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Retrofitting home improvement events and survey privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and it was last updated on 11 April 2024.

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 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. Kent County Council Environment and Waste teams are working closely with district and borough councils and Greenwich University to raise awareness of energy efficient home improvements options for residents across Kent. The team are running a series of ‘improvement your property for sustainable living’ events across Kent. A survey will also be undertaken to understand residents’ motivations and actions around home improvements and to provide further information where asked.

Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of you attending one of our events or completing our survey questionnaire to enable us to understand your motivations and actions around home improvement and provide you with further information where asked, we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Gender
  • Age band
  • Postcode

How we use your personal information

We use your personal data to:

  • contact you in advance of attending one of our ‘improvement your property for sustainable living’ events to let us know of any accessibility requirements you may have for when you attend one of our event venues
  • ensure that we manage the maximum number of people attending one of our venues
  • confirm your identity when you attend one of our events to understand how many people are attending
  • contact you with a follow-up survey to understand whether you intend to make any future home improvements or have undertaken any improvements since attending one of our events or finding out more information from us
  • contact you to provide you with any additional information regarding home improvements options where asked.

When appropriate to the service concerned, KCC collects basic customer profile information such as age range and gender to help understand trends in home improvement options by residents and to inform future service provision decisions and service improvement.

Your age range and gender information will be grouped together with other customers' responses, not individually, and used to create a non-personal anonymised aggregated summary report of questionnaire findings and trends, for example X% of respondents to the questionnaire live in Strood in the postcode of XX, are female, are within the age range of 55-64 years old and plan to take action and install wall insulation for example.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We rely on Article 6(1) – the data subject has given clear consent as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal data.

The provision of your email address is required from you to enable us to contact you regarding any accessibility requirements you may have when attending our events, to confirm your identity when attending our events, to manage the number of attendees attending our events, to contact you to offer you information regarding home improvement options, and to contact you to understand any home improvement actions you plan to undertake or have already undertaken.

The provision of your name is required from you to enable us to confirm your identity when you attend one of our events and to understand how many people are attending of our events.

The provision of your gender, age range, postcode and town information is required from you to enable us to help understand trends in home improvement options and actions undertaken by residents and to inform future service provision decisions and service improvement.

As we have a consent basis for collecting your personal data, if you do not provide your name, email address, gender, age-range, postcode and town information, we may not be able to contact you regarding any accessible requirements you may have when attending our events, to confirm your identity when attending our events, manage the number of attendees attending our events, to contact you to offer you information regarding home improvement options, contact you to understand any home improvement actions you plan to undertake or have already undertaken, to inform our future service provision decisions and service improvement.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information:

  • until the follow-up survey has been completed.

The non-personal anonymised aggregated summary report of questionnaire findings and trends will be kept indefinitely for the purposes of informing future service provision decisions and service improvement.

Who we share your personal information with

We will share your email address with district and borough councils for the purposes only of them contacting with you further information regarding your home improvement options where asked.

We will share the non-personal anonymised aggregated summary report of questionnaire findings and trends with our partners, the University of Greenwich, or district and borough councils for the purposes of informing future service provision decisions and service improvement.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law or in connection with legal proceedings.

We will share personal information 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.

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 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.

Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:

  • object to how we are using your information
  • 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
  • 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 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.

Your right to withdraw 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 krp@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.

UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with Information Commissioner, who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.