CITIZENS ADVICE SURREY: DATA PROTECTION POLICY

1.     STATEMENT OF POLICY

As a consortium Citizens Advice Surrey (CAS) has no employees or volunteers, other than appointed members of its Trustee Board and it does not provide a direct information advice service to clients. It is nevertheless fully committed to compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and any successor legislation.  CAS is committed to a policy of protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals with respect to the processing of their personal data and special category personal data.

 

CAS will therefore follow procedures which aim to ensure that all trustees and others who have access to any personal data held by it or on its behalf are fully aware of and responsible for the handling of personal data in line with the data protection legislation.

 

In order to operate efficiently, CAS has to collect and use information about people with whom it works. These may include prospective volunteers, partners and suppliers but they will not include current, past or prospective clients or employees as CAS does not provide a direct service to clients, nor does it employ staff.

 

Data protection legislation and in particular Article 5 (1) of the GDPR requires that personal data shall be used in accordance with the following principles:

 

1. a) processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to individuals;
2. b) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes shall not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes;
3. c) adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed;
4. d) accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date; every reasonable step must be taken to ensure that personal data that are inaccurate, having regard to the purposes for which they are processed, are erased or rectified without delay;
5. e) kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed; personal data may be stored for longer periods insofar as the personal data will be processed solely for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes subject to implementation of the appropriate technical and organisational measures required by the GDPR in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals; and
6. f) processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures.

Article 5 (2) of the GDPR requires that:

“the controller shall be responsible for, and be able to demonstrate, compliance with the principles.”

Lawful basis for processing personal data under the data protection legislation

If at any future date CAS were to provide a direct service to clients it would primarily use legitimate interest to process client personal data.

 

CAS processes personal data under the following lawful bases:

 

Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for its legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party unless there is a good reason to protect the individual’s personal data which overrides those legitimate interests.

 

Legal obligation: the processing is necessary if a court orders CAS to share information.

 

Vital interests: the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life, for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client were unwell when in our company.

 

Lawful basis for processing special category personal data

CAS processes special category personal data under the following lawful basis: 

 

Explicit consent: the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes.

 

2. HANDLING OF PERSONAL DATA AND SPECIAL CATEGORY PERSONAL

    DATA

CAS will, through appropriate management and the use of appropriate controls, adhere to the following in regards to its use of personal data and special category personal data;

• Provide up to date privacy notices to data subjects.
• Collect and process appropriate information and only to the extent that it is needed to fulfil operational needs or to comply with legal requirements.
• Ensure the quality and accuracy of information when collected or received and during its use.
• Apply checks to determine the length of time information is
• Take appropriate technical and organisational security measures based on risks to data subjects.
• Not transfer outside the EEA without suitable safeguards.
• Ensure that any information incidents are reported to national Citizens Advice and where appropriate the data subject and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
• Mitigate risks to the data subjects in the event of an information incident using an appropriate data breach policy.
• Ensure that the rights of its data subjects can be properly exercised.

 

These rights include:

 

1. The right to be informed
2. The right of access
3. The right to rectification
4. The right to erase
5. The right to restrict processing
6. The right to data portability
7. The right to object
8. Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

 

In addition, CAS will ensure that:

• There is someone with specific responsibility for data protection in the organisation. The post responsible for data protection ( ‘the Senior Information Risk Owner’) is a nominated trustee.
• Organisational information and in particular privacy risks are risk assessed, documented and controlled.
• Everyone managing and handling personal data and special category personal data understands that they are responsible for following good Information Governance / Assurance practice and for complying with the data protection legislation.
• Everyone managing and handling personal data and special category personal data is appropriately trained and supervised to do so.
• Queries about processing personal data and special category personal data are promptly and courteously dealt with within the requirements of the data protection legislation.
• Data sharing and processing is carried out under an appropriate written agreement, setting out the scope and limits of the sharing. Any disclosure of personal data will be in compliance with approved procedures.

 

All trustees are to be made fully aware of this policy and their duties and responsibilities under it. All trustees will be required to take steps to ensure that personal data is kept secure at all times against unauthorised or unlawful loss or disclosure.

 

3. CLIENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Although a member of Citizens Advice, CAS does not use the case management system provided by Citizens Advice, (currently Casebook) as it does not process information, personal data and special category personal data provided by clients.  However it agrees to adhere to the data sharing agreement between the respective parties arising from its use of Workplace.

 

All information, personal data and special category personal data is to be regarded as being confidential between the individual and the Citizens Advice service unless expressly indicated otherwise.

 

Data is shared to provide a service to clients, partners and suppliers, to refer them to other organisations, to follow up with them for feedback, to enable CAS to act on their behalf when authorised, to understand trends and carry out research to enable policy work. The data shared will always be the minimum necessary required to carry out the business purpose.

In all cases the relevant consent must be obtained, or alternative lawful basis determined, for any processing or sharing of personal data and special category personal data held by clients, partners and suppliers.

 

4. TRUSTEE INDUCTION AND EXIT ARRANGEMENTS

Data protection/Information assurance training will be arranged for trustees on appointment and annually. This will be incorporated into the trustee induction plan and refreshed annually using the Cit A e-learning module on the Learn Platform on CabLink.  The aim will be to ensure that all trustees:

1. are fully aware of their duties and responsibilities under CAS’s data protection policy when working from home and in outreach locations;
2. understand the general security principles and potential threats; and
3. ensure that personal/sensitive and confidential information is kept secure and be more aware of the risks posed by unauthorised or unlawful loss or disclosure.

 

CAS will ensure that personal data and special category personal data is kept securely and that access to such data is regularly reviewed in order to ensure that it removes log-in details for trustees and others who have retired, resigned or otherwise departed.

 

All retiring, resigning or otherwise departing trustees will be required to delete all personal and special category data received from CAS in whatever form it is held ie. hard copy, emails, downloads etc. Hard copies of documents should be shredded at home. All emails and attachments and downloaded documents held in directories should also be deleted.

 

5. RELATIONSHIP WITH EXISTING POLICIES AND SUPPORTING

    DOCUMENTATION

This policy has been formulated within the context of a range of policies such as those relating to IT security, confidentiality and information assurance.