Electoral Services privacy notice

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

Information collected from electors, overseas electors candidates and staff

Electors

• Title
• Name
• Current address
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Date of birth
• National insurance number

Overseas Electors 

• Applicant’s full name, and any previous names.  
• Date of Birth 
• Applicant’s current (overseas) address  
• Applicant’s previous address  
• National Insurance number 
• Nationality  
• Passport number 
• Phone Number (optional)  
• Email address (optional)  
• The applicant’s reference. 

Candidates

• Title
• Name including commonly used names where applicable
• Current address
• Date of birth
• Political Party where applicable
• Subscribers
• Agent's details
• Email address
• Telephone number

Staff

• Name
• Signature
• Current address
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Nationality
• Email address
• Telephone number
• National Insurance Number
• Tax Rate
• Evidence such as passport number, birth certificate, and resident permit
• Vehicle Owner
• Disability
• History of jobs performed within Elections
• Bank details; account name, number, sort code
• Employee statement; first job since last 6 April, only job since last 6 April or new job or receive pension
• Have a student loan and making repayments

Agencies we might share your information with

Electors & Overseas Electors

If you opted-out of the open register we will only use the information you give us for electoral purposes, including matching it against other sources of data to support the electoral register. We will not give personal information to anyone else unless we are obliged to by law. The law requires us to share your information with candidates, political parties and campaigners for democratic engagement purposes and credit reference agencies to check your identity when you apply for credit.

If you have not opted-out of the open register, your name and address can be bought by anyone and used for various purposes, including direct marketing.

Candidates

• Other candidates
• Agents
• Media
• Parish Clerk
• Colchester City Council
• Democratic Services
• Electoral Commission

Staff

• Payroll company

The purpose and lawful basis for processing

The lawful basis for the processing of your personal data is public task. We have a statutory duty to hold and maintain personal data and for Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to process for the performance of a public task as provided for in electoral law. This is in accordance with regulations outlined in the Representation of the People Regulations 2001 (England and Wales) and the Parliamentary Election Rules under the Representation of the People Act 1983. The ERO is the controller of your personal data. Your information is stored securely in eXpress Management, our preferred IT Elections software management system.

Length of time we keep your information

Colchester holds a Data Retention Policy to ensure data is processed and held, outlined in legislation, for no longer than necessary for that purpose. Where data will be processed for archiving purposes in public interest, or for scientific, historical or statistical purposes this will be stored for longer periods of time.

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.

Your information may be held outside of the UK. Where this is the case, we ensure that additional measures are in place to protect your data and to ensure that we continue to comply with data protection requirements.

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 on this notice. We encourage you to periodically review this notice and to be informed of how we are protecting your information.