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Highways safety inspections smartphone video recording trial privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and was last updated on 21 December 2022.

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

Who we are

Kent County Council 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. The objective of the Highways & Transportation Department’s Highways Asset Management Plan is to ensure the long life of Kent County Council’s highway assets for example, roads, pavements, street lightings, drainage, soft vegetation, throughout Kent. The Highways and Transportation Department carry out statutory safety inspections of roads across Kent. The Highways and Transportation Department are undertaking a trial of smartphone video recording technology to identify the condition of highways assets along roads within Kent, as part of the safety route inspection procedure.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In order to carry out highway road safety inspection and condition surveys, the following personal information:

  • video images of you
  • photographic images of you
  • audio recordings.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal data to:

  • View and monitor highway defects and the condition of the highways network (including but not exhaustive of pedestrian crossings, guardrails, streetlights, safety bollards, traffic cones, gullies and manhole covers).
  • Listen to audio recordings of commentary made by Kent County Council Highways and Transportation staff regarding any defects, or the condition of highway assets whilst in a KCC vehicle along the highways network.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We rely on UK GDPR Article 6(1)(e) processing is ‘necessary for the performance of a public task in the public interest’ as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal data.

KCC as the Authority has a statutory duty to complete Statutory Safety Inspections and maintain the public highway at public expense under Sections 41 and 130 of the Highways Act 1980. This trial will enhance the process and further aid our compliance with our legal obligations.

The provision of video and photographic imagery as well as audio recordings are required from you to enable us to monitor and maintain the condition of highway assets along Kent county-wide highway network.

How long your personal data will be kept

The video and audio footage is collected by KCC and is then sent by KCC directly to our third-party suppliers Hetzner and Vaisala immediately after capture. KCC will not view the video footage during this time. The video and audio footage is then redacted by Vaisala and Hetzner within 3 hours of receipt, so that no personal details are visible or audible. Vaisala and Hetzner make the anonymised redacted video footage available to KCC and KCC will store this anonymised data indefinitely from the date of data collection.

Due to the redaction of the video and audio footage after 3 hours, personal data will therefore not be available for disclosure to any external 3rd parties.

If the smartphone video recording trial is discontinued, the anonymised video footage and audio recordings will be deleted in line with the contractual agreement(s) in place between Kent County Council and our 3rd party suppliers.

Who we share your personal information with

We routinely share your video images, photographic images, and audio recordings with our third-party suppliers Vaisala and Hetzner. This data sharing enables Vaisala and Hetzner to process and redact all personal data from the video and audio footage, as well as create anonymised photo images.

We will share your personal information (i.e. video footage, photo images and audio recordings) with the relevant teams within Kent County Councils Highways and Transportation department.

We may also share anonymised summary statistical, meta data and video quality information with relevant teams within Kent County Councils Highways and Transportation department to assess the success of the trial.

We have a data processing agreement in place with Vaisala and Hetzner who process your data on our behalf.

We will share redacted, anonymised video footage 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.

We transfer your data to the following countries or organisations outside the UK: Finland and Germany. This is based on an adequacy decision by the Secretary of State/safeguards prescribed by the UK GDPR.

More information can be found on the ICO’s website.

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 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 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.

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.