Privacy Policy

At Citizens Advice Watford, 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.

Our network

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 Watford. Citizens Advice Watford 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.

Jointly controlled data

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:

  • you go to a different office to seek advice
  • more than one office is working together in partnership
  • they need to investigate a complaint or incident

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.

How we use your data for advice

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.

How we collect your information

  • Complete and sign a paper form
  • Submitted data online
  • Given over the telephone
  • You are referred to us from another organisation e.g. the council. They will get your permission before sending us your information

What information we collect

We’ll only ask for information that’s relevant to your problem. Depending on what you want help with, this might include:

  • Your name and contact details – so we can keep in touch with you about your case
  • Personal information – for example about family, work, or financial circumstances
  • Details about services that are causing you problems – like energy or housing
  • Details of items or services you’ve bought, and traders you’ve dealt with
  • Information like your gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation

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.

What we use your information for

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:

  • for training and quality purposes
  • to investigate complaints
  • to get feedback from you about our services
  • to help us improve our services

All staff accessing data have data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.

At Citizens Advice Watford 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.

Who we share your information with

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim or to help you with your debts, we might need to share some of your information with other organisations. We will always tell you when we do this. Organisations we share your data with must store and use your data in line with data protection law.

For example, if we contact your creditors about your debts, we might need to share your name, address and financial details with them. Examples of organisations or agencies we may share your information with are Watford Borough Council, Housing Associations, Debt agencies, Credit Reference Agencies, Foodbank, Creditors, Employers, Tribunals, HMRC, Landlords, GP’s and Job Centre Plus.

If we refer you to another organisation for more advice, we might share information about your problem with them so they can help you more quickly.

Our confidentiality policy

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:

  • to prevent an immediate risk of harm to an individual
  • In select circumstances if it is in the best interests of the client
  • where we are compelled to do so by law (e.g. a court order or meeting statutory disclosures)
  • where there is an overriding public interest such as to prevent harm against someone or to investigate a crime
  • to defend against a complaint or legal claim
  • to protect our name and reputation for example to provide our side of a story reported in the press

Our lawful basis for using your information

The following are the lawful basis on which we rely to process your data obtained for advice purposes:

Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims

  • This includes establishing legal rights such as housing, benefits, debt solutions

Substantial public interest – statutory basis

  • Such as when delivering advice laid down in law (e.g. consumer service)

Substantial public interest – provision of confidential counselling, advice or support

  • Such as when delivering welfare focused advice that doesn’t relate to legal rights and isn’t laid down in law e.g. providing information on support available for depression

The lawful basis that we will rely on to process your data obtained for non-advice will depend on the purpose for which we will be using the said data. For example: for EDI data processing we would rely on:

  • substantial public interest – ‘equality of opportunity or treatment’

Where express permission is required to enable us to process your data for a particular purpose, we will seek this from you.

How we use your data for research, feedback and statistics

National Citizens Advice covers their use of data for this purpose in their privacy notice.

How long we keep your data for

National Citizens Advice is responsible for managing any data in joint client case records. For more information, please see their privacy notice.

Whether you get advice in person, over the phone or by email, our adviser will log your information, correspondence and notes about your issue into our secure case management system. Some of your information might also be kept within our secure email and IT systems.

We keep your information for 6 years. If your case has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute we keep the data for 16 years.

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.  In the case of CA Watford, this would apply to our IT provider.

The ICO has more information on who is considered a processor.

Your data protection rights

You have rights in relation to your personal data that we hold. Your rights include being able to request:

  • Access to copies of your data
  • Corrections made to inaccurate data
  • Deletion of your personal data
  • Object to how we use your personal data

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 contacting us:

Raising a concern about how we use your information

If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us using the above.

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: DPO@citizensadvice.org.uk

Contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

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.