and other Local Authorities.

Where there is a requirement for translation & interpreting services we may share your data with any of the following as appropriate:

  • Language Line
  • Alpha Translating and Interpreting Services LTD
  • Scottish Borders Interpreter Agency
  • Contact Scotland – BSL
  • Royal Blind – Scottish Braille Press

In general we do not transfer personal data outside either the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA) and on the rare occasions when it does so we will inform you. We will only transfer data outside the UK and the EEA when it is satisfied that the party which will handle the data and the country it is processing it in will provide adequate safeguards for personal privacy.

Decision Making

We do not use automated decision-making processes. Some processes are semiautomated (such as anti-fraud data matching) but a human decision maker will always be involved before any decision is reached in relation to you.

Information you have given us about other people

If you have provided anyone else's details on this form, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to us. We will only use this information to contact those people to assess your own entitlement to this service. If they want any more information on how we will use their data they can see our privacy statement or email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk

How long do we keep your information for?

We currently keep your information without limit of time. We have a project underway to implement deletion of Blue Badge information that we hold about you where your badge has been cancelled, refused or expired. The full range of circumstances where we will keep or delete information is being decided as part of this project and will be detailed here once the project reaches completion.

Your Rights

You have the right to request access to any personal data held about you by us. You can also request that we restrict the use of your information or even object to any further processing. You can do this by contacting the Data Protection Officer. We will respond to your request within 30 calendar days. For more information on your rights please visit our website or alternatively if you would like a hard copy of this information, please contact us.

How to raise a complaint

We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. If your complaint is about how we have handled your personal information, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk or phone on 0300 100 1800.

However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint about data protection matters with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who can be contacted by

  • post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
  • phone on 0303 123 1113
  • website

If your complaint is not about a data protection matter you can find details on how to make a complaint.