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Disclaimer

Camden Council is committed to the highest standard of quality information and every attempt has been made to present up-to-date and accurate information.

However, Camden Council gives no warranty as to the accuracy of the information on this website and accepts no liability for any loss, damage or inconvenience caused as a result of reliance on such information.

Although Camden Council takes all reasonable measures to ensure that the information provided to it from third parties is not defamatory or offensive, Camden Council cannot control the content or take responsibility for pages maintained by external providers.

Please note that the inclusion of an organisation does not constitute and should not be taken as a recommendation by Camden of the organisation or an indication that Camden Council agree with or in any way share the organisation's objectives, principles or operational methods. Therefore contact and subsequent engagement with any of the organisations listed is a matter entirely for the user to be undertaken at the user's discretion and entirely at their own risk.

Privacy statement and data protection

Introduction

As a Local Authority and Data Controller, London Borough of Camden collects, holds and processes a considerable amount of information, including personal information about residents, people it provides services to, and other people. It does this to provide its services in the most effective and efficient way that it can.

The Council recognises that it has a duty to people whose information it holds to treat that information responsibly, keep it safe and secure, and process it correctly and proportionately. This privacy notice explains how we use any personal information we collect about you.

Our main contact details can be found here

If you would like general information about Data Protection, the law and good practice please visit the Information Commissioner’s website. The Information Commissioner is the Data Protection statutory governing body for England and Wales.

Who is our Data Protection Officer?

The Council’s Data Protection Officer is Andrew Maughan who is the council’s Borough Solicitor. He can be contacted at [email protected]

What information do we collect about you and for what purpose?

We may collect personal data about you which covers basic details such as name, address, telephone number, and date of birth. We also collect some sensitive information such as ethnicity and religious beliefs, but only where it is required to provide a service or for monitoring equality of both for customers and employees. We will always explain to you why and how this information will be used.

Specific details about the purposes and legal basis for our processing of personal data can be found in our Information Asset Register.

We process personal information to enable us to provide a range of government services to local people and businesses, and some of the most significant areas are for example its roles in education and in providing schools, providing care and support for the vulnerable and looking after and improving the environment. However this also includes:

  • maintaining our own accounts and records
  • supporting and managing our employees
  • promoting the services we provide
  • marketing our local tourism
  • carrying out health and public awareness campaigns
  • managing our property
  • providing leisure and cultural services
  • provision of education
  • carrying out surveys
  • administering the assessment and collection of taxes and other revenue including
  • benefits and grants
  • planning, licensing, registration and regulatory activities
  • local fraud initiatives
  • the provision of social services
  • crime prevention and prosecution offenders including the use of CCTV
  • corporate administration and all activities we are required to carry out as a data
  • controller and public authority
  • undertaking research
  • the provision of all commercial services including the administration and enforcement
  • of parking regulations and restrictions
  • the provision of all non-commercial activities including refuse collections from
  • residential properties,
  • internal financial support and corporate functions
  • managing archived records for historical and research reasons
  • data matching under local and national fraud initiatives
  • Legal Services Borough Solicitor

If you would like to know more about the Council’s functions and duties please see the Council’s website

We will process personal data for the following purposes:

  • For the purpose to which you provided the information. (e.g. processing information given on a housing application form for the purpose of processing your application), and to monitor the Council’s performance in responding to your request.
  • To allow the Council to be able to communicate and provide services appropriate to your needs, e.g. to be able to arrange suitable access arrangements where you have mobility difficulties
  • To ensure that the Council meets its legal requirements, under a range of laws including relating to diversity and equality (see Equalities) and health and safety
  • Where necessary for the Council’s Law Enforcement functions, e.g. licensing, planning enforcement, trading standards, food safety, etc. where the Council is legally obliged to undertake such processing
  • Where the processing is necessary for Camden to comply with its legal obligations, e.g. the prevention and/or detection of crime, safeguarding etc (for more details see Prevention and Detection of Crime)
  • To process financial transactions to and from the Council including grants, payments and benefits, or where the Council works alongside other government bodies, e.g. Department for Works and Pensions
  • Where you have consented to the processing or for the purpose of a contract you have entered into with us
  • Where you have agreed for the purpose of consulting, informing and assessing your opinion about our products and services
  • Where necessary to protect individuals from harm or injury
  • Where otherwise permitted under data protection legislation e.g. disclosure to comply with legal obligations.

Departments in Camden that have personal and sensitive information on you will only allow designated officers to access or process this information. If an external agency asks us to provide any information that is sensitive and personal to you, we will only disclose it once we have your specific consent to do so or where we are legally required or legally able to do so.

Camden Council may also use your personal data, after it has been anonymised, to allow the statistical analysis of data to allow the Council to effectively target and plan the provision of services (see Collecting Information Automatically)

Our aim is to provide you with a service that does not require you to repeat basic information each time you contact Camden, which is the main point of contact between you and us.

Contact Camden

Further Processing

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not in line with the purpose you originally gave it to us for, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.

Contact Camden

As part of the Council’s drive towards increasing customer satisfaction with its services we try to encourage people to contact us via Contact Camden. When you telephone Camden (particularly for the first time) you will talk to one of our Contact Camden officers. They will ask you for information which will be shared within the council in order for us to deliver services for you. Failure to provide this information might affect how we can support you in line with our responsibilities.  
For some of our services we need to collect information from you so we can contact you or to provide the service.

When you phone Contact Camden or the services listed below, we record your call for training, monitoring, quality assurance and compliance purposes. 

Other Call Recordings

The following services routinely record details of phone calls made to and from them using Microsoft Teams for training, quality, and compliance purposes:

  • Careline
  • CCTV at Holmes Road
  • Service desk
  • Passenger Accessible Transport Service (PATS)
  • Repairs
  • Calls to the Council Tax service
  • Calls to the IT Out of Hours Support line which is provided by Capita. This is used by councillors and external service provided although mainly staff.

All other calls made to or from the council are NOT recorded. 

We keep call records (information about the caller’s number, the date, time, duration of call) for all calls recorded or not.

Sharing of call recordings

We may refer to recordings to clarify details of conversations, to monitor staff performance and to improve on customer experience and quality of service. We may share recordings with other agencies eg police as needed in exceptional cases as set out elsewhere in our Privacy Notice. 

Legal basis and Retention for Call recordings

Our legal basis for processing is Article 6(1)(e) Public task and Article 9(2)(g) Substantial public interest under the General Data Protection Regulation. The Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule condition is para 6 government purposes.
We keep call records (information about the caller’s number, the date, time, duration of call) for all calls recorded or not, except the IT Out of Hours calls, for the current year plus 3 years and then delete in line with our retention schedule. 
We keep voice recordings for all the services above (except IT Out of Hours) for the current year plus 1 year.  There may be occasions when we need to keep recordings for longer, for example when further investigation is needed into a matter you have contacted us about.  Calls to the IT Out of Hours Support line which is provided by Capita are retained by them for 12 months.

Council Housing Video Door Entry System

A new door entry system is being installed in council properties to enhance security and provide the residents that are called with a view of the person that is calling them and whether they want to provide access.  The new system is called an IP Guard system.  Visitors to council residential properties will have their data relayed to the resident’s mobile phone (or a small council provided receiving device for those without smartphones).  The footage will not be retained by the council.  

There is more detail for tenants in the housing privacy notice. This information is provided to alert people who may visit council properties that such a system is in use. 

CCTV in council buildings 

The council has CCTV in many council buildings.  There are signs on buildings to show where it is used.  

View the CCTV and Responsive Security Patrol (RSP) web page. This includes our CCTV Privacy Notice.

Photographs and Filming

The council may need to take photographs of and in council buildings for various reasons such as health and safety or maintenance.  These photographs may be taken by council staff or contractors engaged by us.  Wherever possible photographs will be taken to avoid including people in an identifiable way.  Where that is unavoidable, special care will be taken to ensure that where possible, pictures are redacted before they are used eg in court or internal reports.  Our lawful basis is UK GDPR art 6(1)(e) public task, and 6(1)(c)( legal duty) for health and safety.

Where the council is filming or taking photographs for wider use, appropriate signage will be placed in buildings to inform people, and to tell them how to object and what steps to take to avoid being included in shot. Our lawful basis is UK GDPR art 6(1)(e) (public task). Photographs/filming of specific people eg for publicity will only be taken with appropriate consent forms having been signed and the legal basis will be art 6(1)(a) (consent)

Council staff in various services such as environmental health, planning, trading standards, housing etc may need to take photographs outside and inside premises for evidence and record keeping for their relevant roles. Details are in the relevant Privacy Notices.

Council meetings may be filmed. More information is available about the webcasting and recordings of council meetings.

Office of the Children's Commissioner

The Children’s Commissioner for England is responsible for promoting and protecting the rights of children in England. The Children’s Act 2004 (2) sets out the role of the Children’s Commissioner and makes provision for the collection of data from any person exercising public functions. Local authorities are required to share data with the Children’s Commissioner under Section 2F of the Children’s Act upon request.  

The Children’s Commissioner may request personal data from local authorities however they do not collect personally identifiable information. This means that the Children’s Commissioner cannot identify a specific individual in the data that they request.  

Data collected by the Children’s Commissioner is used to inform government and policy makers on issues which are in the interest of children in England. The Children’s Commissioner builds national evidence to justify changes in legislation, policy and service delivery to improve the lives and outcomes of children. For more information about the Children’s Commissioner and her work visit the website.  

All data is transferred securely and held by the Children’s Commissioner under a combination of software and hardware controls which meet the current government security policy framework.

Other Information about data we process

As well as information on this page, and information about specific services on the next page, the council undertakes a lot of other data processing, some of it not including personal data.  This processing is described in much more detail in our Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and our initial risk assessments called DPIA pre-screens.  We publish these on our Open Data Portal.  You can browse these DPIA (Data Privacy Impact Assessments) | Open Data Portal (camden.gov.uk). And here DPIA Pre-Screens (Data Privacy Impact Assessments) | Open Data Portal (camden.gov.uk)
 

When do we share your personal data with third parties?

The Council may disclose personal data to third parties, but only where:

  • it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, or
  • where permitted under data protection legislation, e.g. where the disclosure is necessary for the purposes of the prevention and/or detection of crime; or
  • where it is necessary to allow a third party working for or on behalf of the Council and/or to provide services to you. The information you provide us may be shared with other Local Authorities, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), HMRC and the Home Office. There will be times that the information will be disclosed to our partner organisations that provide services on behalf of Camden. Once your details are no longer required they will be deleted securely. The Council will take all reasonable steps to make sure personal data we hold is kept safe. Were your information is disclosed to a third party, the Council will seek to ensure they have sufficient systems and procedures in place to keep your data safe and prevent its loss.

Where the Council seeks to disclose sensitive personal data about you, (such as medical details) to third parties, we will do so only with your prior express consent or where we are legally required or allowed to do.

If you choose to complete any of our online forms, Camden Council will not use the personal information you give us for marketing purposes without first gaining your consent. We may pass your details on to third party service providers who are contracted to Camden Council in the course of dealing with your request Eg a homecare agency. These third parties are obliged to keep your details secure, will use them only to fulfil the request and will dispose of the information at the appropriate time.

No personal information you have given us will be passed on to third parties for commercial purposes.

Our policy is that all information will be shared among officers and other agencies where the legal framework allows it, if this will help to improve the service you receive and to develop other services.

Equalities

The Council is under legal duties to have regard to the impact of its policies and operation upon various groups based on factors such as age, sex, ethnic origin, race, sexual orientation. Gathering and analysing statistics on these factors allows the Council to ensure it implements and designs its policies in as fair a way as it can. It regularly prepares equality impact assessments on particular polices to ensure that those policies do not unfairly impact upon any groups and it also uses them to ensure that it complies with its duty to promote relations between different groups. Such statistical data does not allow for the individual identification of any specific person and it will not impact upon any individual’s particular entitlement to services and or facilities.

How long do we keep your personal data?

We keep your personal data for no longer than reasonably necessary and in line with our corporate data retention schedule

Ways of communicating with us securely

We give you the option of using a secure transmission method to send us the following types of personal data:

  • Primary personal data (such as name and contact details)
  • Identifiers (such as credit card details, website password)

The two tools that are available to Camden Officers are Egress and CJSM. These tools will be used to securely share your personal information with you. Egress is free software and is available to use by all organisations and individuals. Further details on Egress and CJSM are available from the council by email [email protected]

All our employees and data processors with access to, and associated with the processing of, personal data are obliged to respect the confidentiality of our customers’ personal data.

We ensure that your personal data will not be disclosed to government institutions and authorities except if required or permitted by law or other regulation.

Security of your information

In deciding what personal data to collect, hold and use, the Council is committed to ensuring that it will:

  • Recognise that any personal data handled by Camden is held on behalf of that person and that we ensure we respect that responsibility
  • Adopt and maintain high standards in respect of the handling and use of that personal data
  • Only collect, hold and use personal data where it is necessary and proportionate to do so
  • Securely delete any personal data when no longer needed
  • Keep your personal data secure and safe
  • Not unnecessarily and without good reason, infringe the privacy of those upon behalf we hold data
  • Consider and address the privacy risks first when planning to use or hold personal information in new ways, such as when introducing new systems
  • Be open and transparent with individuals about how we use their information and who we give it to
  • Make it easy for individuals to access and correct their personal information (see Your rights)
  • Ensure that there are effective safeguards and systems in place to make sure personal information is kept securely and does not fall into the wrong hands
  • Provide training to staff who handle personal information and treat it as a disciplinary matter if they misuse or don’t look after personal information properly
  • Put appropriate financial and human resources into looking after personal information to make sure we can live up to our promises
  • Have a robust data breach reporting procedure that effectively manages the risks and includes actions to minimise a similar breach occurring again.
  • Regularly check that we are living up to our promises and report on how we are doing

Transfer of data abroad

We may transfer your personal information outside the EU. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Your rights

Unless subject to an exemption under data protection legislation you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

  • The right to request a copy of your personal data which the Council holds about you
  • The right to request that the Council corrects any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date
  • The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for the Council to retain such data
  • The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time, but only if we have relied on your consent to process your data when you supplied it to us
  • The right, in certain circumstances, to request that the Council provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability). [Note: this only applies where the processing is based on consent or is necessary for the performance of a contract with you and in either case the Council processes the data by automated means]
  • The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing
  • The right, in certain circumstances, to object to the processing of personal data. [Note: this only applies where processing is based on legitimate interests (or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority); direct marketing and processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics]
  • The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office. See Complaints

Find out more about your rights.

Review of this statement

Camden will keep this privacy statement under regular review. If this statement changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page and take steps to communicate any changes to you, where appropriate.

Privacy information for specific services

On this page:

Families with Complex needs

Camden Council is part of the Government’s initiative for families with complex needs. This aims to support families struggling to cope who are facing multiple challenges.

The Council will be identifying those families with the most pressing and complex needs. This will involve some sharing of information between council departments and with other organisations. Any such sharing will be done proportionately and lawfully for the purpose of identifying those families who most need this support. Sharing will be done to ensure that services are better coordinated and focused for those families.

Further information on the Government’s Trouble Families Programme can be found at on the GOV.UK website.

For further information on Camden’s work in this area, contact 020 7974 1786. You can also view and download the following privacy notice:

Sharing Basic Details across Council Services: Camden Residents’ Index (CRI)

Camden Council aims to provide you with efficient and timely services and to do this we need to co-ordinate our services. To achieve this, we use Camden Residents’ Index (CRI).   The CRI is a system that enables the council to link together citizen records from different source systems across the Council to give a single view of the citizen, also called a Golden Record. The system generates a view of a citizen’s involvement with different services across the council.

The CRI also displays the household view, pivoted around the address. Only records that have been active within the last two years will be included. No data is actually held in CRI so any changes to the data (as well as retention policies) are applied within the source systems. There is no third party access to CRI.

Systems that feed data into CRI include: Electoral Roll, Council Tax, Housing Benefits, Adult and Children’s Social Care system, Pupil database (Schools Admissions, SEN and Inclusions system), Parking Permits, Accessible Transport (Freedom Passes), Libraries, Contact Camden, Housing, Youth Offending, Early Years and the Connexions data.

Information provided to Camden Safety Net is not displayed in the CRI (although it is used for reporting purposes behind the scenes, e.g. by the Resilient Families team). Data displayed in CRI includes basic demographic data (name, address, DOB, sex, marital status, ethnicity, contact details, source system reference numbers including NINO, NHS number, Unique Pupil number, and some flags (e.g. disability, caution flag etc). The information displayed in CRI is used for:

  • safeguarding purposes (for example to alert social workers if a new adult moves into the household – a recommendation following the tragic Baby P case)
  • to improve customer care (e.g. seamless electoral registration)
  • to detect and prevent fraud (e.g. illegal subletting)
  • for online verification of some services (e.g. online housing account for council tenants and the renewal of Freedom Passes).

Approximately 300 staff across the council have access to CRI. Their access is tailored on a need to know basis and the majority of the system users will only access the Adults’ records. Access to children’s records is restricted to children’s services staff (the complex families teams, children missing education, safeguarding, admissions fraud etc), system administrators and audit teams. Additionally, the system has the ability to shield records such as records restricted in the source system, or staff or celebrity records.

Housing

See the Camden Housing Services privacy notice for information.

Homelessness

The Homelessness Reduction Act was brought into effect throughout England on 3rd April 2018.

As part of putting this new Act into practice, Local Authorities have been asked to provide the Government with some specific data in order to help them with a study called ‘Understanding more about what causes homelessness and how well homelessness services meet peoples’ needs’.

LIFT Dashboard

The Council’s Benefits, Council Tax and Housing teams will share data with each other and with an organisation called Policy in Practice to maintain a Low Income Family Tracker dashboard with the aim of identifying residents who are at risk of homelessness and/or poverty.  The dashboard enables analysis of anonymised data to enable the council to understand the volume and geographical location of low income families at risk of financial hardship and eviction.  The information shared is resilience indicators to identify those at risk of homelessness and/or poverty. These resilience indicators including income, economic, disability and benefit status, rent arrears, Council Tax data, pension credit uptake, discretionary housing payments, those impacted by the Local Housing Allowance. It also includes eligibility for free school meals, pension credit, free healthy start food vouchers, and watersure tariff. Names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses will also be shared so that those at risk of homelessness can be identified and contacted. Where agreed, personal data may then be used by designated council officers to contact residents with offers of appropriate support such as maximising benefit income, homeless prevention,  targeting of hardship payments and make referrals for debt advice.

Financial resilience data derived from data held by the services listed above will also be shared with other services such as Social Care to enable the identification of people known to those services who are at risk of becoming homeless or experiencing poverty. This will be done so that these individuals may be offered additional support to prevent poverty or homelessness.

The Welfare Reform Act 2012 and Social Security (Information-sharing in relation to Welfare Services) Amendment and Prescribed Bodies Regulations 2013 enables a local authority to share data between relevant departments in order to prevent or reduce homelessness and/or poverty, award local welfare assistance, support disabled and adult social care users to access financial assistance and to support children.  The sharing of data with Policy in Practice has been approved by the Department for Work and Pensions and the use cases are consistent with the Memorandum of Understanding on data sharing between Camden Council and the DWP.

CCTV

See the privacy notice for CCTV.

Council Tax and Business Rates (NNDR)

See the privacy notices for Council Tax and Business Rates

​​​​​Council Tax data sharing with ONS (Office of National Statistics)

Camden, along with most local authorities, has entered into a Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) with ONS around council tax data. For this project ONS will require a monthly extract of Council Tax data from every Local Authority in Great Britain. This extract of the required variables is taken from the Local Authorities Revenue and Benefit system. For all variables, except for payment details, this is a snapshot from the day of extract.

ONS has advised that:

"Council tax data has been identified as an important administrative source for quality assurance of the census. This is due to the level of detail in the data, which will allow ONS to quality check the information collected for census, against information in the Council Tax data, ensuring that the most accurate information is used.

This will enable the ONS to improve a range of statistics. The data would allow them to produce more accurate local level area population estimates, which would bring improvements to the quality and timeliness of a range of other statistics such as on housing, inequality and poverty. Statistics such as the Consumer Price Index including owner occupiers housing costs (CPIH) would be improved which could have a significant impact on standards of living. These will then inform important changes in policy aimed at reducing poverty and improving people’s standard of living. This DPIA covers the ONS acquisition of Council Tax data from every local authority in England, Wales and Scotland."

The data to be shared is:

Variable description

UPRN: Unique Property Reference Number, if available.

PUR: Property Unique Reference, mandatory field.

Company/organisation or exors name: To include any organisations/companies or executors that are paying the council tax for the property.

First name of primary liable party: Forename of council tax payer

Middle name/names of primary liable party: Any middle names held

Surname of Primary Liable Party: Surname of council tax payer

Full name of parties classed as liable or otherwise for CT: Full name of any other named individual given, first name, middle name, surname order

Property Address and Postcode

Council tax band: Council tax band of property at time of extract

Provisional band: Flag to identify if CT band is provisional

​​​​​​Disabled band reduction: Council tax band of property with Disabled band reduction

Annual council tax band cost / rate (exclusive of discounts): Gross annual liable charge for the year at point of extract. The true gross annual charge as if they have been in that property for the full year

Any council tax reduction paid to any current liable parties: Flag to indicate whether any current liable parties have received reduction entitlement as at extract date

Council Tax Reduction: Council tax reduction at extraction date, amount in pounds and pence

Current liability date: Date that the current council tax payer (the live account at extract date) started to pay council tax on this property

Exemption flag: Flag to indicate if the property is exempted from paying council tax

Exemption type: The reason for the exemption (class of exemption)

Date exemption applied: Earliest date this exemption has been applied

Discount flag: Flag to indicate if the property is paying council tax at a discounted rate or if a disregard is applied

Discount type: The reason for the discount

Discount value: Percentage discount given for entire year (at time of extract). Decimal to account for local discounts

Date discount applied: Earliest date this discount has been applied of the latest instance at the extract date

Disabled band reduction: Council tax band of property with Disabled band reduction

Annual council tax band cost / rate (exclusive of discounts): Gross annual liable charge for the year at point of extract. The true gross annual charge as if they have been in that property for the full year

The legal basis has been identified as: 

​​​Personal data: Article 6 1(e) processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller. The authority for ONS to produce, promote and safeguard official statistics is found in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Special Category data: Article 9(2) (g) substantial public interest. Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, on the basis of law which shall be proportionate to the aim pursued, respect the essence of the right to data protection and provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject.  Use of Article 9 2(g) requires that the Data Protection Act Section 10(3) be satisfied. This requires that a condition within Schedule 1, Part 2 is met. This is Statutory etc., and government purposes under Para 6(1)(2), the authority for ONS to produce, promote and safeguard official statistics is found in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Please note:  Once data is received by ONS data subject rights effectively do not apply partly as the data is not held by them in a way that allows individuals to be identified (anonymised or pseudonymised) or is exempt from certain rights due to their processing data for statistical purposes. Therefore, if you want to object to this data being shared with ONS you will need to contact the council [email protected] and request to object to the sharing of the data.  As the legal basis is not consent no prior consent is required. However, you can object to the processing by emailing the council and your data will not be shared.

View our full DPIA.

Child protection information sharing project (CP-IS)

The child protection information sharing project is an NHS England national initiative that has been developed to improve the protection of children known to children’s social work services.

The project links the IT systems of NHS unscheduled care settings (hospital emergency departments, out of hours GPs, walk in centres, minor injuries units, paediatric wards, ambulance services and maternity units) to the IT systems used by children’s social work so that information can be shared about children subject to a child protection plan; children in care (looked after) and pregnant women whose unborn child is subject to a pre-birth child protection plan.

Only basic details of the child will be shared including name, date of birth, address and whether they are looked after or subject to a child protection or pre-birth plan. No details of why the child is subject to a child protection plan or is looked after will be provided.

Medical staff will be able to access the system to check whether a child who is being treated at their setting is on the list. Social services will receive an electronic notification every time a child on the list has their name searched.

Medical staff will then contact social services to provide details of the reason for the child being seen and whether any concerns have been identified.

CP-IS is a secure system and only authorised staff involved with the care of a child can access the information.

The CP-IS system is governed by a national information sharing protocol which provides the necessary safeguards for the handling of personal sensitive information.

The Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker

Camden Council is part of the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker. All London councils have now agreed to participate in the Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker. It publicly displays information about private landlords and letting agents who have been prosecuted or fined by all London Boroughs and the London Fire Brigade.

The Checker is a two-tier database hosted by the GLA. The first tier is for public access and gives details of landlords and letting agents with unspent criminal convictions for housing-related offences under such legislation as: Housing Act 2004, Housing Act 1985, Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949, Environmental Protection Act 1990, Protection from Eviction Act 1977, Fraud Act 2006. 

The first tier includes information such as:

  • landlord/agent name,
  • part of home address: road name and first part of postcode.
  • address of property associated with the offence,
  • offence details, date of conviction, place of conviction(ie which court) and any sentence /fine

The second tier is for selected staff in Private Sector Housing teams at all London local authorities, to view spent and unspent convictions, cautions, and civil penalty notices (up to six years old) in addition to the information in Tier 1.

The Checker will support Camden housing officers, environmental health officers, fire brigade officers and trading standards officers in their enforcement efforts, through information sharing and increased awareness among renters, landlords and letting agents of the work that councils are doing locally to crack down on criminal behaviour. The processing is considered to be necessary in respect of the performance of our underlying statutory powers of enforcement and for reasons of substantial public interest.

Information on the Checker will be shared from three departments in Camden Council (private sector housing, trading standards and housing options) with the other London Boroughs.

The database is a secure system and only authorised senior staff can edit and add details on the database. Camden has an Information Sharing Procedure agreed with the GLA relating to the Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker.

Further information can be obtained from the GLA.

You have rights under the General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Act 2018 about data we hold about you. You can find more information about your rights here and on the Information Commissioner’s website.

Facebook

The legal basis for processing is Consent. By visiting one of the Council’s Facebook pages, you consent to your personal information being processed. You do not need a Facebook account to visit a page which we administer.

We use Facebook ‘Insights’ which provides us with statistics and insights to our page.  We do not receive personal data through the Insights tool. The information can only be seen by page administrators and helps us to understand the types of actions people take on our page and helps us to better understand page performance. Learn more about how Facebook processes your personal data for Facebook Insights.

Facebook collects Cookies, which are small files stored on a user's computer and is designed to recognise specific client and website interaction.  Cookies can recognise your computer so you don't have to give the same information several times, recognise you may already have given a username and password or measure how people use the website.  

Cookies cannot be used to personally identify you.  You can learn more about how Facebook uses Cookies here.

Data sharing with MHCLG to evaluate rough sleeping support during and after the COVID-19 2020 Spring lockdown

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is undertaking an evaluation of the support provided to people sleeping rough or at risk of sleeping rough during and after the COVID-19 national lockdown. View the MHCLG privacy notice for further information about how the council and MHCLG will process personal data as part of this research.

Channel Panel

Prevent is part of CONTEST, the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy and concerns safeguarding and supporting those vulnerable to radicalisation. Its aim is to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

Channel forms a key part of Prevent and Camden’s Channel Panel adopts a multi-agency approach to identify and provide support to individuals who are at risk of being drawn into terrorism. The police or local authority coordinate activity by requesting relevant information from panel partners, including social workers or the health services, about a referred individual. They will use this information to make an initiat assessment of the nature and extent of the vulnerability of the person referred. The information will then be presented to a Channel Panel.  It does this in line with the requirements of HM Government’s Channel Duty

The partners of a panel must cooperate with the panel and the police in carrying out their functions for Channel. The duty to cooperate extends as far as is compatible with the partners’ legal responsibilities in respect of their functions. Compliance with the duty does not require or authorise the making of a disclosure that would contravene the DPA 2018 or the GDPR.

Parking Operations

View the Parking Operations privacy notice

Energy Grant Processing

View the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) privacy notice

Violence against women and girls 

View the VAWG privacy notice 

Virtual School head role extension to children with a social worker 

Virtual School Heads have a strategic leadership role in promoting the educational outcomes of the cohort of children with a social worker and those who have previously had a social worker who are aged from 0 up to 18. We work with agencies to understand and address the disadvantages that children with a social worker can experience and help to demonstrate the benefits of attending an education setting, with the aim of narrowing the attainment gap. Regularly attending school or college is vital for children’s educational progress, for their wellbeing, and for their wider development. For children with a social worker, attending school was also a protective factor and throughout the pandemic, during periods when schools have been open to all pupils, attendance of children with a social worker has remained lower than that of all pupils and regular attendance is important for improving outcomes. 

To effectively identify the needs of these children and ensure they can access interventions that make a difference to their education, Virtual School Heads will work with schools to identify children with low attendance and promote professional practice for education settings to champion high levels of support. The Virtual School will share the attendance data with the allocated social workers to encourage effective information sharing and safeguarding. All educational establishments and internal relevant departments are fully aware of the project and understand the proposed collection and usage of the data.

Our legal basis for processing under the GDPR is Article 6(1)(e) public task with the underlying law being Children Act 1989, Children and Families Act 2014 and the Localism Act 2011.

Proactive contacting of vulnerable council tenants about mould/damp problems

As part of Camden’s statutory responsibilities and public commitment to maintaining high quality properties that promote health and wellbeing, we may pro-actively contact tenants living in council-owned or council-managed properties to screen and assess needs relating to damp/mould problems. Personal data about relevant risk factors such as age, household size/overcrowding, presence of young children, and presence of underlying health conditions may be processed to fulfil this obligation. Personal data may also be shared with Kwest, an approved external third-party organisation for initial contact under this purpose.

The legal basis for processing personal data is article 6(1)(c) legal duty and 6(1)(e) public task, for special category data art 9(2) (b) Employment, social security and social protection, with the Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 1 condition being para 1 Employment, social security and social protection; and art 9(2) (g) Reasons of substantial public interest with the Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 2 condition being para 6 Statutory and government purposes and the underlying law for all being the Housing Act 1996 and the Localism Act 2011.   

Integrated Front Door (Children’s Services Contact Centre) 

View the Integrated Front Door privacy notice

Cost of living campaign 

In response to the cost of living crisis, we have developed a call to action for people to donate to charities helping to support people through the Cost-of-Living Crisis (COLC) in Camden. We will be writing to council tax payers at Band G and H rated Council Tax properties only to ask them to donate to Camden Giving and the Young Camden Foundation if they are in a position to do so. They are two local charities involved in supporting people in the COLC. There will also be other information about other ways to support initiatives responding to the cost of living crisis in Camden, e.g. by volunteering or donating food to food bank providers. 

This will involve processing the names and addresses of those residents in Band G and H rated properties. Prior to writing out to the Band G and H council tax payers, we will remove those who are Camden Council housing tenants, those who receive council tax support and those in Council Tax arrears.  

The letter will also share information about cost-of-living crisis support available in the borough, in case those receiving the letter are in need of support.

The legal basis for personal data is public task article 6(1)(e) with the underlying law being the Localism Act 2011. The Data Protection Act 2018 schedule 1 part 2 condition met is para 6 (Statutory and government purposes) with the underlying law being the council’s well-being powers in the Localism Act 2011.

Home loss compensation payment offsets

On estates facing major repair or improvement or where we need to move residents due to severe disruption, and a home loss compensation payment is applied, the Council will offset monies owing to the council from the home loss payment.  Home loss payments are payable under the terms of the Land Compensation Act 1973 to owner-occupiers and tenants of dwellings displaced by compulsory purchase or public redevelopment.  

Camden Council have a duty to protect public funds we administer which includes the recovery of monies owed to the council through the landlord and tenant relationship such as rent arrears and other tenancy related debts, and other debts owed to the council such as sundry debts.  We will offset these debts against the home loss payment. 

We will share information internally around debts owed to the council to enable offsetting to be undertaken. The personal data will include name, address, details of debt and amount of debt and information such as reference numbers. 

The legal basis for sharing the data is article 6(1)(e) (public task) with the underlying law being the Land Compensation Act 1973 and the Localism Act 2011.  No special category data or criminal offence data are expected to be shared. 

Early Help services

View the Early Help privacy notice which includes Integrated Early Years, Family Support and Complex Families and Integrated Youth Support Services (IYSS).

Adult Early Help Co-production

The council is testing a more preventative offer of support for adults in Camden. This is being done through a year-long pilot. The offer will be co-produced by residents through a resident co-production group who will take part in regular workshop-style sessions. Personal data will be collected via a Microsoft Form to invite interested residents to participate in the co-production group. This data will enable the project team (made up of council officers) to coordinate activities via phone or email. Special category information (specific to resident circumstances) will be collected through an additional questionnaire hosted on MS Forms. This information will be used to identify residents meeting the criteria for the co-production group, with up to 10 residents being selected accordingly. A diverse representation of residents will be selected with a range of experiences. The data collected will be securely stored in a password-encrypted spreadsheet accessible only by the project team and will not be shared with anyone else outside the project team. 
Legal basis for processing the data:  Apart from any photography in the workshops, which will have consent under art 6(1)(a), the legal basis for personal data will be UK GDPR, Article 6(1)(e), “necessary for the performance of tasks carried out in public interest…”.  For special category data, the lawful basis is Article 9(2)(g) “substantial public interest” with the Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 2, condition being paragraph 6 (statutory and government purposes) and para 8 (ensuring equality of opportunity of treatment) with the underpinning law being the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010, and our powers under the Localism Act 2011. No criminal offence data is within scope.  
 

Tenant Participation Scheme

View the Tenant Participation Scheme privacy notice for information about how your data is used.  

Camden Early Years Quality Support and Training Hub 

Camden Organisational Development, Learning & Development (COD and L&D) provide training and learning opportunities for Camden staff, Early Years Settings (PVIs), Childminders and some external organisations. We use data to review, manage and maintain records of booking, payment, attendance, and evaluation. We will collect information if you choose to complete any forms or if you contact us with requests or queries.

The Categories of Personal Data

  • Name 
  • Email address (business wherever possible) 
  • Employee name and email address 
  • Courses booked, attendance, outcomes

The legal basis for processing 

The legal basis for processing personal data is UK GDPR article 6(1)(e) public task.  No special category data is being processed. 

The categories of recipients that the council has or will disclose the data to
We will share your name and job title only with contracted training providers if they deliver you training. All trainers are obliged to keep your details securely. We undertake general data matching or data sharing in certain areas for the prevention or detection of crime, you can find out more information on that at Camden.gov.uk/privacy 

The criteria used to decide the retention period 

If you are employed by the London Borough of Camden and work with children or vulnerable adults we will keep your personal data for the duration of your employment plus 25 years. 

If you are employed by London Borough of Camden and do not work with children or vulnerable adults we will retain records in line with Camden’s data retention schedule for employees. The duration of employment plus seven years. 

If you work at an external organisation, we will keep your data while the account is active and then for three years after the account is closed. 

We will not transfer your Personal Data outside the EU/EEA.

'Energiesprong’ model pilot

Camden Council is working in collaboration with the GLA to pilot an ‘Energiesprong’ model where we bring our social housing homes to a carbon net zero standard, improve the energy efficiency and, therefore, reduce energy bills. This is achieved by installing pre-built insulated walls, roofs which incorporate solar panels, pre-built mini extensions which incorporate new heat pumps built off site in a specialist factory. 

We will collate your information such as your name, contact details, and other relevant details such as health/disability/language, and provide these to our partnering contractor, United Living, who will use these details to assist with access arrangements initially for surveys, and then construction works. The contractor will also be able to use this information to better design the construction/build based on any personal requirements. The completed project will protect the residents against fuel poverty, improve the comfort of their homes, assist the decarbonisation of the local electricity grid, and help meet the local and national carbon net zero target. 

The legal basis which allows this activity is UK GDPR Article 6(1) (e) public task. Special Category data UK GDPR Art 9 condition Art 9(2) (g) Reasons of substantial public interest with the Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 2 Part 2 conditions being para 6 Statutory and government purposes, with the underlying laws Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and Localism Act 2011.

Breast screening project for people with learning disabilities

Camden Learning Disability Service are taking part in the NHSE & Cancer Alliances project to improve breast screening participation for people with disabilities.

The aim of the project is to improve the health outcomes for people with learning disabilities by ensuring the breast screening programme has appropriate patient data, such as level of learning disability and what reasonable adjustments are needed to encourage people with breasts of eligible screening age with learning disabilities who have not attended their breast screening appointment to do so.  

The sharing of this information will support the provision of direct care to people with breasts of eligible screening age. The data involved is:

  • name, address, contact details
  • NHS number 
  • category of learning disability 
  • level of support and reasonable adjustment required

Who is it shared with?

The Royal Free Breast Screening Service.

The legal basis:

The legal basis is Article 6 (1)(e) public task for personal data.  Special category data is Article 9(2)(h) Health or social care (with a basis in law) with the Data Protection Act 2018 schedule 1 part 1 condition being para 2 health and social care purposes.

Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund scheme 

See the privacy notice.

Webcasting of council meetings, and recordings made of them by the public

Council webcasting

The council may record Committee Meetings for webcasting live, via on demand view, or both.  The Chair will advise attendees when recording/webcasting is taking place. The personal data recorded will be the audio and video of the meeting and participants, which may include public attendees.  The recordings will be available at Camden Council: Civico.  The data is held for 12 months.

The council’s legal basis is article 6(1)(e) (public task), and where special category data is recorded directly or indirectly (for example headwear or visible religious symbols indicating religion, or disability aids indicating disability) the legal basis is Art 9(2) (g) Reasons of substantial public interest with the Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 2 Part 2 conditions being para 6 Statutory and government purposes, and the underpinning laws being the Local Government Act 1972 and the Localism Act 2011.

Recording by the public

The Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 gives the public the right to film, audio record, take photos and use social media and the internet to report on any meetings that are open to the public.  Members of the public undertaking this are not part of the council’s area of Data Controllership, and the council has no control over their recording or further use of such data.  If members of the public are concerned by the actions of people recording in the meeting such that it is causing disruption or distress they should bring it to the Chair’s attention at the time, or if after the event they may consider contacting the police if the behaviour was harassing or distressing, or the ICO (see main privacy page for contact details) if there are complaints about the member of the public’s publication etc of recordings made.

Benefits Service

See the privacy notice  

Housing Allocations Research

See the privacy notice 

Camden Food Poverty Alliance Coordinator

The Camden Food Poverty Alliance (CFPA) is a collective of voluntary and community sector organisations and Camden Council, who have come together to communicate, collaborate, share ideas and learnings to tackle food poverty in the borough. CFPA is an umbrella for two groups – the CFPA steering group and Camden Food Network. CFPA are in the process of recruiting a coordinator (18 month initial post) who will be employed by an external VCS organisation (FEAST With Us) to strengthen engagement in the alliance and support progress against the CFPA Action Plan. FEAST With Us are a VCS organisation based in Camden who provide access to nutritious meals (based on surplus food), nutrition education and skills, for people experiencing food poverty.

The coordinator will undertake a number of activities including leading on all CFPA communication (via email, newsletter, regular meetings and larger events). This will require the use of data currently held by Camden Council, detailing the information of those people who have signed up to be members or have shown an interest in the work of the CFPA (e.g. by attending meetings/events, applying for funding, residents who have assisted on panels). Camden Council will be required to transfer this information, along with other contacts of the CFPA to the new coordinator once in post.

The CFPA coordinator will lead on all CFPA communication and will use this data for a number of activities including a regular newsletter, meetings and larger events, and emails (e.g. to circulate details of funding opportunities) that are of relevance to the individuals/organisations.

Personal data collected will include names, contact details and opinions.

Legal Basis:  Legal basis will be art 6(1)(e) public task, no special category or criminal offence data will be processed.  Data processed for marketing purposes which is not included in the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations ‘soft opt-in’ will be under art 6(1)(a) consent.

Transport Strategy

View the Transport Strategy privacy notice

Air quality monitor loans

The London Borough of Camden is collecting contact information and equalities information of residents to carry out an air quality monitoring and awareness raising project as part of the Future Neighbourhoods programme through completion of a series of online or offline questionnaires. 

This information will be used to contact you regarding taking part in air quality monitoring activities specifically the loaning of an air quality monitor for use within your home or when out and about around the Somers Town area.  

The information will also be used in conjunction with air quality information obtained from the air quality monitors themselves, as well as responses on attitudes and behaviours related to air pollution and air quality. This information will be anonymised and analysed to determine the impact of live air quality information on air pollution reduction & exposure related attitudes and behaviours within the home and when travelling around the area.

Upon completion of a Registration of Interest Survey, the air quality team will contact you to invite you to complete a Preliminary Questionnaire asking you about your attitudes and behaviours related to air pollution production, reduction, and exposure, and to arrange hosting a small air quality monitor for a period of four weeks. After hosting the air quality monitor for four weeks, you will then be invited to complete a Follow-up Questionnaire to ask you your experience with the monitor and your attitudes and behaviours related to having access to live information about air quality.  

For more information, see full privacy notice for air quality monitor loans.

Adult Social Care

View the Adult Social Care privacy notice and easy read version

Digital Change Network

View the Digital Change Network privacy notice 

Neighbourhood Services: lone worker device

View the Neighbourhood Services: lone worker device privacy notice

Future Camden Fund

View the Future Camden Fund privacy notice 

Active for life

Your survey responses are confidential and will be stored securely under Data Protection regulations. We will protect any personal information you share with us, including not reporting any identifiable personal information. Any responses you provide us will be linked throughout the campaign to track and evaluate the outcomes of the intervention. Your identity will not be disclosed, and the evaluation process will not be evaluating you. Only staff within the Health and Wellbeing Department at Camden Council will have access to your individual answers to each question.

Your participation in this survey is voluntary and you may stop at any time. Responding to the survey indicates that you are consenting to take part.

If you have any questions about this survey or would like a follow-up conversation to discuss how the information you provided is being used, please contact: [email protected]

Face to Face Project

View the project privacy notice

Strategy and Design

View the Team's privacy notice

National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP)

View the privacy notice for more information

Auto Enrolment of Primary School Children into the Library Service using school census data

The Library Service is working with all the Primary Schools in Camden to encourage children to participate in the annual Summer Reading Challenge. The benefits of reading for pleasure are immeasurable.

In order to encourage more children to visit their library, complete the Challenge and visit the library on a regular basis the library service is accessing school census data held by the London Borough of Camden and uploading the data of all Primary School children into the Library Management system manged by CIVICA. This data transfer will be securely managed by a member of Council staff uploading the data from a spreadsheet downloaded from the school census database. The data will include name; address; postcode; date of birth; gender (you can choose not to say, if you prefer); and School attended. 

The legal basis for this auto enrolment into the library is UK GDPR art 6(1)(e) public task. Information about the Summer Reading Challenge and informing parents or carers of the auto enrolment will be shared with parents by the schools. This process will be annual but each year only the children newly enrolled in a Camden School since the previous upload will be added. If as a parent or carer you do not wish your child to be enrolled as a library member please inform your nearest library and they can delete the information. Data that isn’t active will be automatically deleted after 7 years.

For more information, read our Library Privacy Notice.

Adult Social Care use of Magic Notes by BEAM

We are undertaking a short trial of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool called Magic Notes by Beam.  

This will be used by Social Workers to record conversations with residents, carers, provider staff and others involved in the delivery of services to residents. It will be on their work provided mobile phone.

Conversations will be transcribed and summarised, and a list of actions created by a web app called Magic Notes that has been created by Beam. Using the transcription a Large Language Model will create a summary based on built-in prompts agreed with LB Camden. The prompts will be designed to extract the relevant parts of the conversation depending on the nature of the meeting.  

For more information, read our Magic Notes by BEAM privacy notice.

Mental Health Needs Assessment for Adults in Camden

The mental health needs assessment for adults in Camden aims to conduct a review of the mental health issues faced by the adult population in Camden, leading to agreed priorities and delivery of more targeted services and support for people with mental health issues. As part of this needs assessment, we aim to explore service user/people with lived experience perspectives via conducting focus group discussions to understand better what according to them are the key priority areas to focus. 

The group discussions will be recorded, and then transcribed by an external transcription company (Language Line). Transcribed discussions will then be analysed by project staff, using NVivo qualitative analysis software, to identify themes and patterns in the responses.  These will be a couple of sentences describing the theme, sometimes with direct quotes elucidating the theme. Themes will not include any personal data themselves and any direct quotes will be anonymised. The themes will be included in a final write-up of the evaluation and presented to various stakeholders.  

We will process personal data such as name and contact details to contact those taking part and to facilitate the sessions.  We are not collecting personal details or data about special categories specifically in the group discussions. However, as the discussions are qualitative in nature, participants will likely choose to volunteer data about themselves that may fall under personal data or data about special categories (i.e. information about their health, criminal record, etc).  This data will be removed during analysis, or where essential to preserve the participant’s meaning, sufficiently anonymised such that no transcript is identifiable to an individual. Transcripts will not be linked to any personal identifiers (e.g. name/email) and will be anonymised following transcription. Any anonymisation will be processing for data protection purposes but of low intrusion.

Legal basis for undertaking the project is article 6(1)(e) public task and for being recorded art 6(1)(a) consent. No special category data is being actively collected but if it is provided by a participant the collection and the processing for anonymisation and deletion will be under the legal basis of 9(2)(g) public task with the Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 2 condition being para 6 governmental purposes and the underlying law being the Localism Act 2011, the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Equality Act 2010.  No criminal offence data is being actively processed but if it is provided by a participant the Art 10 requirements are met by the same art 6 basis as for personal data and the same Data Protection Act 2018 schedule conditions as for special category data.

Money Advice Camden

As part of Camden’s statutory responsibilities and public commitment to support residents facing financial instability, the Money Advice Camden (MAC) service may proactively contact residents at risk of or already in arrears. This initiative aims to provide holistic financial support, including income maximisation, welfare assistance, and supporting residents to manage their debt, to help residents toward financial stability.

To achieve these aims, MAC will reach out to residents who are in debt or at risk of debt as identified through internal data (such as from the Council Tax team) and from other data sources (such as from Policy in Practice). Personal data such as names, contact information, and debt information would be shared with MAC to enable the team to identify and proactively reach out with support.
If a resident accepts our offer of support, we will ask them to supply additional personal and special category data to ensure we can provide accurate help for their situation. Residents are under no obligation to supply all requested data to access the service. Any data sharing with third-party organisations will be done with resident consent and only for the purpose of delivering necessary support.

The legal basis for processing personal data Art 6(1)(e) public task and Art 9(2) (g) Reasons of substantial public interest (with a basis in law), 9 (2)(g) Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 2 condition: Para 6.; and the underlying law for all being the Localism Act 1992, Local Government Finance Act 1992, Welfare Reform Act 2012, Social Security Administration Act 1992, Housing Act 1985, and Traffic Management Act 2004.

Public Protection

There is a privacy notice for Food Safety and Infectious Disease Control, Environmental Protection and Pollution Control, Premises and Personal Licensing, Licensing, Trading Standards, Regulatory Health and Safety, Pest Control Services and that is available here - Public Protection privacy notice.

Fraud and crime prevention

Data Matching

Computerised data matching and analytics allows potentially fraudulent claims, transactions, applications and payments to be identified. Where a match is found and two or more records have contradictory or conflicting information, the inconsistency will require further investigation. No assumption can be made about whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out. Regardless, the data matching process is a proven way of helping to ensure that records are up-to-date and accurate.

Prevention and Detection of Crime

Camden Council is required by law to protect the public funds it administers from the following services:

  • Council employee Payroll
  • Council employee Pensions
  • Electoral Register
  • Housing
  • Transport passes, including residents’ parking blue badges
  • Insurance Claimants
  • Housing and Council Tax Benefits
  • Licences, e.g. market trader/ operator, and (new) personal licences to supply alcohol
  • Council Tax
  • Leisure
  • Property (Planning, Business Rates)
  • Libraries
  • School admissions

We process and share the information provided to us to prevent and/or detect potential fraud and crime, by both conducting our own Data Matching and sharing this information with other public bodies, such as: the Department for Work and Pensions, other Local Authorities, HM Revenues and Customs, and the Police where required to be disclosed or under the relevant exemptions concerning ‘crime and taxation’ and ‘Information required to be disclosed by law etc or in connections with legal proceedings’ set out in Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Our legal basis for this is Article 6(1)(c) legal obligation and 6(1)(e) public task. 

Our legal bases under Article 10 are:

Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1, Part 1, para 2(1) the processing is necessary for health or social care purposes and (e)the provision of social care;

Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 2:

  • paras 6 Statutory etc and government purposes, processing is necessary for the exercise of a function conferred on a person by an enactment or rule of law and  is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest
  • para 7 processing necessary for the administration of justice
  • para 10(1) Preventing or detecting unlawful acts, the processing is necessary for the purposes of the prevention or detection of an unlawful act

Data Protection Act 2018 schedule 1 part 3 Para 33, necessary for legal claims, in connection with legal proceedings or in connection with legal rights

The Council’s approach to the prevention and detection of fraud is detailed in the Council’s Anti-Fraud and Corruption Strategy, specifically section 4 “Preventing and Managing  the Risk of Fraud and Corruption".

The National Fraud Initiative (NFI)

The Cabinet Office currently requires Camden Council to participate in the National Fraud Initiative (NFI). It is a data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We are legally required to provide particular sets of data to the Cabinet Office for matching for each exercise, and these are set out in their guidance, which can be found at: NFI guidance.

Under Part 6 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, the consent of the individuals concerned is not required under the Data Protection Act in a data matching exercise. Data matching by the Cabinet Office is subject to a Code of Practice NFI Code of Data matching Practice

As a participant in the NFI, the Council has a nominated Key Contact responsible for ensuring the Council complies with the NFI Code of Data Matching Practice.

For further information on the Cabinet Office’s legal powers and the reasons why it matches particular information, please see the Cabinet Office privacy notice for the NFI. This notice sets out how they will use personal data, and data subjects’ rights.

Agency Staff Fraud Risks – London Fraud Hub Data Matching Project

Camden has signed a Data Sharing Agreement with the City of London Corporation and other London Boroughs to share some data to help prevent fraud whereby people work for more than one council at any time without making the required declarations in line with their contract of employment.  

This is a growing fraud risk across London boroughs, and we are using the NFI London Fraud Hub to tackle this fraud by matching council payroll data and recruitment agency/managed service provider data to identify where workers/employees may be working for more than one council at any one time.

Data provided by NFI London Fraud Hub members and recruitment agency/managed service providers will be processed through the NFI London Fraud Hub, thereby reducing the need for councils to hold more data than is necessary. Only data matches indicating that workers/employees may be working for more than one organisation at any one time will be shared with those appropriate councils for further investigation. Data is shared with Synectic’s, a contracted company which provides the NFI and NFI fraud hub systems.  

Data will include name, home address, email address and phone number, date of birth, bank account details, National Insurance Number, and payroll reference numbers.

Legal basis is GDPR article 6(1)(c) legal obligation and 6(1)(e) public task.  Consent is not required.  

General:

For further information about data matching at Camden Council please contact the Data Protection Officer at [email protected]. Our DPIAs are published DPIA (Data Privacy Impact Assessments) | Open Data Portal (camden.gov.uk)

And the data sharing agreements are published Data Sharing Agreements (DSAs) | Open Data Portal (camden.gov.uk)

Copyright

All material on this website, including text and graphics, is copyright the London Borough of Camden unless otherwise stated. Use may be made of this material by educational organisations without permission from Camden Council if an acknowledgement to the Council is included.

All other use of this material may only be made with the express written permission of Camden Council.

Data quality

The London Borough of Camden is committed to the highest standards of quality of information. If you think that there are any errors or out of date information please notify us (explaining which page contains the error). Thank you for your help.

Disclaimer

While every care has been taken in the compilation of this information, Camden Council will not be held responsible for any loss, damage or inconvenience caused as a result of inaccuracy or error within these pages.

The Council does not endorse any external linked sites and is not responsible for their content.

Email, the website and the use of Cookies

Email messages

If you have provided your email address to us for this purpose, you may receive occasional email messages from Camden Council on matters that we consider may be of interest to you,

If you sign up to subscribe to My Camden news you will receive a weekly e-newsletter. You can change your subscription preferences or unsubscribe from My Camden news at any time.

If you sign up for any service update email alerts, such as local parking suspension alerts, you will receive the alerts as and when they are created. You can unsubscribe, or change which service update email alerts you receive, at any time.

Email monitoring

The use of Camden Council’s email system may be monitored and communications read in order to secure effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes such as prevention of crime.

External links

Camden.gov.uk contains links to other websites. This privacy policy applies only to the London Borough of Camden’s website. When you are transferring to another site you should read their privacy statement for their policy on the use of personal information.

We are under a duty to share data within the council services for effective service provision. Your information will be shared with relevant services as stipulated in our Data Protection Notification with the ICO under the Digital Economy Act 2017

We will endeavour to ensure your personal data will be processed in accordance with the Principles and Rights of the Data Protection Act 2018 and any disclosure(s) made will be in accordance with our Notification, which can be viewed at ico.org.uk. A copy of the Notification is also available on request from the council.

For more information please contact the Information Rights Team.

How cookies are used by Camden

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable.

Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. These cookies allow us to distinguish you from other users of the website which helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our website. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

This information is used to improve services. For example:

  • recognising your computer so you don't have to give the same information several times
  • recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested
  • measuring how people use our website, which allows us to make changes so it is easier to use

Managing your cookies

You can manage your cookies and set your preferences on our cookies page.

We use cookies to control the site’s functions, to keep statistics and for session management. We do not store any personal information in cookies.

If you do not want to accept cookies, your browser can be set to automatically reject cookies or to inform you every time a website asks to store a cookie.

Please be aware the Camden website will not function properly without accepting cookies, by turning them off or deleting them functionality will be lost. If you wish to delete them after your session, the browser you have used will be capable of deleting any stored cookies.

Anonymous browsing

If you wish to anonymously browse the website please use a browser which supports this function, but remember if you do not accept cookies your browsing experience will be poor and you may not be able to use the full functionality of the site.

Cookies used on our website and other Camden sites

Necessary cookies

These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website, our resident and business account sites and our Liferay microsites.

Liferay is the software we use for these sites, which are hosted on multiple Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers.

Cookie name Description lifespan of cookie
COOKIE_SUPPORT Liferay cookie that shows whether your browser allows cookies. 12 months
GUEST_LANGUAGE_ID Liferay cookie that specifies the language used. 12 months
JSESSIONID Tomcat session management cookie. Liferay runs on top of Tomcat. Session
LFR_SESSION_STATE_20119 Liferay cookie for user session identification. Session
AWSELB Amazon Web Services Elastic Load Balancer cookie that is used by the load balancer to map requests from the browser to the same AWS server. Session
acceptCookies Camden cookie that stores whether you accept cookies (1) or not (0). 12 months
CookieControl Camden cookie that stores whether you accept cookies 3 Months

 

Analytics cookies

We use Google Analytics and SiteImprove Analytics to collect data on the usage of our website, including the number of visits to a page, numbers of users browsing the site over time etc. This data is used to help us improve our site.

We will only create analytics cookies if you click the Accept button in our cookie banner.

Cookie name Description Lifespan of cookie
_ga Google Analytics cookie 24 months
_ga_HPD4CJN2P0 Google Analytics cookie 24 months
_gat Google Analytics cookie 1 minute
_gat_UA-515731-40 Google Analytics cookie 1 minute
_gid Google Analytics cookie 1 minute
Starting with _hj Hotjar Analytics cookies < 1 day
_ga_34F409SLX2 Google Analytics cookies 24 months

 

Necessary cookies when logged in

The following cookies are required when you log in to our website (Camden users only), our resident and business account sites and some of our Liferay microsites.

Cookie name Description Lifespan of cookie
BusinessPortalSSOToken Camden session cookie Session
COMPANY_ID Liferay cookie that gives the ID of the current Liferay instance. Session
CamdenSSOToken Camden session cookie Session
CamdenSSOTokenLagan Camden session cookie Session
ID Liferay cookie containing the encrypted userID Session
LFR_SESSION_STATE_nnnnnnnn Liferay cookie for user session management where nnnnnnnn is the userID and hence will be different for each user. Session

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you should email our Data Protection Officer at [email protected]. They will review the matter, allowing an opportunity for an informal and speedier resolution.

If you remain dissatisfied, you have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). However, you must contact us before you complain to the ICO.  They are unlikely to accept a complaint if you have not contacted us first and given us the opportunity to resolve the issue with you.  

The ICO can be contacted by:

The ICO does not routinely contact us when handling a complaint from the public. If you complain directly to the ICO, their decision outcome may be the first time that we know a complaint has been made.  

You should be aware that the ICO may change its decision when we are allowed to provide evidence relevant to the complaint.