Skip to content

Kent Libraries

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 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. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

The personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of registering as a borrower and completing customer enquiries we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • titles
  • names
  • gender
  • ethnicity
  • disabilities
  • languages
  • address
  • date of birth
  • phone numbers
  • email addresses
  • guarantor info (name, phone, email)
  • family details (family members and relationship to them)

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

  • register as a borrower
  • contact you if needed with regards to borrowing and enquiries

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information for the:

  • the length of your membership

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We rely on the data subject giving consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes as the lawful basis on which we collect and use the personal data. We have a legal obligation to collect this information because of our public sector equality duty

We collect special category (sensitive) personal information; we rely upon substantial public interest in order to ensure equality of opportunity or treatment.

As we have a statutory basis for collecting your personal data (not sensitive) if you do not provide personal information we will not be able to complete borrower membership.

Who we share your personal information with

We routinely share:

  • name, address and contact details with a debt collection agency if a reasonable effort to recover outstanding money has not been successful.

This data sharing enables the library service to recover any outstanding money owed.

Kent County Council is part of the SELMS consortium. Your borrower record will be held on a shared database but your details will only be available to staff in another authority if you choose to borrow or reserve items from that authority.  All personal data is held strictly in accordance with the requirements of current Data Protection legislation.

Data can be shared with other Kent County Council services if requested.

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

We will share your personal information with other services that you have signed up to use through the library service.

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 Commissioner's Office

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 theInformation Commissioner who may be contacted on 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.