At Citizens Advice Cheshire West, we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.
This privacy policy explains how we use your information and what your rights are. We handle and store your personal information in line with data protection law and our confidentiality policy. The following pages tell you more about how we use your information in more detail.
Citizens Advice is a membership organisation made up of the national Citizens Advice charity and many local offices across England and Wales, including Citizens Advice Cheshire West Citizens. Citizens Advice Cheshire West Citizens is an independent charity and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity.
All members of the Citizens Advice network are responsible for keeping your personal information safe and making sure data protection law is followed.
Members of the network also run some jointly designed services and use some of the same systems to process your personal data. In these instances we are joint data controllers for these activities.
All offices in the Citizens Advice network use some joint systems to carry out our activities. These include joint case management systems, telephony platforms and more.
Staff from a different local Citizens Advice can only access your personal information in a joint system if they have a good reason. For example when:
We have rules and controls in place to stop people accessing or using your information when they shouldn’t.
Tell an adviser if you’re worried about your details being on a national system. We’ll work with you to take extra steps to protect your information – for example by recording your problem without using your name.
National Citizens Advice has a privacy notice available on their website that covers general advice and nationally managed systems, including our case management systems. This policy covers the processing we carry out in our office.
Citizens Advice Cheshire West is a registered charity (charity number 1128367) and a company limited by guarantee (Company number 06783496). We can be contacted at our registered office – Wyvern House, The Drumber, Winsford, Cheshire, CW7 1AD.
At Citizens Advice Cheshire West we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.
This privacy policy sets out the standards you can expect when we ask for or record your personal information, and explains how we’ll use it.
This section covers how we use your data to provide you with advice.
For general advice and nationally funded advice programmes please see the national Citizens Advice privacy notice.
Face to face
By email
By telephone
By webchat
Referrals from third party organisations
We’ll only ask for information that’s relevant to your problem. Depending on what you want help with, this might include:
We occasionally ask for details about someone else like a neighbour or your partner so we can deal with an enquiry. We’ll only do this if we have a legitimate interest in the information, or we need it to protect someone’s life.
If you don’t want to give us certain information, you don’t have to. For example, if you want to stay anonymous we’ll only record information about your problem and make sure you’re not identified.
General advice
Benefits Advice
Debt advice
Help to Claim
Pension Wise
Energy
Heating Bank
Community Advice
Heating Bank
The main reason we ask for your information is to help solve your problem. We only access your information for other reasons if we really need to – for example:
All our advisers and staff accessing data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.
At Citizens Advice we have a confidentiality policy which states that anything you tell us as part of advice will not be shared outside of the Citizens Advice network unless you provide your permission for us to do so.
There are some exceptions to this such as needing to share:
With your permission, we might share your information with other organisations so we can:
Organisations we share your data with must store and use your data in line with data protection law. They’ll have their own privacy policies for how they handle your information and keep it safe.
There might be specific organisations we share your information with, depending on what service you access.
We’ll ask your permission to share your information with the Trussell Trust – they run food banks across the country. You can check the Trussell Trust’s privacy policy on their website.
We’ll ask your permission to share your information with Charis Grants Ltd – they run the online portal we use to purchase energy vouchers and items. You can check the Charis privacy policy here.
We’ll share your information with the Insolvency Service if you decide to enter a Breathing Space. The Insolvency Service will store your contact details and information about your debts on their online Breathing Space system. Your creditors will be able to see your information on the system, but only for debts you owe to them.
Information that the Department for Work and Pensions send us for the Help to Claim service
If you are referred to the Help to Claim service by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), they’ll give us the following personal information about you:
The DWP are allowed to share some personal information with us because they’re a government department. On some occasions, the Jobcentre might share some information about you with us. They’ll do this usually when they need us to help you with your claim and the legal basis they use for this is called ‘public task’.
Sometimes we might need to call the DWP’s Universal Credit Helpline so they can help you with your claim. We’ll always ask your permission to do this first.
If the DWP needs to carry out an audit of a local Citizens Advice office, we’ll ask your permission before sharing any personal information with them.
Your personal information is shared securely with us from the charity you got advice from. They should get your permission then send us the information. We then share some information with the Money and Pensions Service, our funder, as part of our regular reporting.
This information includes:
The charity you got advice from will have their own policy on how they use, store and share your data.
If something you’ve told us makes us think you or someone you know might be at serious risk of harm, we could tell the police or social services – for example if we think you might hurt yourself or someone else.
| Purpose | Personal and sensitive personal data |
| Advice, information and guidance | Legitimate interest
Public task Legal obligation Vital interest |
| EDI monitoring | Legitimate interest
Public task |
| Publication of client stories | Consent/explicit consent |
| Maintaining quality and standards | Legitimate interest
Legal obligation |
| Complaints | Legitimate interest
Legal obligation |
| Individual rights requests | Legal obligation
Public task |
| Safeguarding | Public task
Vital interest |
| Fraud prevention | Legitimate interest
Legal obligation Public task |
| Life threatening emergency | Vital interest |
This section covers how we use your data to carry out our research, feedback and statistical work..
National Citizens Advice covers their use of data for this purpose in their privacy notice.
We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation. We’ll always explain how we use your information.
We use some information to create statistics about who we’re helping and what problems are the most common. This information is always anonymized and you definitely cannot be identified. With your permission we might also contact you for help with research, campaigns or media work.
We’ll collect information from you by either:
We only ask for the information we need to tell your story, inform our research or for feedback on the service you received from us. Depending on how we want you to help us, this might include information about:
If you don’t want to give us some personal details, you don’t have to.
When we contact you we’ll explain how we want to use your information – for example, we might want to:
We use anonymised data for statistical purposes and funding applications. This data is anonymised effectively and no living individual can be identified from this data or the data combined with other information. We do this to enable us to:
We use some information to create statistics about who we’re helping and what problems are the most common. We might use the information you’ve told us and your answers to the Client Experience survey. This information is always anonymised – you can’t be identified.
Citizens Advice
Funders or potential funders
Media
Social media
Independent research companies
| Purpose | Personal and sensitive personal data |
| Funding applications (anonymised) | Legitimate interest |
| Meet funder obligations (anonymised) | Legitimate interest
Legal obligation |
| EDI monitoring (anonymised) | Legitimate interest
Public task |
| Publication of client stories | Consent/explicit consent |
Application process – application form (paper and electronic)
We ask you for your personal details including name and contact details. We will also ask you about your previous experience, education, referees and for answers to questions relevant to the role you have applied for. Our recruitment panel will have access to all of this information.
You will also be asked to provide equal opportunities information. This is not mandatory information – if you don’t provide it, it will not affect your application. This information will only be available to the Head of People in a way which can identify you.
What we use your information for
We use the personal information you provide for the purpose of assessing your application to work or volunteer with Citizens Advice Cheshire West. We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary.
The information we ask for is used to assess your suitability for employment or volunteering. You don’t have to provide what we ask for but it might affect your application if you don’t.
Any equal opportunities information you provide, will be used only to produce and monitor equal opportunities statistics anonymised and only in a format which does not link the data to you.
We will only share your personal information with your permission for onboarding purposes i.e. references
Our lawful basis for using your information
| Purpose | Personal and sensitive personal data |
| EDI monitoring | Legitimate interest
Public task |
| Maintaining quality and standards | Legitimate interest
Legal obligation |
| Complaints | Legitimate interest
Legal obligation |
| Individual rights requests | Legal obligation
Public task |
| Fraud prevention | Legitimate interest
Legal obligation Public task |
| Life threatening emergency | Vital interest |
When you use our website we collect information from you such as location data, cookies, or personal information you give us through completing online forms.
Cookies
We use data called cookies to get information about how you’re using our website – for example, what pages you click on and what device you’re using. This helps us improve your experience of our website.
With your permission, we collect data on your location – to within 1 square kilometre. You can’t be identified from this information – it’s completely anonymous.
When you use our website we collect information from you such as location data, cookies, or personal information you give us through completing online forms.
We’ll collect your location data using Google Analytics. When you visit our website for the first time, a box will appear at the top left of your screen telling you that Citizens Advice would like to know your location. You can choose to block it, or allow your location to be shared with us.
We’ll never collect your location data on pages about domestic abuse or violence, or on pages about immigration.
If you don’t want Google Analytics to collect your data, you can opt out by downloading the opt-out plug in to your device.
Whenever we require a form to be completed online, we use Paperform to collect the data. We only collect the data we require to process your request. Paperform is GDPR compliant, please see Trust Center – Paperform for more information.
What we use your information for
We use information about your location to help us make sure people are getting the content that applies to where they live.
It also means we can see how demand for our content changes by location – for example, if a lot of people look at housing advice in one area of Cheshire West, we can target our services to meet that need or investigate why there are problems with housing in that area.
We use the information your provide on Paperform to process your advice request.
Your location data is stored in Google Analytics. You can check Google’s privacy policy for more about how they handle your data.
We download your data from Google Analytics onto our secure internal systems. We’ll use the data to create anonymised statistics about how people in different locations are using our website.
All data processed by Paperform is stored on our own systems and is deleted once we have completed processing it.
| Purpose | Personal and sensitive personal data |
| Service delivery | Legitimate interest
Public task |
| Individual rights requests | Legal obligation
Public task |
When you use our website, we add cookies to your device to:
By using our website, we assume you agree to us adding cookies to your device. If you want to disable, block or remove cookies, you can do this at any time.
We add cookies to your device so you have a good experience when you use our website – for example:
These cookies make our online forms work. They’re put onto your device whether you use a form or not.
If you use tools or services on our website that are delivered by other organisations, they might put cookies on your device when you use it.
The tools and services we have on our website from other organisations are:
National Citizens Advice is responsible for managing any data in joint client case records. For more information please see their privacy notice.
| Data | Purpose | Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Information i.e. address, contact details | To provide information and advice | 6 years |
| Correspondence, documents, paperwork | To support the provision of advice | 6 years |
| PIP/ESA/AA forms | To support the provision of assistance and advice | 6 years |
| Webchat transcripts | To provide information and advice | 6 years |
| Emails | To provide information and advice | 6 years |
| Interview/issue notes | To support the provision of advice | 6 years |
| Online forms | To process advice request | Usually deleted once processed/ up to 1 year |
Third party processors
Third party processors are other organisations that carry out data processing on our behalf. Third party processors don’t use data for their own purposes and we have agreements in line with data protection law.
| Processor name | Activities | Data hosting location |
|---|---|---|
| Paperform | Online forms | USA |
You have rights in relation to your personal data that we hold. Your rights include being able to request:
These rights are not absolute and may not apply in every circumstance. For more information about your rights you can visit the ICO website.
To make a data protection rights request you can do so by emailing SAR@citizensadvicecw.org.uk or https://paperform.co/account/gdpr-request
If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information please contact us at SAR@citizensadvicecw.org.uk.
You can also contact the national charity if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal data or wish to raise a concern about how a local office has handled your personal data. To do so you can email us at DPO@citizensadvice.org.uk
You can also raise your concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates data protection law in the UK. if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information. They will normally expect you to have made a complaint to us directly in the first instance.
