Privacy notices

Who we are

We are the Voluntary and Communities team and our aim is promoting greater community participation and opportunities to influence local priorities, advance equality and inclusion, support our voluntary and community strategy (VCS) to address tough issues, ensure residents and groups have access to funding opportunities, encourage a range of social and cultural street and neighbourhood activities and promote community events, develop a programme of inter-faith and cultural activities that promote community integration, explore opportunities to develop connected community spaces/places using a range of assets, publish a directory of community and voluntary sector organisations.

We are committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. This privacy notice explains how we use your personal information and how we protect your privacy in compliance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. By personal information, we mean information which, by itself or with other data (that is available to Croydon council) that can be used to identify you. This notice also provides you with information that relates specifically to our service and should be read together with the corporate privacy notice.

What information we collect

When you contact us, or register with us, or use our services we collect personal information about you including some or all of the following:

• your contact details (your name, address, email address and telephone number)
• your personal details (gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs and sexual orientation)
• voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) financial information, insurance/safeguarding policies
• we also collect information when you voluntarily complete customer surveys and provide feedback, including complaints
• bank details, record of payments made

The majority of information provided by you is usually mandatory for the purposes specified in this notice. Some of it, however, is provided by you on a voluntary basis. We will inform you whether you are required by law to provide certain information to us. If you do have a choice as to whether to provide information that is not mandatory because the service we provide is optional, your explicit consent will be requested. We will usually seek your consent when you give us your information. We will also seek to refresh your consent from time to time to ensure that you are still happy for us to use your data.

If you wish to withdraw your consent, please contact us by emailing thirdsector@croydon.gov.uk so we can deal with your request. This will only affect the way we use personal information when our reason for doing so is that we require your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. If this is the case, we will tell you.

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties for marketing or commercial purposes.

We do not make or use any automated (that is, without any human involvement) decision-making including profiling.

Why we collect your information

To allow us to make decisions on your application, individuals must provide us with some personal date. Data collection will be used to:

• promote community events focuses may including funding opportunities, networking, and important strategic announcements
• share information on significant funding opportunities and how to access them
• promote relevant council initiatives and activities including the above, new strategies and documents

Who we share information with

We may share information about you to third parties to deliver our services effectively, or when required to do so by law for all lawful purposes as specified in this notice:

• other Croydon council teams so they can carry out their statutory roles and support our service (eg media and communications, local councillors for internal use, housing, environmental services, anti-social behaviour team, complaints, legal services, prevention, highway services)
• local strategic partnership members

All organisations we pass your information to will have an information-sharing agreement with us to ensure they meet the standards of the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and will be covered by a legal basis allowing them to collect, use and share your personal information.

The lawful basis on which we use this information

• compliance with our legal obligations
• tasks carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority
• contract for the supply of services
• consent

Regulations allow for the council to use and store data without explicit consent where there is a legitimate interest in doing so. Individuals who have contacted historically have a reasonable expectation that we will use their data to promote funding opportunities and share information. Were we to stop communications and delete their contact data we would limit our communication channels with key local community groups. This could lead to groups missing out on important opportunities to increase their revenue, council support and have an influence in local decision-making. It is unfeasible for the Communities team to go to every contact directly to continually share relevant information as it emerges. Maintaining and emailing a digital contact list is therefore critical to allowing the Communities team to carry out its duties and to maintain a relationship with the local voluntary and community sector.

Other websites

Our website www.croydon.gov.uk contains links to other websites. This privacy notice only applies to our service and explains how we comply with data protection law – so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.

Storing this information

Personal data will not be retained for longer than necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected. Data will be stored on a secure spreadsheet to be accessed by members of the Communities team only. Data is to be securely destroyed once we no longer need it or contacts withdraw consent. This responsibility will belong to a selected member of the Communities team.

Providing us with accurate information

It is very important that you provide us with accurate information to enable us to process your application more quickly (if applying for funding). If any of your details have changed, or change in the future, please inform us as soon as possible so that we can update your records.

If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information.

Requesting access to your personal data

Under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to request access to information that we hold about you. To make a request for your personal information, use our subject access request form or contact the council’s Information Management Team at SAR@croydon.gov.uk.

Further information

The GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 give you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us. Information about your individual data rights is listed in the council’s privacy notice available at www.croydon.gov.uk/privacy.

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we collect, store or use your personal information, please contact in the first instance on thirdsector@croydon.gov.uk.

For advice about data protection issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at www.ico.org.uk.

We reserve the right to amend this privacy notice at any time and will keep it under review. If we do make any changes, we will post the current version to our website at this address.

Last updated: August 2019