Privacy notice - Licensing

Middlesbrough Council has a statutory duty to regulate Hackney Carriage and Private Hire vehicle activities in the borough. The Council need to collect your personal information to carry out this function.

We may collect the following types of Personal Data:

• Name
• Contact details (postal address, telephone number, email address, etc.)
• Date of Birth
• DVLA or overseas driving licence details
• Photographs
• Certificate of Good Conduct (where required)
• Proof of Identity e.g. passport
• Country of origin and/or nationality
• Proof of Right to Work in UK
• National Insurance Number
• Details of knowledge of, driver skills and English language assessments/qualifications
• Completed medical forms and any supporting medical information from general practitioners or specialists
• Vehicle Registration Marks (VRMs) and Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs)
• Outcomes of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks
• Motor Insurance
• Details of cautions or traffic or other criminal offences
• Complaints made about drivers or operators
• The licence and/or badge number issued to you or your vehicle by Licensing

We may collect your Personal Data in a number of ways, for example:

• when you contact us direct either via telephone or email;
• when you register with us via My Middlesbrough
• when you make applications on line

Middlesbrough Council has a statutory duty to regulate hackney carriage and private hire activities in the borough. The Council needs to collect your personal information to carry out this function.

Under the provisions of the Data Protection Regulations we must be able to satisfy one or more conditions for processing in relation to our processing of personal data. The Council relies on the following lawful condition for processing your personal information:

Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

Most of the information that we hold is provided by you I in your licence application and the supporting documents you provide with it.

The law requires us to verify that applicants for driver licences as well as individuals applying for a private hire operator’s licence have the right to work in the UK. Where necessary, we may need to verify your information with the Home Office and/or the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

We may also verify other information about you or your vehicle during the period that your licence is valid. This is to ensure your continuing fitness to hold your licence.

The police may inform us if you are arrested or charged with a criminal offence. This is known as Common Law Police Disclosure. We may use this information to decide whether it is appropriate to suspend or revoke your licence.

• To provide you with our services, and to develop and improve the services;
• To ensure that the information we hold about you is kept up-to-date;
• To protect, manage and administer your account and provide you with information when necessary;
• To request information from you
• To deal with any problems or complaints that arise
• To prevent, detect and prosecute fraud and other crime; and
• deliver services and support to you;
• manage those services we provide to you;
• train and manage the employment of our workers who deliver those services;
• help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services;
• keep track of spending on services;
• check the quality of services; and
• to help with research and planning of new services.
• most of the personal information we hold is provided by you in your licence application and the supporting information you include with it.
• We need to verify the right to work status of licence applicants, and in the case of private hire operators, all of the individuals named on the operator licence. Where necessary, we will do this by verifying your information with the Home Office.
• If you apply for, or renew, a hackney carriage or private hire driver licence, you may be required to demonstrate a certain standard of English language competence. If you already have a qualification, Licensing may verify this with the relevant educational establishment or examination board.

Licensing has contracts with a number of third party service providers that support the day-to-day operation of our licensing services.

We may also enter into specific information sharing arrangements with partners such as local authorities where it would support our statutory functions. Any information sharing is managed in accordance with relevant privacy and data protection legislation.

Licensing also shares personal information with, (and receives information from) a number of other organisations as part of the licensing process and to ensure an individual's or vehicle's ongoing fitness to hold a licence once issued. Such organisations may include the Police, DBS, DVLA, DVSA, Home Office, DWP, MIB, and local authorities. Any information sharing is managed in accordance with relevant privacy and data protection legislation

The security of your personal information is important to us. This is why we follow a range of security policies and procedures to control and safeguard access to and use of your personal information.

After we deliver a service to you, we have to keep your information as a business record of what was delivered.

The retention periods for Licences are 2 years from the lapse of the licence.

The retention periods for financial information are kept for 6 years.

We do not send your personal information outside the EEC to be processed.

At no time will your information be passed to organisations external to us and our partners for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consent.

Your Information Rights are set out in law and, subject to some exceptions, you have the:

• Right to rectification - to ask for information to be corrected
• Right to erasure - to have your personal data deleted
• Right to object - to how your data is used
• Right to restriction - to request limits on how your data is used
• Right to portability - to request that we move your data to another organisation
• Right of subject access - to request a copy of data the Council holds about you

If you have a concerns about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner's Office. Visit the website of the Information Commissioner's Office.

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice or your information rights, please contact:

The Data Protection Officer
Middlesbrough Council
PO Box 500, Middlesbrough, TS1 9FT
Phone: 01642 245432
Email: dataprotection@middlesbrough.gov.uk