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Community Safety Support Volunteer and Volunteer Support Warden privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and was last updated on 2 August 2022.

Kent County Council 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

Kent County Council (KCC) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

KCC Community Safety Volunteers may work with community wardens, local organisations and residents to help create strong, resilient neighbourhoods and improve the quality of life.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of recruiting and deploying Volunteer Support Wardens, we collect the following personal information from you:

  • name
  • date of birth
  • contact details (address, email address and telephone numbers)
  • details of any relevant medical conditions or adjustments needed
  • status of DBS check (pass or fail)
  • copies of identification
  • emergency contact details
  • copy of signed volunteer agreement

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to recruit you as a Community Safety Volunteer. Specifically, we use your contact details, your identification and the details of any relevant medical conditions to carry out a fair recruitment process, deploy and manage you as a volunteer. A DBS check if required is to ensure that KCC fulfills its safeguarding responsibilities. We also use the details to understand the volunteering cohort and to help us to us to improve our services to you.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We rely on Article 6(1)(a) as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal data, i.e. that ‘the data subject has given explicit consent for the processing'.

When we collect your ‘special categories of personal data’, (such as health, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, DBS results) we rely on the following legal bases:

  • Article (9)(2)(a) - the individual has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes
  • Article (9)(2)(g) - processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (safeguarding of children and of individuals at risk and statutory etc & government purposes)

We rely on the substantial public interest condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article(9)(2)(g) to process your special category data.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information for the duration of your volunteering and for one year after cessation.

Who we share your personal information with

Your personal details are not shared outside of the Community Safety service and will be used only for deploying and managing you as a volunteer.

We will share information regarding your health, to the extent it is necessary, with KCC officers or partner organisation who are responsible for creating and promoting a safe working environment for you and for others. We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have rights which you can exercise free of charge that 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
  • you can withdraw your consent at any time

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 UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under GDPR.

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

Your 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 contacting the Kent Community Warden Service by emailing community.wardens@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.

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, or write to: Data Protection Officer, Sessions House, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1XQ.

GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted on 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.