Why do we collect and keep your personal information?

Personal information is collected and used by Pembrokeshire Care Society (PCS) as we receive public funding from Welsh Government, Pembrokeshire County Council and other funding bodies. We have contractual agreements with these funders to provide and evidence our services. Additionally, our Quality Standard accreditation (AQS) and Insurance Cover is reliant on the quality and accuracy of our advice, support and other services, which can only be achieved by collating and assessing personal data.

Data processing

1. PCS is able to process your data when you approach our organisation for assistance, as consent is given through the signing of our confidentiality policy and a copy of this Fair Processing information is received.

2. The processing of your data is necessary to fulfil our public funded information sharing protocols and obligations, to provide contractual statistical and financial information.

3. Your data is necessary for the performance of our tasks, which aim to provide you with the most comprehensive assistance you require with your housing, debt and welfare benefit services.

4. PCS has a necessary legitimate interest in processing your data for wider social benefits, as well as staff and community safety, protection of other public funding and the protection of vulnerable client groups.

How your information is used

The information that you provide will be processed according to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018 and shall act in accordance with the requirements set out in the following list of non-exclusive legislation and Guidance:

  • Data Protection Act 2018
  • The Housing (Wales) Act 2014
  • Housing Act 1985
  • Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2015
  • Social Services and Well-being Act 2014
  • Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015
  • Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015
  • Welfare Reform Act 2012
  • Employment Legislation 2008
  • Health and Safety At Work Act 1974
  • Welsh Quality Housing standards
  • Rent Smart Wales Guidance
  • Advice Quality Standard

As PCS has a duty to protect the public funds we administer, we may need to use the information provided by you, however any information shared with our funders would be in accordance with GDPR principles.

Such data may include:

  • Your Initial or updated contact forms, referral forms to and from other agencies, internal and external risk assessments, advice/support planning and outcome forms
  • Data matching with Pembrokeshire County Council for the sourcing off suitable accommodation, obtaining financial aid on your behalf, reducing duplication of work, statistical reporting for further research into housing, debt and welfare benefits and the reporting on external systems as contractually agreed by our funders
  • Any disclosures required by law. We may also share this information with other bodies responsible for detecting/preventing fraud and the protection of children and vulnerable adults
  • We may also be required to share your information with auditors of our funding to ensure money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way.

Information may also be shared with third parties in yours or the wider community’s best interests. This would not include disclosures made to third parties for marketing purposes.

PCS assures that our only marketing roles are to advertise Pathway Lettings to clients for suitable properties to let, as well as to raise awareness of our advice and support services to those who may be homelessness or are threatened with homelessness. In these instance’s no personal data is used.

PCS will only collect the personal information that is required to assess your eligibility to access our services and to provide a fully comprehensive and appropriate service. This data will always be stored securely and remain confidential.

Your rights

Since the establishment of GDPR, you have rights as an individual, which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you, these include:

  • The right of access – you are entitled to request access to and a copy of, information we hold about you
  • The right to rectification – you have the right to ask to have your information corrected.
  • The right to restrict processing may apply – you may request that we stop processing your personal data, however this may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you. We will seek to comply with your request, but may be required to hold or process information to comply with our legal duties.
  • The right to object – this is not an absolute right and will depend on the reason for processing your personal information

How long we keep your information for

In accordance with GDPR principles, PCS ensures that all client files are retained through archiving for the required statutory retention periods only and will be securely disposed once it is no longer required.

Access to your personal information

A GDPR subject access request can be made to PCS by applying in writing, by post or in electronic form to:

Data Protection Officer
Pembrokeshire Care Society
7 Picton Place
Haverfordwest
Pembrokeshire
SA61 2LE

Email: pcs@pembrokeshirecaresociety.org.uk

Complaints or queries

PCS endeavours to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive seriously and encourage people to bring to our attention any concerns they may have on how we collect or use information which they believe is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. 

This privacy notice does not provide exhaustive details of all aspects of our collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed.

If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office(ICO) as the Statutory Body which oversees data protection law. Their details are as follows:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF
Email caseworker@ico.org.uk
Telephone No: 0303 123 1113

Our website

The privacy of our website visitors is very important to us, and we are committed to safeguarding it. This below explains what we will do with your personal information.

Consenting to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy when you first visit our website permits us to use cookies every time you visit our website.

The following types of personal information may be collected, stored, and used:

  • Information about your computer including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, and operating system;
  • Information about your visits to and use of this website including the referral source, length of visit, page views, and website navigation paths;
  • Information, such as your name and email address, that you enter in order to set up subscriptions to our emails and/or newsletters;
  • Information that you enter while using the services on our website, in conjunction with the policy as described at the top of this page;
  • Information that is generated while using our website, including when, how often, and under what circumstances you use it;
Cookies

We use cookies to help us provide you with a personalised service, and to help make our websites, applications and services better for you.

Our cookies may be session cookies (temporary cookies that identify and track users within our websites, applications or services  which are deleted when you close your browser or leave your session in the application or service) or persistent cookies (cookies which enable our websites, applications or services  to “remember” who you are and to remember your preferences within our websites, applications or services  and which will stay on your computer or device after you close your browser or leave your session in the application or service).

We use the following different types of cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies 

These are cookies which are needed for our websites, applications or services to function properly, for example, these cookies allow you to access secure areas of our website or to remember what you have put into your shopping basket.

Performance cookies and analytics technologies

These cookies collect information about how visitors and users use our websites, applications and services, for instance which functionality visitors use most often, and if they get error messages from areas of the websites, applications or services. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor or user. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. We only use these cookies to improve how our website, applications and services work.

Functionality cookies

These cookies allow our websites, applications and services to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Targeting or advertising cookies

These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operators’ permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.

Web beacons and parameter tracking 

We also use cookies and similar software known as web beacons to count users who have visited our website after clicking through from one of our advertisements on another website or in emails and to collect details of any products or services purchased. These web beacons collect limited information which does not identify particular individuals. It is not possible to refuse the use of web beacons. However, because they are used in conjunction with cookies, you can effectively disable them by setting your browser to restrict or block cookies. 

IP Address and traffic data

We keep a record of traffic data which is logged automatically by our servers, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, device information, the website that you visited before ours and the website you visit after leaving our site. We also collect some site, application and service statistics such as access rates, page hits and page views. We are not able to identify any individual from traffic data or site statistics. 

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies—for example:

in Internet Explorer (version 10) you can block cookies using the cookie handling override settings available by clicking “Tools,” “Internet Options,” “Privacy,” and then “Advanced”;

in Firefox (version 24) you can block all cookies by clicking “Tools,” “Options,” “Privacy,” selecting “Use custom settings for history” from the drop-down menu, and unticking “Accept cookies from sites”; and

in Chrome (version 29), you can block all cookies by accessing the “Customize and control” menu, and clicking “Settings,” “Show advanced settings,” and “Content settings,” and then selecting “Block sites from setting any data” under the “Cookies” heading.

Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites. If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.

All of our analytics is conducted through ‘Google Analytics’. Find Google’s privacy policy here – https://policies.google.com/privacy

Changes to this policy

PCS endeavours to keep our privacy notice under regular review.