Privacy Notice
It is the responsibility of Scottish Borders Council (‘the Council’) to let you know how we collect and use your information. This is what you need to know.
Data Controller
The Council is a local authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Our head office is located at Newtown St Boswells, Melrose TD6 0SA. You can contact us on 0300 100 1800 or customeradvice@scotborders.gov.uk
Data Protection Officer
The Council’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted using the contact details for the Council as set out above or by email at dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk
How we will use your information
We will use your information to meet your social care and health needs. This information will be used by Social Care and Health Services, held in written form and used for discussion and sharing with other professional agencies. The lawful basis for holding and using your information is to enable us to meet our legal obligations and perform our public tasks under:
- Local Government in Scotland Act 2003;
- The Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968;
- The Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 and;
- The Adult Support & Protection (Scotland) Act 2007.
Your information is collected and shared in order to meet your social care and health needs, and to offer you safe and appropriate support and services. This information may be stored in either paper or digital form and will be kept confidential using secure methods.
The information you have provided will be retained for a period of up to 5 years after your involvement with social care & health service has been closed. In specific circumstances there may be a requirement to retain your information for a longer period of time.
In the event a meeting with you is required to take place over Microsoft Team the following will take place:
Recording is an integral and important part of Social Work who has identified that one of the ways in which an accurate minute can be recorded is to record meetings under The Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 and The Adult Support & Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 in Microsoft Teams. After such meetings a member of Council staff will type back the minutes within a specific timescale and ensure this is recorded against your case record.
The meeting invitation will be sent to your confirmed email address and you will join the meeting via teams or sometimes will attend in person.
The recording could contain:
- your video, if you choose to enable your video device during the meeting. Anything or anyone else that may be in the background could be recorded You can choose to put up a background in Microsoft Teams meetings to stop any additional background being recorded; and
- your audio, if you choose to enable your audio device during the meeting; this could include any opinions you contribute and anything you say about yourself.
Where you are content for the meeting to be recorded this means the Council is using your information ‘for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller’.
The recording will automatically be deleted within 60 calendar days after the recording has taken place. The documented minute will be retained for a longer period of time and in accordance with Social Work retention periods. The recording may be retained for a longer period of time where the law requires this, and it will be proportionate.
Third Party Information
If you have provided anyone else's details to us, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to Scottish Borders Council. We will only use this information as part of the assessment of your need for services and to contact them in connection with delivery of any such services. If they want any more information on how we will use their information they can visit our web site at http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/privacystatement or by email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk
Who we may share your information with
Your information will be accessed by Council staff who need to use it in order to provide the service described above. Your information will be shared with the following third-party organisations such as NHS, Police, other Social Work and Council Services, Education services, Third and Independent Sector Organisations and the Scottish Government as relevant.
Data sharing can include Encompass for the purpose of pre-assessment work carried out by Support in the Right Direction (SIRD). The Council collects and shares this information as part of our legal duties as set out in the legislation listed under: How we will use your information.
The Council is legally obliged to share certain data with other public bodies as noted in the previous paragraph and will do so where the law requires this.
Your information may also be shared and analysed internally in order to provide management information, inform service delivery reform and similar purposes to meet our duty to achieve best value and continuous service improvement.
In general the Council does not transfer personal data outside either the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA) and on the rare occasions when it does so the Council will inform you. The Council 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.
Your rights
You have the right to request access to any personal data held about you by the Council. 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 using the contact details provided above. We will respond to your request within thirty calendar days.
For more information on your rights please visit our website http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/DPYourRights or if you would like a hard copy of this information, please contact us using the contact details provided above.
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 the Council's Data Protection Officer by email at dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk or by telephone 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 at:
Information Commissioner's Office,Wycliffe House,Water Lane,Wilmslow,Cheshire,SK9 5AF
You can contact the ICO by phone on 0303 123 1113 or visit their website for more information at- https://ico.org.uk/concerns
If your complaint is not about a data protection matter you can find details on how to make a complaint on our website at http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/complaints
Decision-Making
The Council does not use profiling or automated decision-making processes. Some processes are semi-automated (such as anti-fraud data matching) but a human decision maker will always be involved before any decision is reached in relation to you.