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 UK 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.
How Citizens Advice Bridport and District collect your data
Our data collection procedures are the same as the national Citizens Advice policy procedures.
We need to record information about clients to help with their enquiry. We have a legitimate interest to do this. In relation to special category personal data such has health and ethnicity, we rely on ‘substantial public interest’ where this relates to the provision of advice or diversity monitoring. Further details can be found in the appendix at the bottom of this document.
What Citizens Advice Bridport and District ask for
‘To find out what information we ask for when you see an adviser, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy
How Citizens Advice Bridport and District use 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.
We may need to share information with organisations such as the Department of Work and Pensions, Dorset Council, housing providers such as Magna Housing Association, utility companies and creditors in order to resolve a problem if acting on your behalf but we will ask for your authorisation first.
How Citizens Advice Bridport and District store your information
Bridport and District Citizens Advice stores information using national Citizens Advice secure case management systems. In addition, we may store information in our local IT and email systems:
- Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based systems
- Office 365 or Google Mail
- Paper based office storage systems
- Secure local digital file store
Appropriate organisational and technical measures will be used to keep personal data safe including password protection and encryption of electronic
documents and secure storage of paper records. We will not retain data longer than is necessary.
How Citizens Advice Bridport and District share your information
We may share clients’ personal data with third parties, partner organisations and funders for the services we deliver. These include our Specialist Energy, Debt and Welfare Benefits Projects, Wessex Water assistance scheme project, local food banks, Shelter/National Homelessness Advice Service, National Citizens Advice Expert Advice Team and our Local Area Partnership.
We will obtain clients’ explicit written or verbal consent to do this when they consult us about a problem.
We may share anonymised statistical data and case studies with third parties such as funders for project reporting purposes.
Contact Citizens Advice Bridport and District about your information
If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.
Citizens Advice Bridport and District
45 South Street
DT6 3NY
Telephone: 01308 456594
Email: advice@bridport-cab.org.uk
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
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 UK 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.
How we use cookies on our website
Any information that we collect through the use of cookies is completely anonymous and not personally identifiable. Our systems will not store your name, address, telephone number, or email address unless volunteered to us by you. This shall be treated as proprietary and confidential; we do not sell or share
your details with any third parties. Additionally, none of the cookies we use gather any information that can be used to advertise services or products to you from our or any other website.
The law
The EU Cookie Law (The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2011) is a piece of privacy legislation that requires visitors to give consent before allowing a website to store or retrieve any information from any device through the use of cookies. By educating visitors on how information about them is collected through the use of cookies, and allowing them to decide for themselves if they wish to allow it to take place, the aim is to protect online privacy for everyone.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files, downloaded to your computer by the browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox etc.) whenever you access a website. They enable websites to store such information as user preferences and login details. They may also be used to record how long you spend browsing each page on a site or what pages you visit most. Cookies can be thought of as providing a “memory” for the website, enabling it to recognise you and respond appropriately.
Generally, cookies are most beneficial to you, the visitor, making your interaction with frequently-visited sites smoother and easier than they would be without them.
How our website uses cookies
Website statistics
We use a third party service which creates its own set of cookies for the purpose of compiling a number of statistical reports. The information gathered is completely anonymous and is used to assess a wide variety of website activities, including how our site is navigated and what pages are most popular.
How to disable cookies?
By browsing our website you are agreeing to our use of cookies as described above. However you can still disable cookies at a browser level if you wish although you may experience reduced functionality if you choose to do so.
The settings that decide how your browser handles cookies will typically be found in the ‘Options’ or ‘Preferences’ menu of your browser. In order to understand these settings, the following links may be helpful; otherwise you
should use the ‘Help’ option in your browser for more details.