Family and Community Support Service Privacy Policy

Introduction

The Family and Community Support Service is part of the Department of Children, Young People, Education and Skills (CYPES). We run the Children and Families Hub, provide parenting programmes and early help support for families and administer targeted short break provision for children with disabilities.  

The Service is registered as a 'Controller' under the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 (registered number 17907 under the Education Department) as we collect and process personal information about you. We process and hold your information in order to provide public services and meet our statutory obligations. This notice explains how we use and share your information. Information may be collected on a paper or online form, by telephone, by email, by a member of our staff, or by a practitioner from another agency who is working with you.

We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our services and feedback from service users, as well as to comply with changes in the law.

Information we collect about you

If you are requesting or accessing a service or somebody raises a safeguarding concern about your child(ren), we may collect the following types of information about you, your child and other family members which includes special category data:

• name
• address
• telephone number
• email address
• date of birth
• gender
• ethnicity
• religion
• any medical diagnoses of your child(ren)
• any disability /long term condition of your child(ren)
• residential status
• communication needs
• agencies currently supporting you
• the support needs identified for your child(ren) and family
• records of assessments and intervention we undertake with you, your child(ren) and family
  

If you are reporting a safeguarding concern about a child, we collect the following types of information about you:

• name
• telephone number
• email address
  

Why we collect information about you

We need to collect, hold and process information about you, in order to:

• communicate with you
• verify you are who you say you are
• respond effectively to your enquiries
• provide you with the information you need
• handle your request for service
• signpost you to other services
• investigate your complaint
• meet our statutory obligations
• fulfil a service request and monitor and improve our performance in responding to your service request
• prevent and detect crime
• promote the wellbeing of your child(ren)
• manage safeguarding and public protection concerns and protect individuals from harm or injury when necessary
• allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the provision of services
  

How we use information about you

We will use the information you provide in a manner that conforms to the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

We will endeavour to keep your information accurate and up to date and not keep it for longer than is necessary. In some instances, the law sets the length of time information has to be kept. Please ask to see our retention schedules for more detail about how long we retain your information. 

We may not be able to provide you with a service unless we have enough information or your permission to use that information.

We will not pass any personal data on to anyone outside of the Government of Jersey, other than those who either process information on our behalf, or because of a legal requirement, and we will only do so, where possible, after we have ensured that sufficient steps have been taken by the recipient to protect your personal data.

We will not disclose any information that you provide 'in confidence', to anyone else without your permission, except in the few situations where disclosure is required by law, or where we have good reason to believe that failing to share the information would put someone else at risk. You will be told about this unless there are exceptional reasons not to do so. 

We do not process your information overseas using web services that are hosted outside the European Economic Area.

Data sharing

The Family and Community Support Service is registered as a 'Controller' under the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 as we collect and process personal information about you. We process and hold your information in order to provide public services and meet our statutory obligations.

We share data with the following organisations:

We may disclose information to other departments where it is necessary, either to comply with a legal obligation, or where permitted, under other legislation. Examples of this include, but are not limited to:

• where the disclosure is necessary for the purposes of the prevention and/or detection of crime
• for the purposes of meeting statutory obligations
• or to prevent risk of harm to an individual, etc.
  

We continually review and update our sharing agreements to reflect changes in our services and feedback from service users, as well as to comply with changes in the law.

At no time will your information be passed to organisations for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consent.

Publication of your information

We may need to publish your information on gov.je and/or in the Jersey Gazette for the following reasons:

• where we are required to provide statistical information about a group of people, although your data will be anonymised to protect your identity
• where you have responded to a public consultation, although your comments will be anonymised to protect your identity

We will not publish any of your sensitive personal information unless there is a requirement for us to do so in order to carry out our statutory functions.

Emails

If you email us, we may keep a record of your email address and a copy of the email for record keeping purposes.

For security reasons we will not include any confidential information about you in any email we send to you. We would also suggest that you keep the amount of confidential information you send to us via email to a minimum or use our secure online services where possible or correspond with us by post.

We will not share your email address, or your email contents unless is it necessary for us to do so; either to fulfil your request for a service, to comply with a legal obligation, or where permitted, under other legislation.

Telephone calls

We do not record or monitor any telephone calls you make to us using recording equipment, although if you leave a message on our voicemail systems your message will be kept until we are able to return your call or make a note of your message. File notes of when and why you called may be taken for record keeping purposes. We will not pass on the content of your telephone calls, unless is it necessary for us to do so either to fulfil your request for a service, to comply with a legal obligation, or where permitted, under other legislation.

Your rights

You can ask us to stop processing your information

You have the right to request that we stop processing your personal data in relation to any of our services. However, this may cause delays or prevent us delivering a service to you. Where possible we will seek to comply with your request but we may be required to hold or process information to comply with a legal requirement.

You can withdraw your consent to the processing of your information

Where you have been asked to give your consent to process your information, you have the right to withdraw your consent to the further processing of your personal data.  However, this may cause delays or prevent us delivering a service to you. We will always seek to comply with your request but we may be required to hold or process your information in order to comply with a legal requirement.

You can ask us to correct or amend your information

You have the right to challenge the accuracy of the information we hold about you and request that it is corrected where necessary. We will seek to ensure that corrections are made not only to the data that we hold but also any data held by other organisations/parties that process data on our behalf.

You can request that the processing of your personal data is restricted

You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information. You can exercise this right in instances where you believe the information being processed is inaccurate, out of date, or there are no legitimate grounds for the processing. We will always seek to comply with your request but we may be required to continue to process your information in order to comply with a legal requirement.

You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you

You are legally entitled to request a list of, or a copy of any information that we hold about you. However, where our records are not held in a way that easily identifies you, we may not be able to provide you with a copy of your information, although we will do everything we can to comply with your request.

Complaints

If you have an enquiry or concern regarding the how the Government of Jersey processes your personal data you can contact the Central Data Protection Unit.

You can also complain to the Jersey Office of the Information Commissioner about the way your information is being used.