Privacy policy

At Citizens Advice we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information we:

only access it when we have a good reason

only share what is necessary and relevant

don’t sell it to commercial organisations

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

to comply with the law - for example, if a court orders us to share information (this is called ‘legal obligation’)

to protect someone’s life - for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office (this is called ‘vital interests’)

to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity - for example, to create statistics for our national research (this is called ‘legitimate interests’)

for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest - for example, delivering a government or local authority service (this is called ‘public task’)

to carry out a contract we have with you - for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you (this is called ‘contract’)

to defend our legal rights - for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law - including the General Data Protection Regulation.

You can check our main Citizens Advice privacy policy for how we handle most of your personal information.

This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.

How Citizens Advice Chapeltown collect your data

We'll get your permission by asking you to either:

sign a paper consent form
tick a box online
give agreement over the phone - if you call our Adviceline, Consumer Service, Debt Advice Project or Extra Help Unit

Before we ask for your permission, we'll always explain how we use your information.

What Citizens Advice Chapeltown ask for

We'll only ask for information that's relevant to your problem. Depending on what you want help with, this might include:

your name and contact details - so we can keep in touch with you about your case
personal information - for example about family, work, or financial circumstances
details about services you get that are causing you problems - like energy or post
details of items or services you've bought, and traders you've dealt with
information like your gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation

If you don't want to give us certain information, you don't have to. For example, if you want to stay anonymous we'll only record information about your problem and make sure you're not identified.

To find out more about what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy.

How Citizens Advice Chapeltown use your information

The main reason we ask for your information is to help solve your problem.

We only access your information for other reasons if we really need to - for example:

for training and quality purposes
to investigate complaints
to get feedback from you about our services
to help us improve our services

All advisers and staff accessing data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.

Understanding people's problems

We use some information to create statistics about who we're helping and what problems are the most common. This information is always anonymised - you can't be identified.

We share these with funders, regulators, government departments and publicly on our blogs, reports, social media and press releases.

The statistics also inform our policy research, campaigns, or media work.

To find out how we nationally use your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy.

Working on your behalf

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, we’ll need to share information with that third party.

How Citizens Advice Chapeltown store your information

Whether you get advice face to face, over the phone, by email or webchat, our adviser will log all your information, correspondence, and notes about your problem into our secure case management systems.

Some of your information might also be kept within our secure email and IT systems.

We keep your information for 6 years. If your case has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute we keep the data for 16 years.

If you use the consumer service, we keep your information for 6 years and then anonymise it. This means that you can no longer be identified from it.

If you use the Extra Help Unit, we keep your information for 3 years from when we close your case.

Our case management systems are hosted within the EEA and wherever possible, the UK.

Most of our trusted partners store their data securely within the European Economic Area (EEA) in line with data protection law.

How Citizens Advice Chapeltown share your information

Organisations we share your data with must store and use your data in line with data protection law.

If you ask us to act on your behalf we might need to share some of your information with other organisations - we'll always tell you who we are contacting and why we are contacting them when we do this. For example if we contact your creditors about your debts, we might need to share your name, address and financial details with them.

If we refer you to another organisation for more advice, we might share information about your problem with them so they can help you more quickly.

Monitoring our quality of service

With your permission, we'll share your contact details with our trusted research partner so they can contact you for feedback on your experience with us. We use different research partners depending on how you accessed our services.

Where you got advice	Research partner
a local Citizens Advice	Maru/edr
the Extra Help Unit (energy advice)	Accent
the Consumer Service	Marketing Means
the Debt Advice Project	Recognising Excellence, Optimisa and PWC Research

If you use the consumer service

We share your records with Ofgem, Ofcom, the Financial Conduct Authority, Competition and Markets Authority or Trading Standards, to help their work to protect consumers. You can ask us to anonymise your records - this means you can't be identified.

If you don't want your information shared in this way, tell the adviser you speak to on the phone or make it clear in your online advice request form.

Your information is sent securely to our partners via a Secure Post Office system provided by US firm Datamotion.

If we're concerned about yours or someone else's safety

If something you've told us makes us think you or someone you know might be at serious risk of harm, we could tell the police or social services - for example if we think you might hurt yourself or someone else.

If you're the client of a different advice charity and used the Debt Advice Project

Your personal information is shared securely with us from the charity you got advice from. We then share that information with the Money Advice Service, our funder, as part of our regular reporting.

This information includes:

your name, contact details and postcode
your demographic information - like your age, gender and ethnicity
your employment and housing status
your income and debts
what kind of advice you got and the outcome
if you were referred to another organisation

The charity you got advice from will have their own policy on how they use, store and share your data.

Contact Citizens Advice Chapeltown about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.

Telephone: 0113 223 4400, open Monday to Friday 9am to 4.30pm

Email: info@chapeltowncab.org.uk

You can contact us to:

find out what personal information we hold about you

correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete

request we delete your information

ask us to limit what we do with your data - for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already

ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service

ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

The national Citizens Advice charity and your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in the Casebook system.

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.

You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.