Online and offline research and your privacy
We are committed to protecting your personal information and respecting your privacy. Personal information is defined as any details that will enable you to be identified, such as ID numbers, telephone numbers, address, email address etc.
When designing and executing our research, it is our policy to take all necessary steps to ensure that the personal information you provide is processed fairly and lawfully.
Only authorised Flintshire County Council employees have access to personal information and they are obliged to respect its confidentiality. We do not sell, rent or exchange any personal information supplied by you to any third party. Nor do we use any of the information you provide for direct marketing or other non-research activities.
What we do with the information we gather from survey responses
All of the information that you provide will be treated as confidential and will only be used for research purposes. Your comments will not be publicly identified as belonging to you, instead they will be combined with those gathered from other survey participants, and will be analysed as part of a group. The information you provide will be kept for the time period specified in the consultation documentation.
If we ask you for personal information that enables you to be identified - e.g. your name, ID numbers, e-mail address or telephone number, we will clearly state in the consultation documentation how we will handle your data.
You have individual rights under Data Protection legislation, to find out more about your rights and how to exercise them please click here.
Online research – e.g. website, social media, email
Where data is collected on externally hosted servers (for example SmartSurvey), on conclusion of the survey the data collected will be downloaded and stored on Flintshire County Council IT systems, hosted on servers within Council owned data centres located in Flintshire, and the data collected in the externally hosted research system will be deleted. For the duration of the research, whilst data is being collected by SmartSurvey it is held in their data centres and is subject to their privacy policy.
Offline research – e.g. paper surveys, focus groups, public meetings,
Data collected via handwritten questionnaires will be submitted to the Council in the way identified in the consultation documentation.
Where handwritten questionnaires are completed for submission in conjunction with online research, upon receipt at the location specified in the consultation documentation, data will be inputted into data collection software (for example SmartSurvey) and will be held as explained in the ‘Online Research’ section above.
Where identifying data is gathered a result of face to face engagement events, e.g. focus groups, public meetings, etc. it will be processed in the way specified at the event.
All identifying data whether collected by handwritten questionnaires, or through face to face engagement events, will be stored securely either in Flintshire County Council owned premises or in third party premises (in the UK) where the Council has entered into a secure archiving agreement.
Contacting us
In circumstances where you feel we have not handled your data correctly you have the right to complain. For information about how to complain please click here.