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Beam Magic Notes privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and it was last updated on 10 March 2025.

Kent County Council (KCC) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Who we are

KCC collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

Beam Magic Notes is an Artificial Intelligence system which will record and transcribe conversations. This can include conversations between Registered Practitioners, and Health Professionals and People who Draw on Care and Support. Beam Magic Notes will be used as part of an individual’s journey through Adult Social Care by the system being implemented as part of the Occupational Therapist and Social Care Community teams.

The occupational therapist and social care teams, undertake occupational therapist and care need assessments with individuals who draw on care and support.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of working with you we will collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • Personal information, for example, name, date of birth, age, unique identifier, such as NHS number.
  • Contact information, for example, postal address, telephone number, email address .
  • Financial information, for example, bank details, income, benefits.

We also collect the following ‘special category data’ (personal data which is more sensitive and is treated with extra care and protection) when you provide it to us:

  • Information about you and your circumstances.
  • Information about your needs and wishes.
  • Information such as racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, your sexual orientation, physical or mental health.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

  • record, transcribe and summarise your conversations during assessment periods with care professionals.
  • any notes from conversations created using Beam Magic Notes will form part of your social care record which allows us to have a comprehensive record of all of the work that we do with and for you.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

When we collect your personal data, we rely on the following legal bases:

  • Article 6(1)(a) - the individual has given clear consent for you to process their personal data for a specific purpose
  • Article 6(1)(c) - processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject
  • Article 6(1)(e) - 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

When we collect your ‘special categories of personal data’, (such as, ethnicity, health, beliefs etc) we rely on the following legal bases:

  • Article (9)(2)(h) - processing is necessary for the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services.

We rely on the health or social care purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article(9)(2)(h) to process your special category data.

We take the following appropriate safeguards in respect of your special category data when relying on the conditions above:

  • We have a retention schedule which explains how long data is retained.
  • We maintain a record of our processing in our ‘Record of Processing Activities’ and record for any reasons deviating from the periods in our Retention Schedule.

As we have a statutory basis for collecting your personal data, we do not need to ask for your permission to collect and share it, however we will only ever share your data on a basis of need, in line with legislation and will work transparently with you at all times.

If you do not provide your data, it will limit the effectiveness of the services and support that we are able to offer you.

How long your personal data will be kept

Your information will be retained on the Beam Magic Notes system for 90 days, unless it is deleted beforehand once the Care Professional has uploaded your personal information to the appropriate electronic care record. For Adult Social Care this will be our case management system.

In Adult Social Care, we will only hold your personal information for as long as necessary. To work out how long we need to keep your information for we use our retention schedule (See sections AS1 – 6 (excluding AS2.1, AS2.2, AS4.4, AS4.5, AS4.9, AS4.10, AS4.11, AS4.12.15, AS4.12.16, AS4.13, AS5.2, AS6.1) which provides a breakdown of the retention periods relied on by Adult Services). The criteria for determining retention periods are statutory or other industry requirements, legal liability or other legal requirements and best business practice. You will be informed in the service specific privacy notice of how long your data will need to be kept prior to secure disposal.

Who we share your personal information with

Once your personal information has been uploaded to the relevant case management system for your care and support this will be available where necessary and proportionate to professionals who are part of the team providing you with care and support. This could mean other social care professionals who are part of Adult Social Care.

Adult Social Care may share or may use the information gathered from Beam Magic Notes for wider aspects of your care and support and this may mean sharing your information with other professionals or organisations involved in your care and support. This could include other internal KCC teams, NHS providers, district and borough councils, people advocating or representing you.

We will only share your information where is necessary and proportionate and legitimate for us to do so. By sharing your information it helps us to personalise your care and support and ensures that you are receiving the right care and support.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law or in connection with legal proceedings.

We will share personal information with our legal and professional advisers in the event of a dispute, complaint or claim. We rely on Article 9(2)(f) where the processing of special category data is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity.

Your rights

Under GDPR you have rights which you can exercise free of charge which allow you to:

  • know what we are doing with your information and why we are doing it
  • ask to see what information we hold about you (subject access request)
  • ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
  • object to direct marketing
  • make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office

Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:

  • ask us to delete information we hold about you
  • have your information transferred electronically to yourself or to another organisation
  • object to decisions being made that significantly affect you
  • object to how we are using your information
  • stop us using your information in certain ways
  • in the instance of being referred to MaPS for the MAN service, you will be entitled to withdraw your consent to the referral at any time by contacting the KSAS team. The withdrawal of consent would not affect the lawfulness of the processing that took place before its withdrawal.

We will always seek to comply with your request, however we may be required to hold or use your information to comply with legal duties. Your request may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you.

For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under GDPR.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Contact

Please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk to exercise any of your rights, or if you have a complaint about why your information has been collected, how it has been used or how long we have kept it for.

You can contact our Data Protection Officer, Benjamin Watts, at dpo@kent.gov.uk, or write to: Data Protection Officer, Sessions House, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1XQ.

UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with Information Commissioner, who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.