Harrogate Borough Council
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Data Protection
Under the Data Protection Act, the Council has
a legal duty to protect any information collected from you.
Information can be held in manual files or on computer and it is
used to deliver Council services. Only the minimum appropriate
personal data is requested and held, and it is only kept as long as
required for the purpose. We will not pass personal information to
other companies or individuals unless we are required to so by law.
The Council has approved a Data Protection Policy, which defines
this duty in more detail.
You can request information on data held about
yourself or in certain circumstances, on behalf of a third party.
There is a £10 fee payable for data access requests. If you
wish to find out what is held about you please complete a Data
Subject Access Request Form.
Data Protection Register
We are required by The Data Protection Act 1998
to notify the Information Commissioner of what we are doing with
personal data. The Council has registered the data we process with
the Information Commissioner.
The Data Protection register shows what an
organisation or individual is registered to do. It will not state
whether or not an organisation holds personal information on a
particular person.
The Council has two entries in the
Register:
- Registration Number: Z6341522
Data Controller: HARROGATE BOROUGH COUNCIL
- Registration Number: Z5725050
Data Controller: THE ELECTORAL REGISTRATION OFFICE- HARROGATE BOROUGH COUNCIL
If you would like a copy of the register please
contact the Information Commissioner.
You can obtain paper copies of individual
register entries from the Office of the Information Commissioner
free of charge. A small fee is payable for certified copies.
Fair Processing Notice (Level 2) in connection with the Prevention and Detection of Fraud
This Council is required by law to protect the public funds it
administers. It may share information provided
to it with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering
public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.
The Audit Commission appoints the auditor to audit the
accounts of this Council. It is also responsible
for carrying out data matching exercises.
Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one
body against other computer records held by the same or another
body. This is usually personal information.
Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent claims and
payments to be identified. Where a match is
found it indicates that there is an inconsistency which requires
further investigation. No assumption can be made
as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an
investigation is carried out.
The Audit Commission currently requires us to participate in a
data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of
fraud. We are required to provide particular
sets of data to the Audit Commission for matching for each
exercise, and these are set out in the Audit Commission's
handbooks, which can be found at www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi.
The use of data by the Audit Commission in a data matching
exercise is carried out with statutory authority under its powers
in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998. It
does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the
Data Protection Act 1998.
Data matching by the Audit Commission is subject to a Code of
Practice. This may be found at (
www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi/codeofdmp.asp)
For further information on the Audit Commission's legal powers
and the reasons why it matches particular information, see the
Level 3 Notice on the Audit Commission website (http://audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi/fptext.asp)
or contact data.matching@harrogate.gov.uk