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Pay a school penalty notice privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and it was last updated in 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.

Kent PRU and Attendance Service will issue all fixed penalty notices for unauthorised absences. This will ensure consistent and equitable delivery, avoid duplication of fixed penalty notices, and ensure that there is not conflict with other enforcement sanctions.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of issuing penalty notices we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • name of parent
  • contact details
  • name of child
  • date of birth of child
  • school attended.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to process payments for fixed penalty notices for school absences.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We collect and use your personal information to take payment for school penalty notices and ensure that payments made are allocated to the correct customer account.

We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR (Article 6 lawful basis):

  • Article (6)(1)(c) - Legal obligation: the processing is necessary to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations).
  • Article (6)(1)(e) - Public task: the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions (task or function has a clear basis in law).

Processing is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations underpinned by acts of legislation, regulation and guidance that dictate what actions can and should be taken by local authorities, including but not limited to:

  • The Children Act 1989
  • The Crime and Disorder Act 1998
  • The Education Act 1996
  • The Education (Penalty Notices) (England) Regulations 2007.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information securely and retain it from the child or young person’s date of birth until they reach the age of 25, after which the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed.

Who we share your personal information with

  • teams within Kent County Council working to improve outcomes for children and young people.
  • law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

Your rights

Under 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 Requests).
  • ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you.
  • object to direct marketing.
  • make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office.
  • withdraw consent (if applicable).

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.

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. Please note: 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 Information Commissioner's Office on individuals’ rights under UK GDPR.

If you would like to exercise a right, please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.

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 the Information Commissioner who may be contacted on 03031 23 11 13.

Read our corporate privacy statement.