Privacy notice - Public Protection Service

We investigate complaints, provide consumer and trader advice, inspect premises, enforce statutory legislation and issue registrations and licences under them, in relation to Environmental Health,(food and health and safety),Environmental Protection , Trading Standards and Public Health. 
We also undertake public health awareness work in relation to tobacco, alcohol, healthy eating and better health at work, including associated awards. We use this information to contact you with information, products and services requested, and for evidence for awards.

What type of personal data do we collect?

Your name, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth  and other contact information that allow us to meet our organisational and statutory obligations. We may also require proof of identity or details of your landlord.
For some investigations or licensing requirements we may need to collect special category personal data such as sexuality or sexual health, ethnicity, physical or mental health, or criminal history. 

How we collect your personal data

Direct face to face contact, or via telephone, letter, email, forms including online forms and applications, intelligence, inspections, referrals from other agencies, CCTV, or legal process.

The processing of data is necessary for compliance with legal obligations and for the performance of our tasks in the public interest or the exercise of an official duty.
For public health work in relation to alcohol, tobacco, healthy eating and better health at work awards you have freely provided the information and given consent to the service.

We use the information we receive about you in order to administer complaints, investigations and enforcement of legal requirements, provide trader advice, to consider and process licensing applications and requests for service, in order to determine their outcomes, and to fulfil our legal obligations around the process.
For public health work in relation to tobacco, alcohol, healthy eating and better health at work awards we use this information to contact you with information, products and services requested and for evidence of awards. We do not use the information provided for any other purposes unless we are required to do so by law.

Your information will only be shared to facilitate delivery of the service to you or for legal purposes.​

Sharing information with other organisations
We are required by law and good practice to undertake consultations with internal departments and external organisations to obtain their views on applications and pre application advice. This involves sharing your submission details.

We will share information with other agencies for the prevention of fraud or crime and disorder, or for the purposes of public health, for public safety or in the public interest. Such agencies will include the following: (this is not an exhaustive list)

• The Police
• HMRC
• Environment Agency
• DEFRA
• Food Safety Authority 
• Health and Safety Executive 
• Adult Social Care 
• Enforcement bodies within other local authorities
• Public Health England and health professionals.
• Dogs Trust
• RSPCA
• Fire Authority
• Immigration
• National Trading Standards Scams Team
• TUC for the external verification of the Better Health at Work Awards

We will not share your information with any other organisation unless required to do so by law or with your consent.

We use a range of appropriate measures to ensure that your data is stored securely and only accessible by those who need to access it. However, we are required by law to make certain information about some registrations or licences available to the public.

After we deliver a service to you, we have to keep your information as a business record of what was delivered. The type of service will determine how long we have to keep it.

Our corporate retention guidelines show how long we keep it for different services. This ranges from months for some records to decades for more sensitive records.

The retention periods for this service are as follows:

Personal data collated as part of a statutory process will be kept for a period of 7 years, apart from information for registers of food businesses, cosmetic treatment providers, and health and safety notices which will be kept for a period of 6 years after a business closes.

Personal data collated for historic land use will be kept for 100 years, contaminated land until the land is remediated, and details relating to the microchipping of dogs for 20 years.
Information relating to multi agency meetings will be kept for a period of 3 years, except for the Air Quality Management Team and strategic Air Quality partnership Board which will be kept for 7 years, and the Contaminated land Officer NE Group which will be kept for 20 years.

Information on licensing applications/permits will be kept for 2 years following expiration of licence/registration/permit unless otherwise stipulated by law.

Information for Public health work will be kept for 3 years apart from the Better Health at work Award for which portfolios will be retained for 6 years.

The Council will not process your information overseas, however it may be necessary if requested by an external organisation under a legal requirement, or at your request.  In any event we would ensure that your information is safe.

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 consent.
What are your information rights

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