Privacy Policy

At Wealden 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 will 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 commercial organisations

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 advisers 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 General Data Protection Regulation.

You can check our main Citizens Advice policy at www.citizensadvice.org.uk/privacy-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. 

Note: This privacy policy only covers this website citizensadvice.org.uk and it\'s subdomains; other websites linked from this website are not covered by this policy. Once you have accessed another website via one of our links you will be subject to the security and privacy policy of that site.

How Wealden Citizens Advice collects your data

We collect your personal data in the following ways:

• Directly from you by asking questions and recording the answers. We may ask you to fill in a form, we may complete a form or ask you a series of questions and then type the answers directly into Casebook, our record management system, provided by Citizens Advice. This may happen face to face in our office, on the telephone when speaking to an adviser or by email.
• Via our online enquiry system.
• From another agency who refer you to us for advice such as Wealden District Council, Foodbank, etc. They should always ask for your permission to send your data to us.

When we ask for your data we ask for your permission to store it. Where possible we ask you to sign a form which shows that you have agreed to us storing your data. 

We do not collect data about you from other sources, but we may receive information from other agencies such as the DWP, Council, HMRC etc.

We need a legal basis to process your data and in most cases, this is by getting your consent to do so. We sometimes need to store data about third parties and we do this under the lawful basis of legitimate interests.

What Wealden Citizens Advice ask for

To find out what information Wealden Citizens Advice asks for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy www.citizensadvice.org.uk/privacy-policy/
 

How Wealden Citizens Advice use your information

To find out how Wealden Citizens Advice uses your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy atwww.citizensadvice.org.uk/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.

 

How Wealden Citizens Advice stores your information

We may store your data on our server which is based in our local offices.

We store paper records in our offices and keep securely.

We store all client records in Casebook which is described below. Wherever possible we scan your paper documents.

How Wealden Citizens Advice shares your information

If we share your data with other organisations we may use the following methods:

• In writing – as a letter or referral form
• By email using encryption
• By telephone

We do not share your information with funders unless we have your specific permission to do this.

Contact Wealden Citizens Advice about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.

Address: Wealden Citizens Advice
               Uckfield Library, Library Way
               High Street
               Uckfield
               TN22 1AR

Email: da@wealdencitizensadvice.org.uk

Website www.wealdencitizensadvice.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 to stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

The national Citizens Advice charity and Wealden 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.

Cookie Policy

You can read about our cookie policy here:

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/citizens-advice-privacy-policy/how-we-use-cookies/

How you can manage or delete cookes