privacy

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 anyone

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 and the Data Protection Act 2018.

You can check our main Citizens Advice 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 office at 87 Park Road, Hartlepool TS26 9HP.

What we do with your information

How we handle your personal information depends on how you interact with us. Click on the links below to find out more:-

Contact Citizens Advice Hartlepool about your information or email

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact Citizen Advice Hartlepool on 01429 408401, open Monday to Thursday 9am-5pm and Friday 9am-4:30pm our email us - enquiries@hartlepool.cabnet.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 of 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 to stop using your information
lodge a complaint

However, please note that these rights are not absolute and may be subject to our own legitimate interests and regulatory requirements.

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal Information

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

Note: This privacy policy only covers this website www.citizensadvicehartlepool.org.uk and it\'s subdomains; other websites linked from this website are not covered by this policy. Once you have accessed another website via one of our links you will be subject to the security and privacy policy of that site.

*cookie - a bit of information kept on a user\'s computer

Retention

We will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide our services, and as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our policies. Retention periods will be determined taking into account the type of information that is collected and the purpose for which it is collected, bearing in mind the requirements applicable to the situation and the need to destroy outdated, unused information at the earliest reasonable opportunity. Under applicable regulations, we will keep records containing client personal data, account opening documents, communications and anything else as required by applicable laws and regulations.

We may rectify, replenish or remove incomplete or inaccurate information, at any time and at our own discretion.

Updates or amendments to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to periodically amend or revise the privacy policy; material changes will be effective immediately upon the display of the revised privacy policy. The last revision will be reflected in the "Last modified" section. Your continued use of the platform, following the notification of such amendments on our website, constitutes your acknowledgment and consent of such amendments to the privacy policy and your agreement to be bound by the terms of such amendments.

Download our Policy