Privacy Notice for TEST AND TRACE SUPPORT PAYMENT SCHEME

What is the purpose of this document?  
Hartlepool Borough Council (HBC) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.
This privacy notice is issued in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and describes how we collect and use personal information about you in relation to Government’s Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme.  

From 28 September 2020, individuals are entitled to a Test and Trace Support Payment or discretionary support payment of £500. This is to support people on low incomes who are unable to work from home if they are told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace and will lose income as a result. 

These payments are designed to help ensure people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their close contacts self-isolate for the required period to stop the onward spread of the virus. They are also designed to encourage individuals who are eligible for this payment to get tested if they have symptoms. This is important to help stop the transmission of COVID-19 and avoid further economic and societal restrictions. 

From 8 March 2021, parents or guardians who are not legally required to self-isolate can apply for a Test and Trace Support Payment of discretionary payment if they need to take time off work to care for a child or a young person who has an Education, Health and Care Plan. 

This notice applies to information we hold about you. 

We may update this notice at any time.
 
It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

 The Data Protection Legislation

We will comply with data protection law which includes the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 which states that the personal information we hold about you must be:
1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
4. Accurate and kept up to date.
5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
6. Kept securely.

No personal information held by us will be processed unless the requirements of the Data Protection legislation for fair and lawful processing can be met.	

Who is the Data Controller?
 
HBC is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

Who is the Data Protection Officer?  
 
We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO:

Laura Stones, Legal and Data Protection Officer
Hartlepool Borough Council
Civic Centre
Hartlepool
TS24 8AY

dataprotection@hartlepool.gov.uk

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

What kind of information we hold about you?

Personal Information
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

How we use particularly sensitive information  
 
”Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:
1. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
2. Where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our data protection policy.
3. Where it is needed in the public interest
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. 	

HBC’s Obligations

What are HBC’s obligations?
 
 We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:
 
•	Name
•	Contact details
•	National Insurance Number
•	a notification from NHS Test and Trace asking you to self-isolate;
•	proof of receipt of one of the qualifying benefits;
•	a bank statement (as a basic up-front fraud check); and 
•	proof of employment or, if you are self-employed, evidence of self-assessment returns, trading income and proof that your business delivers services which cannot be undertaken without social contact
If applicable:
•	child’s name
•	child’s age
•	child’s main address
•	the child’s education or care setting and year group. This should include contact details for the setting (at least one of an e-mail address and/or phone number)
•	child’s first day of self-isolation 

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information
•	Outcome of Covid-19 Test result
•	Vaccination status of the applicant.
•	If applicable, whether the young person has an Education, Health and Care Plan. This is to support applications from parents and guardians of young people between 16 and 25 who have additional support needs. 

How is your personal information collected?  
 
We collect personal information via an online application form.
In exceptional circumstances we will collect information via telephone application.
 
How we will use information about you?  
 
We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

(a)	where the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law namely the Government’s Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme (PUBLIC TASK)
The Council may use data from Test and Trace Support Payment applications for wider benefit and fraud investigations to prevent and detect fraud.  We will do so, where the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law (PUBLIC TASK) namely the:
•	Local Government Finance Act 1992 and 2012
•	Welfare Reform Act 2012
•	Social Security Contribution & Benefits Act 1992
•	Fraud Act 2006
•	National Fraud Initiative
We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
(a)	where the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life. (VITAL ITERESTS)
For special categories, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:
(a)	where processing is necessary for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety of healthcare (UK GDPR, Article 9(2)(i))
(b)	For public health purposes (Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 1 (3)) 
(c)	In relation to the prevention and detection of fraud, where processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject in the field of employment and social security and social protection law (UK GDPR, Article 9(2)(b)).

 Situations in which we will use your personal information
 
We need all the categories of information in the list above (see What kind of information we hold about you? above) primarily to allow us to administer the financial payment under the Test and Trace Payment Scheme. 

The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below. 

Reason for Processing	Legal Basis e.g Public Task/Contract etc	
To process application for financial assistance 	Public Task	
To assist tax reporting	Public Task	
To assist Test and Trace to allow reporting on the delivery of the Test and Trace Support Payment	Public Task	
To prevent and detect crime (Fraud)	Public Task	

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be more than one ground which justifies our use of your personal information.
 
What if I don’t want to provide personal information?
 
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to make the required payment.
 
Change of purpose
 
We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
 
Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Does HBC need your consent?
 
We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights as required by law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however we will notify you in writing if this position changes. 
 
Data Sharing 

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the group.
We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
We will not transfer your personal information outside the EU.	

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?
 
We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law or where it is necessary to allow payment of the funds. Examples of the organisations we may need to share information with are:

HMRC
NHS Test and Trace
Department for Work and Pensions
National Fraud Initiative
We may also use your personal data for benefit accuracy checks, and when making a payment under the scheme, we will validate bank account details to ensure they align with the applicant, for anti-fraud purposes.
We may also use your information for wider benefit and fraud investigations to prevent and detect fraud.
 
Which third-parties process my personal information?
 
”Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents). The following third-parties process personal information about you for the following purposes: 

Northgate Public Services (The Council’s ICT provider, who may have access to systems on occasions where there is a fault) 
Firmstep (Test and Trace Application Provider) Capita (Financial Management System) Bottom Line (BACS Payment System) 
Lloyds Bank (Faster Payments System) 
Northgate IWorld System (The Council’s ICT provider)
Police
 
How secure is my information with third-party service providers?
 
All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
 
Data Security
 
We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request.
Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. Details of these measures may be obtained from the Data Protection Officer.
 
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
 
Data Retention
 
How long will you use my information for?
 
We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal information are available in our retention policy which is available from www.hartlepool.gov.uk/retention-schedules. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
 
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. 
 
Rights of Access, Correction, Erasure and restriction
 
Your duty to inform us of changes
 
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.
 
Your rights in connection with personal information
 
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
 
•	Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
•	Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
•	Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
•	Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
•	Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
•	Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Data Protection Officer in writing. 
For further information on your rights please visit: www.hartlepool.gov.uk/GDPR
No fee usually required
 
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee for photocopying.
 
What we may need from you
 
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
 
Right to withdraw consent  
 
In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Data Protection Officer. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
 
 Changes to this Privacy Notice 
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.
 
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the DPO.