NoiseWorks privacy notice
This privacy notices sits beneath our top level privacy notice and provides information about how personal data is used by Hackney’s NoiseWorks service:
- submitting a noise complaint
- managing a noise complaint
Please see the main privacy notice for details on your rights and who to contact about use of personal data.
Why do we collect data?
We need your information to process your noise reports, so that we can deliver services to people and businesses in Hackney.
This privacy notice applies to any personal data collected by us or on our behalf, by any format – phone, letter, email, online, or face to face.
We collect and handle data to:
- provide the service you’ve asked for – eg if you submit for a noise report we will use your data to process this report
- fulfil legal obligations such as licensing, trading standards and enforcement
- provide information to government, when the law says we need to
- assess our performance, ensure value for money, and to set targets for departments
- to detect and prevent fraud and crime
What legally allows us to collect and handle information about you?
The most common for us will be ‘legal obligation’ or ‘public task’ because our focus is delivering services to you that are required, or permitted, by other existing laws.
Other options that we make use of are ‘contract’ – for example we have employment contracts for our staff; and in emergencies we may use ‘vital interests’ where it is a matter of life and death to use or share data.
We avoid, but may sometimes need to use ‘legitimate interest’ and will always explain what this legitimate interest is in the relevant lower level privacy notice.
We avoid asking for your consent where possible because we know that most of the services we provide aren’t available from elsewhere, so the consent can’t be freely-given. For services that are more optional we may use this method.
If you give us your consent to process your data, you have a right to withdraw your consent whenever you want to.
Who do we share your data with?
Within the Council
We share data internally across departments. In some cases, two or more departments are jointly responsible for delivering a service, so they all need to access data. In these cases we make sure that the sharing is reasonable, is in line with data protection law, and respects your rights.
Outside of the Council
We ask a number of companies to collect, store or handle your information on our behalf to help us to deliver our services – for example our ICT system providers. We remain responsible for your information and ensure that the right safeguards are in place through measures such as contract clauses.
In some services, we share data with other agencies such as the NHS or charities. In some of these cases we remain responsible for your data, and in other cases the responsibility is shared.
We ensure that the right safeguards are in place to keep your information safe and will always tell you more about this when the data is collected. More detail is provided in the privacy notice for each service.
We are obliged by law to share some data with central government, and other agencies. Where possible we make this anonymous and only share statistics.
If this data is at an individual level, we will let you know when we collect it. Where your consent is required to transfer information, this will be made clear to you.
Where it is necessary to share data with third parties for research purposes, we make this data anonymous to ensure that individuals cannot be identified.
There are times where we legally need to share your data with other parties, for example if a court order asks for it.
There may be exceptional cases where we feel compelled to share your data for a reason that outweighs your right to privacy:
- to protect a child
- to protect an adult who is vulnerable or at risk
- to detect and prevent fraud and crime
This list is not exhaustive, but we will never share your information if it is not legal to do so and will always consider your rights, and whether there is another way of achieving our aim, before doing so.
Statistical analysis
We use data collected to produce tenure information and performance statistics. Data used is pseudonymised, so that personal and individual data is not visible in the results. You can compare Hackney with other councils via the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
How long do we keep your data for?
Some of the things we consider when deciding how long to keep data for are:
- how long we need it to deliver the service to you
- how long other laws tell us to keep it for
This means that different services, and sometimes different activities within the same service, will need to keep data for different lengths of time.
Our most commons length of time is 7 years because of a law called the Limitation Act which sets how long someone can take legal action.
This 7 year period is usually applied from the date that you stop receiving the service, instead of the date that you gave us the data – for example we will keep anything to do with a tenancy for 7 years from the date that the person stops being a tenant which in practice may be a long time after their data was first received.
Your rights
Please see our main privacy notice for more details on your right:
- to be informed
- to access your personal data
- to rectify your personal data if it is incorrect
- to restrict our processing of your personal data
If you do find that the information we hold on you is incorrect, you should contact us as soon as possible at PollutionSupport@hackney.gov.uk to update our records.