Cemetery and Crematorium privacy notice

This Privacy Notice should be read in conjunction with Colchester City Council’s Privacy Policy.

Information collected

Of the relative of the deceased who is applying for a cremation or burial.

• Full name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Email address

Of relatives or friends purchasing a memorial, or making application for a headstone to be erected.

• Full name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Email address

Of relatives or other professionals referring the deceased to the local authority for a public health funeral.

• Full name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Email address of relatives or friends of the deceased
• Information leading to the identification and contact details of the next of kin of the deceased if not known

Agencies we might share your information with

• Doctor’s surgeries
• Funeral Directors
• Clergy or civil celebrants who may conduct funerals and other services
• Search Agencies (Title Research, The Kings Court Trust, Finders, etc). If we don’t have sufficient details to allow us to make contact with a next of kin we may need to supply information to an agency whose job it is to trace people 
• Police 
• Births, deaths and registers 

Sometimes we share information with Council Housing Officers and officers holding the Electoral Roll.

The purpose and lawful basis for processing

The lawful basis for the processing of your personal data is legal obligation. The Council requires the above information in order to provide the cremation and burial service. It does this under various laws including:

• The Cremation Acts
• The Cremation Regulations
• The Burial Acts
• The Local Authorities’ Cemeteries Order 1977
• The Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984

We only request the minimum amount of information and ensure that is it stored securely in our computer system, Epilog.

Length of time we keep your information

The cremation and burial forms are statutory. Some of the information in these documents’ forms part of the official registers.

For burials the information is kept indefinitely. 

For cremations the information is held for 15 years.  

Some of the information relates to memorials you might have leased from us and in connection with which we may need to contact you in future.

How we protect and store your personal data

We take the confidentiality of personal information very seriously and use recognised security and access controls to protect your information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or corruption. We have procedures and processes in place to ensure that your personal information is managed appropriately.

​​​​​​Updates to this privacy notice

We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our processes and procedures, as well as to comply with changes in the law. When such changes occur, we will revise the "last updated" date at the bottom of this notice. We encourage you to periodically review this notice and to be informed of how we protecting your information.