Privacy notice - Child Welfare, Safeguarding, and Care Services

We collect ‘personal data’ including names, photographs, contacts, date of birth, National Insurance Number, NHS Patient Number, gender, spoken languages, family and friends information including names and dates of birth of children, financial and benefits details, education and employment details, immigration or asylum status, family situation and support needs, living conditions, parenting skills and abilities, relationships, child and family welfare and emotional wellbeing information, and details of involvements with other agencies or services and names of professionals involved.

We collect ‘special category data’ including racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, sex life, and health and we also collect ‘criminal convictions and offences’ information.

We collect this information directly from people that we work with, relatives, representatives, and from other organisations.

We use personal data and criminal convictions and offences data where we have a ‘legal obligation’ or and to carry out ‘public tasks’ based in law. We use special category data to ‘provide health or social care’ and where there is ‘substantial public interest’ on the basis of law. Some of the law that allows us your personal data includes the Children Act 1989 and 2004, Children and Families Act 2014, UK Government statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018)’, and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

We use personal data to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, provide specific services for children with disabilities, look after children who have been taken into care, protect our staff and those of our partner organisations, assess the quality of our services, and evaluate and improve our policies.

We share your personal information where the law requires or allows us to do so with other Council service areas and third-parties including health services, care providers, Police, Courts and support services, Department for Education, other local authorities, schools and academies, other education providers, Probation Service, housing providers, and the voluntary and community sector.

We use the following measures to ensure that your personal data is secure: data protection and security policies, information security incident reporting, data and device encryption, system and data access controls, user accounts and passwords, physical and environmental security, staff vetting practices, staff training and awareness, data back-ups, ICT network penetration testing, and business continuity and disaster recovery plans.

We only keep your data for as long as the Law requires it and this is set out in our ‘records management retention schedules’.

No, your personal data is processed and stored only in the UK.

We will not use this personal data for any direct marketing purposes.

Your Information Rights are set out in law and, subject to some exceptions, you have the:

• Right to rectification – to ask for information to be corrected
• Right to erasure – to have your personal data deleted
• Right to object – to how you data is used
• Right to restriction – to request limits on how your data is used
• Right to portability - to request that we move your data to another organisation
• Right of subject access - to request a copy of data the Council holds about you

If you have a concerns about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner's Office. Visit the website of the Information Commissioner's Office.

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice or your information rights, please contact:

The Data Protection Officer
Middlesbrough Council
PO Box 500, Middlesbrough, TS1 9FT
Phone: 01642 245432
Email: dataprotection@middlesbrough.gov.uk