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The Southern Midlands Council is committed to upholding the right to privacy of all individuals who have dealings with the Council. The Council will take the necessary steps to ensure that the personal information that members of the public share with us remains confidential.

Personal information is any information which can be used to identify an individual.

The Council collects, retains, stores and uses personal information where it is necessary for one or more of the Council's functions or activities. Certain information is collected in order to comply with laws and regulations. Whenever the Council collects information it will gladly share the reasons with you upon request.

The Council only uses personal information provided by you for the purposes for which it was collected and for any other use authorised or required by law, including law enforcement and compliance activities.

The Council will not collect sensitive information about you without your express consent and unless the collection is required by law.

The Council is committed to maintaining the accuracy of our customers' information. The Council will respond to your requests to correct inaccurate information in a timely manner.

The Council has procedures in place to limit access to your personal information to those employees with a business reason for knowing such information. Council employees are educated about the importance of confidentiality and customer privacy. The Council also takes appropriate disciplinary measures to enforce our confidentiality and privacy policies.

The Council maintains appropriate security standards and procedures to help prevent access to your confidential information by anyone not authorized to access such information. Examples of these security procedures include, the use of computer passwords; firewalls; network security; locked fireproof file cabinets; restricting access to hard copy records; removal of information from computers when they are displaced from service; shredding of unnecessary documents, and more.

The Council will not reveal information about you or your accounts (including statutory planning representations) to third parties outside the Council for their independent use unless authorised to do so, or the disclosure is required by a court or tribunal or allowed by law. The Council does not sell, trade or make available your personal information to others. The Council shares information provided by you only with other business units within the Southern Midlands Council.

Sometimes it is necessary to provide information about you, your accounts, or property to a service company that the Council hires to help provide services to you. Where the Council out sources functions that involve the collection, utilisation and/or holding of personal information, contractual measure are taken to ensure that the contractors and subcontractors do not act in a way that would amount to a breach of privacy standards. These vendors and service companies are required to maintain the confidentiality of this information and abide by all applicable laws. The Council does not permit third parties to sell or use the information for their own purposes.

Whenever it is lawful and practicable to do so, you will be given the option of not identifying yourself when dealing with the Council.