Consumer & Business Affairs

1. The purpose for which we use your personal data

The information we collect about you will be used for the purpose of Consumer Protection (also referred to as Trading Standards).

The legal basis for the processing of your information is to comply with our legal obligations under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

We collect and use information about your health and other special category (sensitive) personal data because it is necessary for the purpose of exercising functions under the legislation referred to above.  We process information about criminal convictions for reasons of substantial public interest, also on the basis of this legislation.

If you do not give us the information we need when we ask for it, this may result in us being unable to protect consumers from financial harm, unsafe goods etc.

2. What type of information do we use?

We collect the following types of personal data about you to deliver this service, depending on your circumstances:

Consumers seeking advice and assistance:

• Name
• Address
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Unique reference number
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Bank/payment details
• Your family composition
• Your social circumstances
• Your financial circumstances
• Information about your health

People we investigate for consumer protection offences:

• Name
• Address
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Unique reference number
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Bank/payment details
• Your family composition
• Your social circumstances
• Your financial circumstances
• Employment and education details
• Information about your health
• Criminal convictions and offences

3. Do we use information received from other sources?

To provide this service, we collect information directly from you but also receive information from the following sources:

• Citizens Advice Consumer Services
• Other Local Authorities
• The Police

The following types of personal data may be obtained, depending on your circumstances:

• Name
• Address
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Unique reference number
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Bank/payment details
• Your family composition
• Your social circumstances
• Your financial circumstances
• Employment and education details
• Information about your health
• Criminal convictions and offences relating to people we investigate

4. Transferring your information abroad

We use Microsoft Office 365 to process our electronic documents under the terms of a strict agreement, which safeguards your information. This personal data is hosted on servers outside the UK, but only in EU countries which are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation.

We don’t transfer any other information about you outside of the UK.

5. Who has access to your information?

We share your information with the following recipients depending on your circumstances:

• Other Local Authorities
• Other Council services such as Housing and social care services.

There are also other specific situations where we may be required to disclose information about you, such as:

• Where the Council is required to provide the information by law
• Where disclosing the information is required to prevent or detect a crime
• Where disclosure is in the vital interests of the person concerned

6. How long we will keep your information

We will keep information on cases we deal with for 7 years in accordance with the Council’s Retention Guidelines.

7. Your Data Protection rights

You have the right to:

• Obtain access to the personal data that Carmarthenshire Council is processing about you
• Have any inaccurate or incomplete information rectified (corrected)
• Withdraw your consent to processing, where this is the only basis for the processing
• Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the independent body in the UK which protects information rights

In some circumstances, you may have the right to:

• Object to the processing of your personal information
• The erasure of your personal data
• Restrict the processing of your personal information
• Data portability

8. Contact details

For more information regarding this privacy notice and your rights, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
Carmarthenshire County Council
County Hall
Carmarthen
SA31 1JP

Email: dataprotection@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office along with further guidance on Data Protection legislation can be found on the ICO website .