Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support claims privacy notice

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council
Mount Pleasant Road
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Kent
TN1 1RS

Email: dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

Telephone: 01892 526121

We collect information from you when you:

• visit our website
• contact us in writing
• provide us with evidence
• speak to us on the phone
• contact us by email or any other type of electronic communication
• talk to us face-to-face

We collect personal information about you, such as your:

• name
• address
• phone number
• email address
• health and/or disability
• financial
• court proceedings
• employment
• National Insurance
• identification
• visas

Our legal basis for using your information is:

• task in the public interest

We will use your information to:

• ensure the correct award of benefits as they are means tested

Anonymised and pseudonymised information may be used for research and statistical purposes. Any information collected may be used for research and statistical purposes that are relevant and compatible with the purpose that the information was collected for.

We may share your information with central government departments for the reasons detailed above.

The information Tunbridge Wells Borough Council collects will be stored by Maidstone Borough Council on our behalf. View Maidstone Borough Council's privacy notice.

The information will also be shared with our software providers. Links to their privacy notices are provided below:

• Keysight Technologies
• Granicus
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)

If you make a payment to us by direct debit, or we pay you by BACS, Bottomline Technologies will also use your information, but only on our instructions. They won’t use it for any other reasons, and they have to look after it in the same way we would. View Bottomline Technologies privacy notice.

If you request a service from us that is means tested, such as a bulky waste collection or pest control services, your national insurance number may be verified against Benefit records. View the Waste and Recycling Privacy Notice and the Pest Control Service Privacy Notice.

These organisations help us to provide a positive financial inclusion program designed to improve your financial wellbeing:

• South East Water
• Citizens Advice Bureau
• Policy in Practice

The Mid Kent Fraud and Compliance Partnership may also process your personal data as follows:

• We may share your data with the Department for Work and Pensions with regards to any benefits you are registered for or make referrals for the purpose of detecting and preventing fraud.
• We may share your data with the National Fraud Initiative who carry out data-matching exercises for the purpose of preventing and detecting fraud.
• We may share your data with the National Anti Fraud Network who complete checks on our behalf to confirm details such as utilities, land registry, marriage licences, bank details, and credit checks.
• We may share your data with LoCTA to check if you are registered with another Local Authority for Council Tax or Benefits.
• We may share your data with Intec for Business who carry out data matching exercises and credit checks to identify fraud.
• We may collect data about you from Destin Solutions relating to small businesses that might be registered elsewhere.
• We may collect data about you from the Kent Intelligence Network for the purposes of detecting, deterring and preventing fraud and corruption.
• We may pass your details to Kent Registrars to check marriage, death and birth data.
• We may pass your details to other Local Authorities or request information about you from them.
• We may pass your details to the Police or request information about you from them.
• We may collect data about you from Housing Associations.
• We may check your data with our Elections Team to confirm who is registered at an address.

Your information will be transferred to Ireland when it is processed by our software provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

• 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.

In line with our record retention schedule, records relating to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit claims will be kept for 6 + 1 years.

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.

You can access the information we hold about you at any time. If you would like to do this, have any queries or questions, or want to raise a concern about the way in which we are using your personal information, please contact:

The Data Protection Officer

Email: dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

Telephone: 01892 554077

In writing to: