Privacy Policy
At Citizens Advice 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.
We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.
When we record and use your personal information we:
● only access it when we have a good reason
● only share what is necessary and relevant
● don’t sell it to anyone
We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation. We'll always explain how we use your information.
At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:
● to comply with the law - for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’
● to protect someone’s life - for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’
● to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity - for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’
● for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest - for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’
● to carry out a contract we have with you - for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’
● to defend our legal rights - for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice
We handle and store your personal information in line with the law - including the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.
You can check our main Citizens Advice policy for how we handle most of your personal information.
This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.
How Citizens Advice Merton & Lambeth collect your data
Whilst most information we collect from clients will be entered onto our national database (see above link for more information) there are times we will collect data in other ways. This includes:
- We collect information by emails – through our online query form and by direct email
- Whilst we scan the majority of client paperwork into our database, there will be times paper copies are collected
Staff/volunteers information will also be collected via email, in person and by paper copies.
We use legitimate consent to collect this information.
What Citizens Advice Merton & Lambeth ask for
To find out what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy
How Citizens Advice Merton & Lambeth use your information
To find out how we use your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy
Working on your behalf
When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, we’ll need to share information with that third party.
Some third parties we commonly share information with are:
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
Local Authorities
Landlords
How Citizens Advice Merton & Lambeth store your information
Most client information is stored on Casebook, the national database provided by national Citizens Advice. On occasion we will also store paper records in secure locked cabinets or locked rooms when not in use. All other information is secured on our hosted cloud servers - this service is provided by 1st IT. More information on 1st IT can be found here https://1st-it.com/
How Citizens Advice Merton & Lambeth share your information
We regularly provide anonymous data to our commissioners and funders but we will only provide information that identifies you with your consent. See our confidentiality Policy for more information.
Contact Citizens Advice Merton & Lambeth about your information
If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.
Merton Adviceline - Telephone: 0808 278 7831 (open Monday to Friday 10am-4pm)
Lambeth Adviceline - Telephone: 0800 254 0298,, open Monday to Friday 10am-4pm
Email: informationsupport@caml.org.uk
You can contact us to:
● find out what personal information we hold about you
● correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete
● request we delete your information
● ask us to limit what we do with your data - for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already
● ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service
● ask us stop using your information
Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information
The national Citizens Advice charity and your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system.
Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.
You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.