Everything we do with information about people, including how we collect it and who we share it with, has to comply with the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into force in May 2018. A key part of this is being open about how we use information and what rights you have in respect of information we hold about you.

This privacy notice sets out the information for the Council’s Highways services.

If anything in this notice is not clear, or if you have further queries, please get in contact with the Council’s Data Protection Officer or call 01908 254767.

What information do we hold?

We collect information about people who contact the council to report a highway maintenance issue, apply for a highway licence or permit, purchase a highways service, become involved in highways projects or programmes, enter into legal agreements, request information or comment on highways in general or as part of a consultation. The information we collect varies according to the purpose.

The information we hold may include:

• your name
• your address
• your telephone number(s)
• your email address

Note: all payment details e.g. card numbers, are held securely and encrypted in the council’s financial systems.

Why do we have it and what do we use it for?

Much of what we do in highways is governed by government legislation which requires us to provide various services across the adopted highway in Milton Keynes.  If you access a council service that the law requires us to provide, such as:

• Local Government Act 2000
• Highways Act (HA)1980
• New Roads and Streetworks Act (NRSWA) 1991
• Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984
• Town Police Clauses Act 1847
• Health And Safety at Work Act 1974 (HASAWA)
• Equality Act 2010
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990
• Freedom of information (FOI) act 2000
• Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) 2004

We will use this as our legal basis for collecting and using your personal data, without it we can’t provide the service to you.

The information we collect and store is also used to provide an auditable record of service delivery, which helps us to manage risk and means we can contact you if you have reported an issue to us in case we need further information or to provide an update.

When we collect information, we will only ask for the details that might be needed and we ensure that it is used, and stored, safely and securely. We require anyone we share information with, or who uses it on our behalf, to do so too. All our staff have received training on data protection and information security.

Who we share information with and why

So we can deliver a range of highway services and projects and fulfil our statutory and non-statutory duties as the Highway Authority for Milton Keynes, we may need to share information with other departments in the council such as Environment or Housing. This may also include our contractors or agents and with elected councillors and parish councils.

When we publish information publicly we follow procedures that we have in place to remove all personal data associated with the record.

How long we hold information for

We only keep information for as long as it is needed. This will be based on either a legal requirement (where a law says we have to keep information for a specific period of time) or accepted business practice. This is set out in our retention schedule.

What rights you have

You have various rights around the data we hold about you:

• right of access (to receive a copy of your personal data)
• right to rectification (to request data is corrected where it is inaccurate)
• right to erasure (to request that data is deleted)
• right to restrict processing (to request we don’t use your data in a certain way)
• right to data portability (in some cases, you can ask to receive a copy of your data in a commonly-used electronic format so that it can be given to someone else)
• right to object (generally to make a complaint about any aspect of our use of your data)
• right to have explained if there will be any automated decision-making, including profiling, based on your data and for the logic behind this to be explained to you.

Any such request can be submitted to the council's Data Protection Officer. Whether we can agree to your request will depend on the specific circumstances and if we cannot then we will explain the reasons why.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of how your information has been collected or used, you can make a complaint to the Council's Data Protection Officer. You can also report concerns to the national regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office.