When deciding what personal information to collect, use and hold, we are committed to making sure that we will:

• only collect, hold and use personal information where it is necessary and fair to do so
• keep your personal information secure and safe
• securely dispose of any personal information when it is no longer needed
• be open with you about how we use your information and who we share it with; and
• adopt and maintain high standards in handling any personal information

We may hold the following types of information about you:

• details about you including full name, date of birth, and contact details (for example 
• phone number, address, and email address)
• details about any contact with you
• information relevant to the delivery of the Coroner Service 

We will use your personal information for a limited number of purposes and always in line with our responsibilities, where there is a legal basis, and in line with your rights under the GDPR. 

In general, we process your information in order to:

• contact and communicate with you
• meet various legal requirements and statutory obligations, specifically the Coroners and Justice Act 2009
• where it is permitted under the GDPR (for example to comply with legal obligations or for us to seek legal advice or undertake legal proceedings)

We may not be able to provide you with the service if we do not have enough information and, in some instances, your consent to use that information.

We aim to keep your information accurate and up to date. You can help us to do this at any time by letting us know if any of the information you have given us changes, such as your address. Visit our Contact Us page for more details.

We may process your information overseas using ICT systems and services that are hosted outside the European Economic Area, but only with data processing agreements that meet our obligations under the GDPR.

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:

• you, or your legal representative, have given consent
• it is necessary to perform our statutory duties or in the exercise of our official authority
• it is required by law
• it is necessary for a task in the public interest

Where we process information that is considered to be more sensitive and requires more protection, we also meet one of the special category personal data conditions: 

• you, or your legal representative, have given consent
• you have made your information publicly available
• it is necessary for legal cases
• it is necessary to protect public health
• it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes

If we have your consent to use your personal information, you have the right to remove it at any time. If you want to withdraw your consent, please contact the Senior Coroner

coroner@worcestershire.gov.uk so we can deal with your request.

Face to face

We may keep a record of your visit to us to assist us in the delivery of the services that we provide to you. Any such records that include personal information will be kept securely.

Emails

If you email us, we may keep a record of your contact, your email address and the email for our record keeping of the transaction. For security reasons we will not include any 

confidential information about you in any email we send to you unless you agree to this. 

We suggest that you keep the amount of confidential information you send to us via email to a minimum and use email encryption or if possible, our secure online forms and services.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by some websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or to make them work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. You can reject the use of cookies, but you may be asked for information again, e.g. to participate in a survey. Further information including how to block cookies, is available at cookies

Other websites

This privacy notice applies only to Worcestershire Coroner Service websites maintained by us. On our website you will find links to other external websites which we have provided for your information and convenience. We are not responsible for the content of these external websites and recommend that when you visit other websites you take time to read their privacy notices

We will not keep your information longer than it is needed. In some instances, the law sets the length of time information has to be kept. We may keep your data longer if we need to retain it for legal, regulatory, or evidential or best practice reasons.

We will dispose of all records in a secure way, whether they are on paper or electronic. Our records are kept in perpetuity and are sent to the Archives Service after 15 years in our own records storage.

We may disclose personal information to a third party, but only where it is required by law, where it is otherwise allowed under the GDPR, or where we have obtained your consent to do so. 

We may disclose information when necessary to prevent risk of harm to an individual.

Your personal information may be shared with external partners and agencies involved in providing services for us. 

The Council may also provide personal information to third parties, but only where it is necessary, either to comply with the law or where permitted under the GDPR. In some of these arrangements, we may become joint controllers with the other organisation(s). Examples of third parties who we may share your information with include (but are not limited to):

• health organisations
• interested persons as laid out in the Coroners and Justice Act 2008
• police
• local authorities
• regulatory bodies such as the Care Quality Commission

The Council will seek to ensure that the third party has sufficient systems and procedures in place to prevent the loss or misuse of personal information. 

If your personal information is transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA) for 

processing or storage purposes the Senior Coroner will ensure that safeguards are in place to protect it to at least the standard applied within the EEA.

At no time will your information be passed to organisations external to Worcestershire Coroner Service for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consent.

Our aim is not to be intrusive, and we won't ask irrelevant or unnecessary questions. 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 provide training to staff who handle personal information and treat it as a disciplinary matter if they misuse or do not look after your personal information properly. 

We will investigate data incidents where we have found that your personal information may have, or has been, disclosed inappropriately and attempt to recover any data. We will report incidents to the ICO that pose a risk to your rights and freedoms if these risks are high, we will also inform you unless it would present a risk to you.

There is CCTV installed on the outside of our building and in the carparks for the purposes of monitoring building security and crime prevention and detection.

Images captured by CCTV will not be kept for longer than necessary. However, on occasions there may be a need to keep images for a longer period, for example where a crime is being investigated.

CCTV images will only be disclosed to third parties for the purposes stated above. CCTV images will not be released to the media, used for entertainment purposes or placed on the internet.

You have the right to see CCTV images of yourself and be provided with a copy

Under GDPR you can request the Service takes action to fulfil your rights. We will seek to comply with your request wherever possible. However, action may be restricted or refused in certain circumstances, for example where we are required to hold, retain, or process personal data to comply with a legal obligation or as a public task and the Service may not be able to comply with some requests received.

You have the right to:

• be informed about what we do with your data
• access to the information we hold about you
• request rectification of any information about you that is incorrect.
  
  Simple inaccuracies, such as address changes will be made, however, depending on the purpose for processing, some records, including statements and opinions may not be changed, but there will be the option for you to provide a supplementary statement which will be added to the file
• request records we hold about you are erased or "forgotten"
• restrict processing of your personal information if you have an objection to that processing, 
• whilst your objection is investigated
• request any information that you have provided to us is given back to you in a format that you can give to another service provider if required - "data portability"
• object to processing of your personal information
• safeguards in relation to automated decision making and profiling