Planning Policy Privacy Notice

Telephone: 01892 526121

Email: dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

We collect information from you when you visit our website; also when you contact us in writing, speak to us on the phone, by email or any other type of electronic communication, or talk to us face to face.

Contact information such as your name, email, telephone number and postal address. Also any responses you make to the consultation will be held alongside your contact details.

The lawful basis for processing your information as set out in Article 6 of the UK GDPR is:

Article 6 (1) (e) Public Task - the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest and has a clear basis in law.

To enable the community and others to have their say on planning policy related matters and documents including proposals for future development in the borough, because it is in the wider public interest to do so.

If you do not give us your personal information, we may be unable to provide this service to you. This is in the form of sending you notifications about Local Plan and planning policy related public consultations in order to enable you to have your say on future development in the borough. You can tell us to stop using your information at any time but we may have to stop informing you of future consultations.

We may share your information with the following third parties for the reasons detailed above:

Maidstone Borough Council stores your information on our behalf. You can view their privacy information on their website.

Objective, our consultation portal software providers, will store your information for support purposes only.

Information submitted through our web forms will also be stored by Granicus, our software providers. View the Granicus Privacy Policy.

Information submitted through our online mapping portal will be stored by our software provider Esri UK . They may use it for their own reasons that are different to ours, but they still have to look after it in the same way. You can view their privacy information on their website.

When you make a submission/comment on a Local Plan or planning policy related public consultation, names of groups, organisations and individuals may be published alongside the submission/comment where considered necessary.  No personal details (such as email, private addresses and phone numbers) relating to them will be published.

In the later stages of the plan-making process when the Local Plan has been submitted for independent examination by an Inspector, the Planning Inspectorate will also use your information. They may use it for their own reasons that are different to ours, but they still have to look after it in the same way. You can view their privacy information on their 'Local Plans: the examination process' page.

All representations will be forwarded for consideration by the person appointed to carry out an examination of the Plan. If you have indicated that you would like to take part in any hearing sessions that may be held, the independent examiner may contact you direct.

Sometimes we have to give your information to other authorities, organisations or people. This would be for the prevention or detection of crime, or because of legal matters, for example. We don't need your consent to do this, but if we can, we'll let you know if we've passed your information on.

• Access – you can request copies of any of your personal information that is held by the council.
• Rectification – you can ask us to correct any incorrect information.
• Deletion – you can ask us to delete your personal information. The council can refuse to delete information if we have a lawful reason to keep this.
• Portability – you can ask us to transfer your personal data to different services or to you.
• Right to object or restrict processing – you have the right to object to how your data is being used and how it is going to be used in the future.
• Right to prevent automatic decisions – you have to challenge a decision that affects you that has been made automatically without human intervention, for example an online form with an instant decision.

We will only keep your information for as long as we need it. Once we no longer need it, we will keep it for a set period (a retention period) but not use it. When the retention period expires, we will delete your information from our records.

You can request further details about the council’s Retention Schedule by emailing dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk.

What security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of your information?

We are strongly committed to data security and will take reasonable and appropriate steps to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or corruption. We have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard the information you provide to us.

We want to ensure any information we hold is accurate. You can help us by promptly informing us of any changes to the information we hold about you.

There are no automated decisions in this process.

If you are accessing online services and are aged 13 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

What are cookies and why are they used?

Cookies are small text files which identify your computer to our servers. They are used to improve the user experience. View what cookies we use and how you can manage them at on our privacy and cookies page.

If you would like to make a complaint regarding the use of your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by sending an email to dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy, and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in one of the following ways:

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Online: you can visit the Information Commissioner's Office website.

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