Privacy Policy
At North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre, 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.
This privacy policy explains how we use your information and what your rights are. We handle and store your personal information in line with data protection law and our confidentiality policy. The following pages tell you more about how we use your information in more detail.
Our network
Citizens Advice is a membership organisation made up of the national Citizens Advice charity and many local offices across England and Wales, including North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre.
North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre is an independent charity and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity.
All members of the Citizens Advice network are responsible for keeping your personal information safe and making sure data protection law is followed.
Members of the network also run some jointly designed services and use some of the same systems to process your personal data. In these instances we are joint data controllers for these activities.
Jointly controlled data
All offices in the Citizens Advice network use some joint systems* to carry out our activities. These include joint case management systems, telephony platforms
and more.
Staff from a different local Citizens Advice can only access your personal information in a joint system if they have a good reason. For example when:
- you go to a different office to seek advice
- more than one office is working together in partnership
- they need to investigate a complaint or incident
We have rules and controls in place to stop people accessing or using your information when they shouldn’t.
Tell an adviser if you’re worried about your details being on a national system. We’ll work with you to take extra steps to protect your information – for example by recording your problem without using your name.
National Citizens Advice has a privacy notice available on their website that covers general advice and nationally managed systems, including our case management systems. This policy covers the processing we carry out in our office.
*North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre also uses the case management system AdvicePro which stores data for all clients referred into the Law Centre. North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre are data controllers in common with AdviceUK in relation to client records stored on AdvicePro.
How long we keep your data for
National Citizens Advice is responsible for managing any data in joint client case records. For more information please see their privacy notice.
Client data retention schedule
| Type of record | Risk | Retention period |
| All client records apart from the high risk categories below. | Low | 6 years |
| All Law Centre client records on Casebook and AdvicePro apart from the high risk categories below. | Low | 10 years |
| Any case that has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute. | High | 16 years |
| Any case relating to building works or surveyors’ reports on the purchase of property or relating to property. | Low | 6 years |
| Any case which Citizens Advice considers to be a substantial risk, where the sums of money involved are, for example, in excess of £10,000 or where the advice given was especially complex, or where Citizens Advice are otherwise concerned that the case is unusual. | High | 16 years |
How we use your data for advice
This section covers how we use your data to provide you with advice.
For general advice and nationally funded advice programmes please see the national Citizens Advice privacy notice.
How North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre collects your data
When you contact us for advice or information, we ask for your permission to collect your personal data.
If you contact us face to face, this will be through completing a client details form, if over the phone, we will ask for your permission. If you contact us for advice by email form, we will ask you to electronically tick a box to give your permission.
What North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre asks for
To find out what information we ask for, see the national Citizens Advice privacy policy.
How North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre uses your data
To find out how we use your data, see the 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 only share information with your agreement.
How North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre stores your data
We store your data on Google servers, all data is encrypted. Where we hold paper information we keep this locked in secure storage cabinets.
How North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre shares your data
When we share your data with third parties, such as solicitors or other organisations we have referred you to, we transmit this information by secure, encrypted and password-protected email.
Our confidentiality policy
At Citizens Advice we have a confidentiality policy which states that anything you tell us as part of advice will not be shared outside of the Citizens Advice network unless you provide your permission for us to do so.
There are some exceptions to this such as needing to share:
- to prevent an immediate risk of harm to an individual
- in select circumstances if it is in the best interests of the client
- where we are compelled to do so by law (e.g. a court order or meeting statutory disclosures)
- where there is an overriding public interest such as to prevent harm against someone or to investigate a crime
- to defend against a complaint or legal claim
- to protect our name and reputation for example to provide our side of a story reported in the press
How we use your data when using our website
All information submitted via our online referral and feedback forms on our website at www.cany.org.uk is covered by this Privacy Policy.
Your data protection rights
You have rights in relation to your personal data that we hold. Your rights include being able to request:
- Access to copies of your data
- Corrections are made to inaccurate data
- Deletion of your personal data
- Object to how we use your personal data
These rights are not absolute and may not apply in every circumstance. For more information about your rights you can visit the ICO website.
To make a data protection rights request you can do so by emailing advice@lutoncab.org.uk
How to contact North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre about your information or raising a concern about how we use your information
If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, or if you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information please contact our registered office.
Write to: Deputy CEO, North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre, 277 High Street, Northallerton, DL7 8DW
Email: admin@northyorkslca.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 to stop using your information
You can also contact the national charity if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal data or wish to raise a concern about how a local office has handled your personal data. To do so you can email us at DPO@citizensadvice.org.uk
Contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
You can also raise your concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates data protection law in the UK. if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information. They will normally expect you to have made a complaint to us directly in the first instance.
- Visit the ICO website
- Address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
- Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Our lawful basis for using your information
| Activity | Lawful basis for collecting personal data | Lawful basis for collecting special category or criminal convictions data |
| General advice provision and funded services (unless listed below) | Legitimate interests – we have a legitimate interest to provide advice to our clients | Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims – where we are helping clients establish their legal rights. Substantial Public Interest (provision of confidential counselling, advice or support) – where we are providing advice to clients which doesn’t relate to their legal rights. |
| Consumer service and energy advice | Public task – we have a statutory obligation to provide consumer and energy advice | Substantial public interest (statutory obligation) – we have a statutory obligation to provide consumer and energy advice |
| Pensionwise advice | Public task – we have a public task through our funder the Money and Pensions Service to deliver pension advice | Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims – where we are helping clients establish their legal pension rights |
| Debt relief orders | Public task – we have a public task through our funder the Money and Pensions Service to assist with debt relief orders | Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims – where we are helping clients establish their legal pension rights |
| Accessibility requirements | Legal obligation – we have legal obligations in accordance with the equalities legislation | Substantial public interest (statutory obligation) – obligations under equalities legislation. |
| Marketing new advice services | Legitimate interests – we have a legitimate interest in promoting advice services which could benefit our clients Consent – where marketing rules require consent to do so | N/A |
| Maintaining quality and standards | Legitimate interests – we have a legitimate interest in ensuring that our service is run properly and that standards are maintained | Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. Substantial public interest (protecting the public against dishonesty etc) – where we are carrying out functions to protect against: – dishonesty, malpractice or other seriously improper conduct – unfitness or incompetence – mismanagement in administration |
| Safeguarding | Public task – in complying with safeguarding obligations | Substantial public interest (Safeguarding of children and of individuals at risk) |
| Fraud prevention | Legitimate interests – we have a legitimate interest in defending against fraudulent activity Legal obligation – in some circumstances there are legal obligations to disclose actual or suspected cases of fraud | Substantial public interest – (preventing and detecting unlawful acts, preventing fraud, Suspicion of terrorist financing or money laundering) |