Information we may collect about you
Leeds City Council is registered as a ‘data controller’ with the Information Commissioners Office under the Data Protection Act 1998.
We collect and use information about you in order to provide public services. We may collect information on paper or online forms, by telephone, email or a member of our staff may collect information from you in person.
Information about you may be collected on our behalf by one of our partners.
We will use the information you provide in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Information will be accurate, where necessary kept up to date and will be kept for no longer than necessary, in line with our retention policy.
We need to collect and use information about you to:
- deliver public services;
- confirm your identity to provide some services;
- contact you by post, email or telephone;
- understand your needs to provide the services that you ask for or need;
- understand what we can do for you and inform you of other relevant services and benefits;
- ask your opinion about our services;
- update your customer record;
- help us to build up a picture of how we are performing at delivering services to you and what services the people of Leeds need;
- prevent and detect fraud and corruption and crime;
- allow us to undertake statutory functions efficiently and effectively;
- make sure we meet our legal obligations including those that relate to equality and diversity;
- process financial transactions including grants, payments and benefits involving the council, or where we are acting on behalf of other government bodies, e.g. Department for Work and Pensions; or
- protect individuals, where necessary, from harm or injury.
- to improve the health of the population we serve. To help with this, we use data and information from a range of sources (such as ONS births and deaths data and hospital episode statistics, hospitals) to understand more about the nature and causes of disease and ill-health and the health and care needs in the area. Visit our
Public Health privacy notice,
Mortality Records privacy notice and
Birth Records privacy notice pages for more information.
We may not be able to provide you with the right service unless we have enough information.
We will use the information you provide to:
- analyse statistical data so we can plan how we provide services; and
- create anonymised data to help improve services and to be published to the Data Mill North and/or Leeds Observatory under an Open Government Licence and
- create anonymised health related data to improve the health of the population we serve,
- this anonymised data will not contain any personal information which means that individuals cannot be identified.
We may need to pass your information to other people and organisations that provide a service on our behalf. These providers are obliged to keep your details securely, and use them only to provide the service to you in accordance with our instructions.
Information sharing
We may share information with other people and organisations where we are required by law to do so or with appropriate justification under the Data Protection Act, for example where the disclosure is necessary to enable the Council or another organisation to exercise its statutory functions.
Telephone calls
We record telephone calls that are made to the Council’s contact centre for staff training purposes. The recordings are kept in line with our retention policy.
Emails
Unless encrypted, email messages sent via the internet may not be secure and could be intercepted and read by someone else. Please bear this in mind when deciding whether to include personal or sensitive information in any email messages you intend to send to us. If you email us we may keep a record of the information you provide which will be kept for no longer than necessary, in line with our retention policy.
Using our website
The leeds.gov.uk website does not store or capture personal information, about you unless you decide to provide it to:
- subscribe to or apply for services that require personal information,
- report a fault and give your contact details for us to respond,
- contact us and leave your details for us to respond.
You can read more about how we use cookies on our cookies page.
How we protect your information
We take our obligations under the Data Protection Act very seriously. The information you provide will be subject to rigorous measures and procedures to make sure it can’t be seen, accessed or disclosed to anyone who shouldn’t see it.
We have an Information Governance Framework that includes a Data Protection and Privacy Statement and a set of Information Security policies. These set out how we protect your information, covering a range of information technology security areas. We provide training to staff who handle personal information.
Detect and prevent fraud or crime
By law we have to protect the public funds we administer. We may use any of the information you provide to prevent and detect fraud. We may share this information with organisations responsible for auditing or administering public funds including the Audit Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police.
We may use data matching to identify errors and potential frauds and we take part in national data matching exercises undertaken by the Audit Commission where permitted under the Data Protection Act.
We may share the information we hold with organisations such as the Police to prevent or detect crime, apprehend or prosecute offenders or prevent the risk of harm to an individual.
Further information
You have the right to ask for access to any information about you that we hold. You can find more details about how to do this in the
Subject Access Request Guidance
If you want to complain to the Council about the processing of personal data, information sharing, disclosure, retention, or information security, the
Council’s Compliments and Complaints Policy provides further information about how you can do this.
If you have any complaints or questions regarding this privacy Notice you can contact us at:
Corporate Information Governance
Leeds City Council
Civic Hall
Calverley Street
Leeds LS1 1UR
infogov@leeds.gov.uk
