Privacy Shropshire Council’s privacy notice

Shropshire Council is the local government authority for Shropshire. Our address is: Shropshire Council, Shirehall, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, SY2 6ND.

We collect information from you when you visit our website, when you contact us in writing, speak to us on the phone, by email or any other type of electronic communication, or talk to us face to face.

We collect different categories of information about you. This will depend on the service you want from us or that we need to provide to you. This can be basic personal information, such as your name and address, and in some cases more sensitive data if this is necessary. Additional privacy notices are available, with more information on how individual services are required to process your information in a specific way.

We're fully committed to complying with Data Protection Act 2018 legislation, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which regulates how personal information is processed.

We comply with the National Opt-Out Policy.

You can contact our data protection officer if you have any questions about our privacy policy or the information we hold about you, or if you have a complaint about privacy or misuse of personal data. Contact details are:

If you're not satisfied with our response, or believe we're not processing your personal data in accordance with data protection legislation, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Why we use your personal information

Do you know what personal information is?

Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when put together with other information can then identify a person. For example, this could be your name and contact details. 

Did you know that some of your personal information might be ‘special’?

Some information is ‘special’ and needs more protection due to its sensitivity. It’s often information you would not want widely known and is very personal to you. This is likely to include anything that can reveal your:

  • Sexuality and sexual health
  • Religious or philosophical beliefs
  • Ethnicity
  • Physical or mental health
  • Trade union membership
  • Political opinion
  • Genetic/biometric data
  • Criminal history 

How do we use your personal information?

We may need to use some information about you to:

  • Deliver services and support to you
  • To contact you about additional support or services you may be eligible for
  • Manage those services we provide to you
  • Train and manage the employment of our workers who deliver those services
  • Help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services
  • Keep track of spending on services
  • Check the quality of services
  • Help with research and planning of new services

How the law allows us to use your personal information

There are a number of legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information.

Generally we collect and use personal information where:

  • It's necessary to perform our statutory or public task duties
  • It's necessary to protect someone in an emergency
  • It's required by law
  • You, or your legal representative, have given consent
  • You've entered into a contract with us
  • It's necessary for employment purposes
  • It's necessary to deliver health or social care services 
  • You've made your information publicly available
  • It's necessary for legal cases
  • It's to the benefit of society as a whole
  • It's necessary to protect public health
  • It's necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes

If we have consent to use your personal information, you have the right to remove it at any time. If you want to remove your consent, please contact information.request@shropshire.gov.uk and tell us which service you’re using so we can deal with your request.

We only use what we need!

Where we can, we’ll only collect and use personal information if we need it to deliver a service or meet a requirement. We don’t sell your personal information to anyone else.  

What are your rights in relation to your personal data?

The Data Protection Act gives you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us.

You have the right to ask for a copy of information about you.

You can ask for access to the information we hold on you, and we'd normally expect to share what we record about you with you whenever we assess your needs or provide you with services. However, you also have the right to ask for information we have about you and the services you receive from us.

In responding to your information request, it’s possible that we may withhold:

  • Confidential information about other people; or
  • Data a professional thinks will cause serious harm to your or someone else’s physical or mental wellbeing; or
  • Information that may stop us from preventing or detecting a crime; or
  • Information exempt from disclosure

This applies to personal information that is in both paper and electronic records. If you ask us, we’ll also let others see your record (except if one of the points above applies). 

If you can’t ask for your records in writing, we’ll make sure there are other ways that you can. If you have any queries about access to your information please contact information.request@shropshire.gov.uk or 0345 678 9000 and ask for Information Governance.

You can ask to change information you think is inaccurate

You should let us know if you disagree with something written on your file. We may not always be able to change or remove that information, but we’ll correct factual inaccuracies and may include your comments in the record to show that you disagree with it.

You can ask to delete information (right to be forgotten)

In some circumstances you can ask for your personal information to be deleted, for example: 

  • Where your personal information is no longer needed for the reason why it was collected in the first place
  • Where you have removed your consent for us to use your information (where there is no other legal reason us to use it)
  • Where there is no legal reason for the use of your information
  • Where deleting the information is a legal requirement

Where your personal information has been shared with others, we’ll do what we can to make sure those using your personal information comply with your request for erasure.

Please note that we can’t delete your information where:

  • We’re required to have it by law or to perform a public task
  • It's used for freedom of expression 
  • It's used for public health purposes
  • It's for, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes where it would make information unusable
  • It's necessary for legal claims 

You can ask to limit what we use your personal data for

You have the right to ask us to restrict what we use your personal information for where:

  • You've identified inaccurate information, and have told us of it
  • Where we have no legal reason to use that information but you want us to restrict what we use it for rather than erase the information altogether 

When information is restricted it can’t be used other than to securely store the data and with your consent to handle legal claims and protect others, or where it’s for important public interests of the UK. Where restriction of use has been granted, we’ll inform you before we carry on using your personal information.

Where possible we’ll seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or use information because we are required to by law.

You can ask to have your information moved to another provider (data portability)

You have the right to ask for your personal information to be given back to you or another service provider of your choice in a commonly used format. This is called data portability. However this only applies if we’re using your personal information with consent (not if we’re required to by law) and if decisions were made by a computer and not a human being. It’s likely that data portability won’t apply to most of the services you receive from the us.

You have the right to prevent automatic decisions being made about you

You can ask to have any computer-made decisions explained to you. You have the right to question decisions made about you by a computer, unless it’s required for any contract you have entered into, required by law, or you’ve consented to it. 

You also have the right to object if you're being ‘profiled’. Profiling is where decisions are made about you based on certain things in your personal information, eg your health conditions. 

If and when we use your personal information to profile you in order to deliver the most appropriate service to you, you'll be informed. 

If you have concerns regarding automated decision making, or profiling, please contact the data protection officer, who’ll be able to advise you about how we're using your information. 



You can ask to change information you think is inaccurate

You should let us know if you disagree with something written on your file. We may not always be able to change or remove that information, but we’ll correct factual inaccuracies and may include your comments in the record to show that you disagree with it.

You can ask to delete information (right to be forgotten)

In some circumstances you can ask for your personal information to be deleted, for example: 

  • Where your personal information is no longer needed for the reason why it was collected in the first place
  • Where you have removed your consent for us to use your information (where there is no other legal reason us to use it)
  • Where there is no legal reason for the use of your information
  • Where deleting the information is a legal requirement

Where your personal information has been shared with others, we’ll do what we can to make sure those using your personal information comply with your request for erasure.

Please note that we can’t delete your information where:

  • We’re required to have it by law or to perform a public task
  • It's used for freedom of expression 
  • It's used for public health purposes
  • It's for, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes where it would make information unusable
  • It's necessary for legal claims 

You can ask to limit what we use your personal data for

You have the right to ask us to restrict what we use your personal information for where:

  • You've identified inaccurate information, and have told us of it
  • Where we have no legal reason to use that information but you want us to restrict what we use it for rather than erase the information altogether 

When information is restricted it can’t be used other than to securely store the data and with your consent to handle legal claims and protect others, or where it’s for important public interests of the UK. Where restriction of use has been granted, we’ll inform you before we carry on using your personal information.

Where possible we’ll seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or use information because we are required to by law.

You can ask to have your information moved to another provider (data portability)

You have the right to ask for your personal information to be given back to you or another service provider of your choice in a commonly used format. This is called data portability. However this only applies if we’re using your personal information with consent (not if we’re required to by law) and if decisions were made by a computer and not a human being. It’s likely that data portability won’t apply to most of the services you receive from the us.

You have the right to prevent automatic decisions being made about you

You can ask to have any computer-made decisions explained to you. You have the right to question decisions made about you by a computer, unless it’s required for any contract you have entered into, required by law, or you’ve consented to it. 

You also have the right to object if you're being ‘profiled’. Profiling is where decisions are made about you based on certain things in your personal information, eg your health conditions. 

If and when we use your personal information to profile you in order to deliver the most appropriate service to you, you'll be informed. 

If you have concerns regarding automated decision making, or profiling, please contact the data protection officer, who’ll be able to advise you about how we're using your information. 

Who do we share your information with?

We use a range of organisations to either store personal information or help deliver our services to you. Where we have these arrangements there's always an agreement in place to make sure that the organisation complies with data protection law. 

We’ll often complete a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) before we share personal information to make sure we protect your privacy and comply with the law.

Sometimes we have a legal duty to provide personal information to other organisations. For example, this could be if:

  • We take a child into care; or
  • The court orders that we provide the information; or
  • Someone is taken into care under mental health law; or
  • There's an identified legal requirement to share information

We may also share your personal information when we feel there’s a good reason that’s more important than protecting your privacy. This doesn’t happen often, but we may share your information:

  • In order to find and stop crime and fraud; or if there are serious risks to the public, our staff or to other professionals; or
  • To protect a child; or
  • To protect adults who are thought to be at risk, for example if they're frail, confused or can't understand what is happening to them

For all of these reasons the risk must be serious before we can override your right to privacy. 

We may still share your information if we believe the risk to others is serious enough to do so. There may also be rare occasions when the risk to someone is so great that we need to share information straight away. If this is the case, we’ll make sure that we record what information we share and our reasons for doing so.

How do we protect your information?

We’ll do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we’ll only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Examples of our security include:

  • Controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who aren't allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it
  • Training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong
  • Anonymisation/pseudonymisation, so that information can be used for statistical reporting or analysis without it being possible to identify who the data relates to
  • Regular testing of our technology and ways of working, including keeping up to date on the latest security updates

Where in the world is your information?

The majority of personal information is stored on systems in the UK, but there are some occasions where your information may leave the UK either in order to get to another organisation or if it’s stored in a system within the EU. 

We have additional protections on your information if it leaves the UK, ranging from secure ways of transferring data to ensuring that we have a robust contract in place with that third party. 

We’ll take all practical steps to make sure your personal information isn't sent to a country that is not considered to be ‘safe’ by the UK government.

How long do we keep your personal information?

There’s often a legal reason for keeping your personal information for a set period of time - we try to include all of these in our retention schedule. 

For each service the schedule lists how long your information may be kept for. This ranges from months for some records to decades for more sensitive records.  

Where can I get advice?

If you have any worries or questions about how your personal information is handled please contact our data protection officer at information.request@shropshire.gov.uk or on 01743 252179.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) by completing their online form: Data protection and personal information complaints tool | ICO

Children and young people under 13

If you're accessing online services and are under the age of 13‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Cookies and IP addresses – what are they and how are they used?

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