Domestic Abuse Recommissioning Insights Project privacy notice for participants
We keep this privacy notice under regular review and it was last updated on 20 August 2024.
Kent County Council respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you how we look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
Who we are
Kent County Council (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 (DPA 2018). We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.
The Kent Integrated Domestic Abuse Service (KIDAS) contract is due to end on 31 March 2026 and requires full recommissioning activity to continue to deliver domestic abuse support in safe accommodation and the community. Part of this activity will involve capturing the experiences of stakeholders who have used domestic abuse support services and those who may have experienced abuse but do not currently use those services. This will be through surveys and face to face engagement for those who wish to participate in that element of the engagement.
We are trying to build a picture of:
- general awareness of domestic abuse support services
- general awareness of how to access domestic abuse support services
- attitudes towards domestic abuse support services
- barriers to accessing domestic abuse support services
- possible resolutions to enable access
- potential improvements that could be made to domestic abuse support services.
Information collected by us
As part of this project, we may collect the following information from those who would like to participate:
- Name (if you express interest in taking part in further engagement opportunities, and consent to be contacted for this purpose).
- Email address (if you express interest in taking part in further engagement opportunities, and consent to be contacted for this purpose).
- Demographic information such your gender, age range and the district in which you live so that we can make sure we are representing the widest possible views of people living in Kent and are speaking to people who we know are less likely to use domestic abuse services.
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:
- ethnicity
- religion or belief
- disabilities
- sexual orientation.
How we use your personal information
We use the information that you have given us to:
- administer the project, for example, contacting you to invite you to interviews or focus groups should you wish to participate
- ensure that our sessions are accessible and that we can cater to your individual needs (for example if you have accessibility requirements or specific needs to help you engage in the project)
- ensure that our project is inclusive and includes participants from a range of backgrounds
- produce a report to explain the insights we have gained from participants, but this will not involve sharing any personal or identifiable information.
Reasons we can collect and use your personal information
When we collect your personal data, we rely on the following as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal and special categories of personal data:
- Article 6(1)(a) The data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes.
- Article 9(2)(a) The data subject has given their explicit consent for one or more specified purposes.
How long your personal data is kept
As per the KCC data retention schedule (code reference: AS6.1.6) and in line with domestic abuse data set retention for this recommissioning activity, your personal and special category data will be kept until April 2026 and then securely destroyed.
Who we share your personal data with
The information you provide will be collected and held by the Kent Analytics Domestic Abuse Research Programme. We will only share aggregated and anonymised results in the form of summarised key themes that emerge from survey findings and interview or focus group discussions. Unidentifiable quotes may be used. These summarised findings will be shared with other KCC teams involved in the recommissioning activity.
We will be produce a report with the outcomes of this project but this will only include a limited, de-identified data set relating to the participants and will not identify any individuals.
Reports will be shared with partners that form the Kent and Medway Domestic and Sexual Abuse Executive Group, who are responsible for working towards the collective aim of the Kent and Medway Domestic Abuse Strategy 2024 to 2029 (PDF, 15.2 MB).
We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law or in connection with legal proceedings.
Your rights
Under the UK 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
- withdraw consent at any time (if applicable).
Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:
- ask us to delete the 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 from using your information in certain ways.
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 the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation.
If you would like to exercise a right, please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.
Right to withdraw your consent
Where we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you can withdraw your consent to our use of your data at any time. You can do this by emailing sarah.collins@kent.gov.uk.
If you decide that you no longer want to be involved, we will try to remove any quotes from you that we may otherwise have used. However, your contributions to interviews or focus groups will have been anonymised and findings may have been published and so it may not be possible to remove all of your input from the work.
Keeping your data 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.
Who to 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.
UK GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner, who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 23 11 13.
Read our corporate privacy statement.