Privacy Policy

 The purpose of this notice is to inform you of the type of information that ‘I mi Community Advocacy Support Services (‘I mi’ CASS) holds; how that information is used; who we may share that information with; and how we keep it secure and confidential. 

Data Controller 

‘I mi’ CASS is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s office (ICO) and is committed to protecting the rights of individuals in line with the Data Protection Act 2018.

address to be confirmed telephone number to be confirmed

Data Protection Officer

The organisation’s data Protection Officer is Helen Gardner, who can be contacted using the details given above or by email, email address to be confirmed

What information is collected about me?

‘I mi’ Cass collects and processes a range of information about you. This includes:

• Your Name, address and contact details including email address and telephone number, date of birth and gender.
• Your National Insurance number. Information about your nationality place of birth, your right to resource of public funds, any benefits you receive, and your right to remain in the UK.
• Information about your marital status. Next of kin an emergency contact.
• Information about your dependents, their name, address, date of birth, gender, their experience of any abuse. Their support needs, the Named Health Visitor, and if there are any child protection or safeguarding issues. Where your children don’t live with you. We will also collect information on contact arrangements, the reason for separation, and whether they have contact with a perpetrator if appropriate.
• If appropriate information about your abuse, whether there have been any police involvement or court orders, details of your perpetrator. Any other referrals made on what your current support needs are.
• Your safety plan whether there are any other professionals involved in your family, if you have essential supplies and if you have Transport.
• Your current housing status landlord tenancy and whether there are any debt arrears or issues an assessment of your suitability to live communally.
• Information about your education and work status and where appropriate the name and place of your employer.
• Information about your criminal record and whether there are any incidents of violence or aggression.
• Information about medical or health conditions or injuries, including allergies, medications, disabilities, blood borne diseases. Previous psychiatric history, any issues with substance misuse or alcohol, whether you are pregnant. And details of your GP.
• Contacts and support sessions we’ve had with you.
• Equal opportunities monitoring information including information about your first language, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health, and religion or belief, when we deliver support virtually, we may be able to see your image depending on the platform you use, stop we will never record or save your image from a virtual support session.
• When you visit our premises which we have CCTV systems operating for the security of service, users, visitors and staff, these systems may record your image during your visit.

How is this information collected?

The majority of the data we collect is provided by you through a range of forms such as referral assessment, admission and contact forms, risk assessments obtained from your passport, or other identity documents from correspondence with you,

In some cases, ‘I mi’ CASS may collect personal data about you from third parties such as referring agents and professionals.

Why is information collected about me?

The workers who are providing support for you and your family. Keep records about this support, this information is either written or held on a computer these records are then used to guide and manage the support you receive this is to ensure:

• The safety and wellbeing of you and your family, to try and protect you from harm.
• To assess your eligibility and suitability for our services and any other services provided by ‘I mi’ CASS or other organisations.
• To ensure that we have accurate and up-to-date information about you to help inform the service you receive from us.

Processing your data allows ‘I mi’ CASS to:

• Ensure effective safeguarding of our service users, employees and volunteers.
• Ensure safe loan working and health and safety practises.
• Respond to and defend against legal claims.

We may also process partly/fully anonymised data to support the future development of ‘I mi’ CASS, ensuring that services provided are always improving. This may include:

• Reviewing and monitoring equal opportunities data to ensure that our services are accessible and inclusive for all.
• Reporting to our funding bodies, to evidence the support we have provided.
• Reporting to other interested parties on trends and other statistical information to inform key policy changes and other decision that affect individual who experience abuse.

What is the legal basis for processing my information?

The Law on Data Protection sets out a number of different reasons for which an organisation may collect and process your personal data, including:

Consent 

In specific situations, ‘I mi’ CASS can collect and process your data with your consent. For example, when you sign a consent and confidentiality form at the start of your support.

When collecting your personal data, we’ll always make clear to you when you can consent to this information being collected and processed, as well as how you can withdraw this consent

Contractual

‘I mi’ CASS needs to process data to meet the contractual obligations we have with our funding bodies and arrangements that support our work.

Legal compliance

In some cases, ‘I mi’ CASS may need to process data to ensure that it is compliant with its legal obligations.

For example, it is required to cheque a potential claimant’s entitlement to claim benefits such as housing benefit and in some instances, to comply with health and safety laws,

Legitimate interest

In other cases, we require your data to pursue, legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our organisation and which does not materially impact your rights, freedoms or interests ‘I mi’ CASS has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of support we have provided you.

Who will the information be shared with?

Where lawful and necessary we will share appropriate, relevant and proportionate personal data with the following:

• Employees of the organisation.
• Councillors.
• Health or social care providers, education services, local council and voluntary 3rd sector organisations who are also providing support to you.
• Legal claims and complaints.
• Appropriate public bodies (such as social services and the police), where we have concerns about the safety and wellbeing of you or a dependent.

We are also required by law to report certain information to the appropriate authorities for example, where a formal court order has been issued. Or when the police request information as part of a criminal investigation.

‘I mi’ CASS shares your data with third parties in order to undertake necessary eligibility and safety checks during the assessment and support process.

 ‘I mi’ CASS also uses externally provided systems such as our client management system to manage your information for service delivery monitoring and improvement we ensure that appropriate controls are in place to mitigate risk and ensure compliance with our requirements.

If we transfer your personal information to another country, will take appropriate measures to protect your privacy and the personal information we transfer,

How will my information be kept confidential and safe?

 ‘I mi’ CASS takes the security of your data seriously. Information is retained in secure electronic and paper records, and access is restricted to only those who need to know.

‘I mi’ CASS has internal policies and controls in place to try and ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused, or disclosed and it is not accessed except by its employees, in the performance of their duties.

Everyone working for ‘I mi’ CASS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and secure under the data protection legislation our staff are trained to handle your information correctly and protect your privacy,

Where ‘I mi’ CASS engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so based on written instructions, under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.

How long does keep ‘I mi’ CASS keep my Information?

• If you’re an adult with no children who has received a service from ‘I mi’ CASS, we will keep your data for six years after support has ended.
• If you are an adult who is assessed for support and declined, we will hold your personal data for a year after the date of the assessment decision.
• If you’re an adult with children who has received service from, ‘I mi’ CASS we will keep your data until your youngest child reaches the age of 21.
• If you are a child or young person under the age of 18, we will keep your personal data until you reach the age of 21.

What are my rights?

As a data subject. You have a number of rights. You can:

• Access and obtain a copy of your information on request.
• Ask ‘I mi’ CASS to change incorrect or incomplete information.
• Ask for your information to be deleted or removed. Where there is no need for us to continue processing it.
• To ask us to restrict the use of your information.
• Object to the processing of your data where ‘I mi’ CASS is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact Data Protection Officer: Helen Gardnier Care of email address and telephone number to be confirmed

Contacting the regulator

If you feel that your data has not been handled correctly, or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made to us, regarding the use of your personal data. You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s office.

You can contact them by calling 030 31231113.

Or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns (Opens in a new window. Please note we cannot be responsible for the content of external websites).

Amendments

This privacy policy may be amended from time to time, consistent with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation you can find the most up-to-date version of this document on our website