CITIZENS ADVICE BARNSLEY

Local Privacy Policy

At Citizens Advice 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.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information we:

• only access it when we have a good reason
• only share what is necessary and relevant
• don’t sell it to commercial organisations

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

• to comply with the law – for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’
• to protect someone’s life – for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’
• to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity – for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’
• for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest – for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’
• to carry out a contract we have with you – for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’

• to defend our legal rights – for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law – including the General Data Protection Regulation.

You can check our main Citizens Advice policy for how we handle most of your personal information.

This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.

How Citizens Advice Barnsley collect your data

We may collect your data via referrals from other organisations with your consent. The organisation referring you will obtain your consent and pass to us with the referral.

We may collect your data in order to refer you to another organisation with your consent.  We will obtain written or verbal consent from you in order to do this and pass this data and consent on to the ‘referred to’ organisation.

What Citizens Advice Barnsley ask for

To find out what information we ask for, you can check our main Citizens Advice Policy.

How Citizens Advice Barnsley use your information

To find out how we use your information, you can check our main Citizens Advice Policy.

Working on your behalf

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim or debt/arrears, we’ll need to share information with that third party.

We may also share information with your permission, with DWP or BMBC to help with your enquiry.

How Citizens Advice Barnsley store your information

In addition to our Case Management system, we may store your information on our cloud based system – Google Workspace.  All confidential information storage adheres to Information Assurance and General Data Protection legislation.

How Citizens Advice Barnsley share your information

We will always request/record your consent before sharing your information with a third party. Third parties may include: your creditors if you have a debt enquiry or other organisations that we may be referring you to. Consent will be written if we have assisted you face to face or verbal if we have assisted you via telephone.

Contact Citizens Advice Barnsley about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office by email at admin@barnsleycab.org.uk.

You can contact us to:

• find out what personal information we hold about you
• correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete
• request we delete your information
• ask us to limit what we do with your data – for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already
• ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service
• ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

The national Citizens Advice charity and your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system.

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.

You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website