Polices

Website Privacy Policy

Oldham Council will use its best endeavours to safeguard the privacy of its website visitors. This policy explains the website data processing practices of Oldham Council.

What information do we collect?

In some areas, we may ask you to register your name, e-mail address and postal address. We will also collect information from you if you complete any other forms on our site or if you contact us with comments or specific requests This includes My Account.

All Local Authorities have a duty to improve the health of the population they serve. To help with this, we use data and information from a range of sources including hospitals to understand more about the nature and causes of disease and ill-health in the area.

What do we use personal information for?

If you choose to complete any of our on-line forms, Oldham Council will not use the personal information you provide us with for marketing purposes unless we clearly ask for your consent to do so. We may pass your details on to third party service providers who are contracted to Oldham Council in the course of dealing with your request. These third parties are obliged to keep your details securely and will use them only to fulfill the request and will dispose of the details when the request is complete.

You may receive occasional email messages from Oldham Council on matters that we consider may be of interest to you, if you have provided your email address to us for this purpose. You will have the opportunity to unsubscribe from the email list with each email.

Information to improve our site

We collect web statistics automatically about your visit to our site. This information is used to help us follow browsing preferences on our site so that we can regularly improve our website. These statistics do not contain personal data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Cookies

Cookies enhance your experience using our website and help to personalise the service you receive.

Oldham Council will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. We do not use cookies to access data from your hard drive, to determine your e-mail address, or to view data in cookies created by other websites. Cookies only store information that a web server places in them. They cannot look at other cookies on your hard drive nor can they look at any other information on your computer.

We do not use cookies to harvest information from your computer.

For more details please view our Cookie Policy.

e-Trust Charter

This Charter sets out the standards of service that you can expect from us in the way that we handle your personal information.

Wherever we request personal information from you, we intend to provide a privacy statement for that service which will set out clearly:

Who will see it
Why they need it
What they will do with it
When they will delete it

We will also tell you:

How we safeguard your personal information
How you check and correct the information we hold
How to pursue and query or complaint
Where to get more information

Data Protection

Any personal information that you provide to the Council is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 and we will abide by the eight principles of good practice which state that personal data must be:

Fairly and lawfully processed
Processed for limited purposes
Adequate, relevant and not excessive
Accurate
Not kept longer than necessary
Processed in accordance with your (“the data subject’s”) rights
Secure
Not transferred to countries without adequate protection

We will only use your personal information to help us to deliver the various services provided the by the Council. The only exception to this is where we may also use, monitor and record this information to aid the investigation, prevention and detection of crimes, and may in such circumstances share this information with other public agencies. This information may also be used to detect unauthorised use of services/systems.

You have a right to see any personal information that the Council holds about you.

Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you a general right of access to all types (with some exceptions) of recorded information held by Public Authorities, including Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council.

The Council has produced a Publication Scheme setting out:

The categories (or “classes”) of information that it publishes or intends to publish

The manner in which information in each class is, or is intended to be, published

Whether the material is, or is intended to be, available to the public free of charge or on payment of a fee.

More about Freedom of Information.

Contacts

If you wish to find our more about your rights to view information held by the Council, or wish to access, correct or complain about the personal information we hold about you, then please contact:

Information Manager
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
Civic Centre
West Street
Oldham, OL1 1UG
Phone: 0161 911 4827
Fax: 0161 911 3701
Email: information.manager@oldham.gov.uk

Or contact the Information Commissioner:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Phone: 01625 545700
Fax: 01625 524 510