Privacy policy

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

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

When we record and use your personal information we:

only access it when we have a good reason

only share what is necessary and relevant

don’t sell it to commercial organisations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law - including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

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

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

How Citizens Advice Citizens Advice East Hampshire collect your data

We collect data through face to face meetings, over the phone, by email, webchat or consented referrals from other organisations. We need to record information about you to help with your enquiry. We have a legitimate interest to do this. If you want more information about how we’ll use your data, please see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy.

We will need your explicit consent to record and use your special category personal data - this includes information about your ethnicity, religion, health conditions, sexual orientation, trade union membership and political opinion. We will get your consent to store this data by asking you to:

tick a box on our welcome form
tick a box online
give your verbal agreement

We’ll make sure all your information is kept safe in our secure case management system.

What Citizens Advice Citizens Advice East Hampshire ask for

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

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

How Citizens Advice Citizens Advice East Hampshire use your information

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

Working on your behalf

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

We will ask for your verbal or written consent to share the relevant information with that third party (e.g. DWP, East Hampshire District Council, Radian, Solicitors, Creditors, etc).

How Citizens Advice Citizens Advice East Hampshire store your information

Your information is stored securely on a cloud-based Google Suite system, and on the Citizens Advice system Casebook. All volunteers and staff who access your data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.

We keep your data for 6 years and it's then deleted.

How Citizens Advice Citizens Advice East Hampshire share your information

If we refer you to a partner organisation such as the local authority, a local solicitor or charity, we will get your consent to share the information needed for this referral. This consent is obtained by signing a permission to share form.

We collect anonymous statistics and case studies to report to our funders about the work we do. There will be no identifying information in these statistics or case studies.

Contact Citizens Advice Citizens Advice East Hampshire about your information

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

Alton office
17 Market Square
Alton
Telephone: 01420 544807

Bordon office
Forest Community Centre,
Pinehill Road,
Bordon.
Telephone: 01420 477005

Petersfield office
2nd Floor, Petersfield Library
27 The Square
Petersfield
Telephone: 01730 710281

Email: digital@caeasthants.org.uk

You can contact us to:

find out what personal information we hold about you

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

request we delete your information

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

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

ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

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

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

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