Privacy, disclaimer and modern slavery statement
ELS is the in-house legal service of Essex County Council.
Privacy Policy
ELS are committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services.
The Privacy Notice below explains how we use information collected through your use of this website and our services about you and the ways in which we protect your privacy.
By accessing or using the website, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy.
What is Personal Data?
Personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, ID number, location data, online identifier, or one or more factors such as physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.
What Level of Personal Data is used?
Where necessary, ELS processes personal data to deliver our services effectively. Where possible, the data that we process will be anonymised or pseudonymised.
Why we use personal information?
We may need to use some information about you to:
- provide you with information and materials about our services;
- help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services; and
- check the quality of services.
Where you instruct us to provide legal advice, our accompanying Terms of Business will set out how we use that data.
How can you access the information we hold about you?
You have a right to request all the information we hold about you. When we receive a request from you in writing, we must normally give you access to everything we have recorded about you. However, there may be some circumstances where we must withhold data, e.g. when that data relates to another individual who has not consented to its disclosure.
You are entitled to access paper and electronic records. If you cannot ask for your records in writing, we will make sure there are other ways you can apply.
How to have data corrected or erased
You have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate data we hold about you.
Please complete the online form to inform us of any inaccuracies.
There may be some limited circumstances where we are required by law to retain the information, and if this is the case we will tell you this.
You also have the right to request that Essex County Council stop processing your personal data in relation to any council service. However, if this request is approved this may cause delays or prevent us delivering a service to you. Where possible we will seek to comply with your request but we may need to hold or process information in connection with one or more Essex County Council’s legal functions. In some limited circumstances we cannot cease processing your information, e.g. where it is required by law.
How do we use automated decision making or profiling?
ELS specialises in 5 sectors which include local authorities, education, health and social care, emergency services and charities. We arrange our promotion campaigns and our contact lists by these sectors.
How do we keep information secure?
We take appropriate steps to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we will only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Our security includes:
- Encryption
- Pseudonymisation
- Access controls on systems
- Training for our staff
- Security training for all staff
You can find more details of our Information Security within our general description of security measures.
How long do we keep your personal information?
Please see our retention schedule which explains the retention period for all information held by ELS and Essex County Council.
Please see the retention schedule
Where you instruct us to provide legal advice, our accompanying Terms of Business will set out our retention policy.
How do we use promotional E-mails?
ELS uses a system called e-shot to deliver all promotional e-mails, legal updates, events and training. At the bottom of the e-mail recipients can change their personal setting or opt to withdraw from future communications.
Who will we share your personal information with?
We use a number of commercial companies and partners to either store personal information or to manage it on our behalf. Where we have these arrangements there is always a contract, memorandum of understanding or information sharing protocol in place to ensure that the organisation complies with data protection law.
Arrangements involving sensitive personal data will have been formally assessed in more detail for their compliance with the law.
Sometimes we have a legal duty to give information about people. This is often because we must give that information to courts, including:
- when we take a child into care;
- court orders; and
- cases under mental health law.
We may also share your personal information when we feel there is a good reason that is more important than protecting your confidentiality. This does not happen often, but we may share your information:
- for the detection and prevention of crime/fraudulent activity; or
- if there are serious risks to the public, our staff or to other professionals;
- to protect a child; or
- to protect adults who are thought to be at risk, for example if they are frail, confused or cannot understand what is happening to them.
In some cases, the law allow us to share your information without your permission if we believe that someone is at risk.
What do we collect?
Website enquiries, Information collected:
- Name
- Contact details
Purpose for processing:
- Service delivery
- Service planning/improvement
- Prevention and detection of crime/fraud
- Provision of legal updates
This information is collected to allow us to respond to your queries and will not be shared with other parties unless we have a legal obligation or your consent to do so.
Email subscription, Information collected:
- Email address
Purpose for processing:
- Service delivery
- Service planning/improvement, prevention and detection of crime/fraud
- Provision of legal updates
This information is collected so that we can keep you up to date with ELS news. Our email subscription is handled by GovDelivery and will not be shared with other parties unless we have a legal obligation to do so.
What are cookies?
This website uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that can be used by websites to make a user's experience more efficient.We use cookies to personalise content, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services.
The law states that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site. For all other types of cookies we need your permission. This site uses different types of cookies. Some cookies are placed by third party services that appear on our pages. We use Cookiebot to enable you to deny consent to non-essential cookies on our website. You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.
Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.
Preference cookies enable a website to remember information that changes the way the website behaves or looks, like your preferred language or the region that you are in.
Statistic cookies help website owners to understand how visitors interact with websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.
Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites. The intention is to display ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user and thereby more valuable for publishers and third party advertisers.
Unclassified cookies are cookies that we are in the process of classifying, together with the providers of individual cookies.
Learn more about who we are, how you can contact us and how we process personal data in our Privacy Policy. Please state your consent ID and date when you contact us regarding your consent.
How to register concerns?
If you have concerns over the way we are asking for or using your personal data, please raise the matter with our Data Protection Officer by the following means:
Paul Turner,
Data Protection Officer,
Information Governance Team,
Essex County Council,
County Hall, Market Road,
Chelmsford,
Essex,
CM11QH
0333 013 9824
If you still have concerns following our response you have the right to raise the matter with the Information Commissioner's Office:
Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF
Online Form: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/handling/
T: 0303 123 1113
Our use of your data will be subject to the following legal rights:
- Your Right to be Informed
- Your Right to Access your personal data
- Your Right for us to Rectify your personal data
- Your Right to Restrict our processing of your personal data
Link to other websites
We use videos from YouTube and link to other websites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. These third party websites place cookies on your device when watching or viewing these pages.
Below are links to their cookie policies:
Maps
Google maps can be found at the bottom of all pages of this site showing the location of our offices. You will also find a link to Chelmsford City Council website Car Parks map.
3rd party softwhere
We may also use Data Processors to support these activities, for example by providing the systems we need or delivering services on our behalf. These include:
Visual Files (LexisNexis) provide our case management system supporting our legal services
DictateNow also supports our legal services
Essex County Council Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
Click here for the Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
Disclaimer
It is not possible to guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information on the ELS website. The information on the website is of general interest about current legal issues and is not intended to apply to specific circumstances. It should not, therefore, be regarded as constituting legal advice. We accept no liability for any information or any loss or damage arising from the use of, or reliance on, information obtained from this website. The ELS website links you to the Essex County Council website and ELS is not responsible for the content or availability of this site.
Changes to this privacy notice
We review our privacy notice regularly. Last review: December 2021
