Privacy

The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Kent is registered as a ‘data controller’ under the Data Protection Act 1998 because the Office of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner (OKPCC), receives, creates, holds and may disclose personal information about you in accordance with this Privacy Notice

Personal information is information that on its own, or together with other information identifies you and is about you. This includes what you tell us about yourself when you contact the OKPCC, and what the OKPCC may learn as a result of dealing with your correspondence or enquiry. Personal information includes information stored electronically and in manual filing systems.

‘Process’ or ‘processing’ means just about any conceivable use of the information, including recording, storing, viewing or disclosing

The OKPCC is committed to protecting your personal information in all that it does and has put in place all reasonable technical and procedural controls required to protect your personal information for the whole of its life, in whatever format the information is held. All OKPCC staff are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
 
Your privacy is also protected by law, which says that we can use your personal information only if we have a proper reason to do so. This includes sharing it outside of the OKPCC. The reasons why the OKPCC may process your personal information are:

• When it is our legal duty
• To fulfil a contract we have with you
• To protect your life
• To exercise official authority or carry out a specific task in the public interest
• When you consent to it

 
Below is a list of the ways the OKPCC may use your personal information, and which of the reasons we rely on to do so.
 

The law and other regulations treat some types of personal information as ‘special categories’. This includes, but is not limited to, information about racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religious beliefs. They require higher levels of protection and the OKPCC needs to have further justification for processing them.
 
We may process special categories of information in the following circumstances:

• With your consent;
• Where we need to carry out our legal obligations; or
• Where it is needed in the public interest.

 
In limited circumstances, we may approach you for consent to allow us to process certain sensitive personal information. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the personal data that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.
 
We may also process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims, or to protect your interests (or someone else’s) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public

The types of personal information we collect include:

• Personal details such as name, address, telephone number, email address;
• Crime or incident reference numbers;
• Details of how you use our website, and where you have accessed it from;
• Details of how you interact with us on social media;
• Details of when you contact us and when we contact you (including recordings of telephone calls and copies of written communications such as emails or letters);
• Any consents which you have given in relation to the processing of your information.

Personal information you give to the OKPCC:

• When you contact us (for example by phone, email, letter or via social media)
• When you make a complaint against the Chief Constable, Kent Police, the PCC, or OKPCC staff
• When you submit a Freedom of Information request or Subject Access Request
• When you complete an electronic form available on our website
• When you enter into a grant bidding or commissioning process for the provision of services
• When you register to participate in events and activities
• When you voluntarily complete surveys, provide feedback on consultations or respond to other research activity
• Personal information gathered from our website, when you use or access our website. 

This Privacy Notice only applies to the OKPCC website. Our website contains links to other websites, so when you link to them you should read their own privacy policies.

The OKPCC will keep your personal information for 4 years from the date of last contact, with the following exceptions:

• Documents relating to legal proceedings, or legal matters – retained for 6 years after the last entry
• Documents relating to complaints – retained for 10 years after the last entry
• Financial documents – retained for 6 years after end of financial year to which they refer

Our Records Management Policy provides further information and can be viewed on the policies page of this website.

Should you choose not to give us your personal information, it may delay or prevent us from effectively dealing with your correspondence, enquiry or meeting our obligations. We will notify you if your choice not to give personal information to us results in a delay or prevents us from dealing with your correspondence, enquiry or meeting our obligations.

If you give us personal information about someone else, you must do so only with that person’s authorisation, which will need to be provided to us in writing. You should inform them how we collect, use, disclose, and retain their personal information according to this Privacy Notice.

Cookies are small computer files that get sent to your PC, tablet or mobile phone by websites when you visit them. They stay on your device and get sent back to the website they came from, when you visit again. Cookies store information about your visits to that website, including our website, such as your choices and other details.

Further information about cookies.

How our website uses cookies.

You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above website provides information on how to remove cookies from your browser. However, some of our website features may not function as a result.

You can ask for a copy of all the personal information we hold about you, and also for the information in a format that can be easily re-used.
 
To request this, please contact us using the details below. Further information can be found on the Subject Access Request page of our our website.

You have the right to question any personal information we hold on you that you think is wrong, out of date or incomplete. If you do, we will take reasonable steps to check its accuracy and if appropriate, correct it.

If you need to update your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the details below.

You have the right to object to our use of your personal information in certain circumstances, and to ask us to stop using your information.

You can also ask us to restrict the use of your personal information where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of the information.

If you want to object to how we use your personal information, or ask us to restrict how we use it, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the details below.

If you feel that we should no longer be using your personal information, or that we are illegally using it, you can request that we erase the information we hold on you. When we receive your request, we will confirm whether the personal information has been deleted or tell you the reason why it cannot be deleted. There may be legal reasons why we need to keep your personal information.

If you want to request that we erase your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the details below.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or our processing of information, if you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal information, or if you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact our Data Protection Officer by:

• Email: [email protected]
• Telephone:  01622 677055 (Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm)
• Post:  Data Protection Officer, Office of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, Kent Police, Sutton Road, Maidstone, Kent, ME15 9BZ

The OKPCC has procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe that we are not processing your personal information in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: 0303 123 1113.

If it is necessary, the OKPCC may share your personal information with third parties. These third parties have an obligation to put in place appropriate security measures and will be responsible to you directly for the manner in which they process and protect your personal information. They include the following:

• Kent Police
• Independent Office for Police Conduct
• Kent & Medway Police and Crime Panel
• Information Commissioner’s Office
• Victim Support
• Other commissioned victim and witness services
• Other police forces
• Other PCC offices
• Kent County Council
• Medway Council
• Local Authorities

 
We may need to share your personal information with them so that they can carry out their responsibilities to us, and to enable the OKPCC to fulfil its public duties or legal obligations. We may also consider it necessary to share your information in exceptional circumstances, such as where we have immediate concerns for your (or someone else’s) safety or welfare.
 
The OKPCC does not share your personal information with, or sell it to, organisations and companies for marketing purposes.

We will only use your personal information to send you information about the work of the PCC, our services and that of other organisations that support the OKPCC, or future events if we have your consent.
 
You can withdraw your consent or ask us to stop sending you this information at any time. If you want to do so, please contact us by:
 

• Clicking the 'unsubscribe' link on the relevant email;
• Email: [email protected]
• Telephone: 01622 67055 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm)
• Post: Data Protection Officer, Office of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, Kent Police, Sutton Road, Maidstone, Kent, ME15 9BZ.

The OKPCC does not use automated systems that have no human involvement to process any of your personal information.

Data protection law holds all countries in the EEA to the same high standards. The OKPCC does not transfer personal information outside of the EEA.

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this page. This Privacy Notice was last updated May 2018.