This notice explains what personal data (information) we hold about you, how we collect, how we use and how we may share information about you. We are required to give you this information under data protection law.

Who we are

The Kent Country Parks service is owned and run by Kent County Council. Kent County Council provides a range of statutory and other services to local people and businesses and needs to collect, use and process personal data to deliver these services. 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 ‘data controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

Personal information we collect and use

When we collect and use your personal information we will comply with the Data Protection Principles. In order to collect personal data this must be collected by us in person at one of the Kent Country Parks sites, or provided verbally over the telephone.

In order for you to be provided with an exemption from the daily parking charge we collect the following information from you in person when you provide it to us:

• Your name, your full vehicle registration number, your time of arrival at the park and the reason for your visit / the parking exemption.

We use your personal information to:

• Provide exemption from the daily parking charge for the duration of your visit (in accordance with our Terms and Conditions).

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information securely and retain it for 3 and a half years in accordance with Kent County Council’s retention schedule.

Reasons we collect and use your personal information

The provision of your personal information is required from you to enable us to provide exemption from the daily parking charges for the duration of your visit.

If you do not provide your personal information, we will be unable to arrange for your vehicle to be exempt from parking charges.

When you accept the terms and conditions of your purchase you enter into a contract with us. We rely on ‘processing is necessary for the Performance of a Contract to which the data subject is a party’ as being the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal information.

We rely on Articles 6(1)(b) – Performance of a Contract.

Our exemptions system is provided by a third-party supplier and used to capture and manage your name and vehicle registration number to arrange exemption from daily parking charges. All customer data is stored using industry standard encryption including back-ups. The data is managed by Euro Car Parks Ltd. Vehicle Registration number data is retained for the purpose of managing the car park and is retained for no longer than ten (10) days. This allows Euro Car Parks to ensure they have captured exemptions, payments, etc. prior to calculating the length of stay. Information relating to parking charge notices (PCN’s) is retained under Inland Revenue guidelines for financial transactions and held for six years. Information relating to the use of pay and display machines, pay-by-phone and other payment mechanisms is retained for six months to ensure your ability to appeal a potential parking charge notice. Vehicle registration marks from payment mechanisms are maintained separately and exclusively for the purpose of payment and are separate from Automatic Number Plate Recognition data.

Euro Car Parks Ltd are contractually bound through contract ECP/ANPR/SLA last updated on 01.04.2018 to ensure compliance with Data Protection and specifically that data shared in the course of this contract is not accessed unnecessarily, retained or misused.

Further details about how Euro Car Parks Ltd may use and store your data can be found on the Euro Car Parks website.

Who we share your personal information with

All our staff are employed directly by Kent County Council and are trained to handle your information correctly and protect your privacy. We routinely share your information with other Kent Country Parks staff where it is necessary to ensure provision of your event. Your information will only be shared with other Kent County Council staff, Kent County Council departments or commissioned providers of local authority services (call centre and payment services) as required to facilitate your booking or where required to by law and with sound legal basis.

This data sharing enables you to be exempt from daily parking charges when visiting a Kent Country Parks site.

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 Commissioners 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 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 providing season ticket facilities to you.

For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioners 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.

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.

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.