Data Protection

Jump to:

• The Data Protection Act 1998 and your rights
• Accessing your personal data
  • Paying the fee
  • Confirming your identity
  • Applying on behalf of another person
• Correcting your personal data

The Data Protection Act 1998 and your rights

The Data Protection Act 1998 states that all personal data must:

• be processed fairly and lawfully
• only be obtained and processed for specified and lawful purposes
• be adequate, relevant for the purpose and not excessive
• be accurate, and where necessary, kept up to date
• not be kept longer than necessary
• be processed in accordance with the rights of the data subject
• be kept secure
• not be transferred to other countries without adequate protection for the rights and freedoms of the data subject.
  

Personal data is any data which can be used to identify a living individual. Woking Borough Council may need to collect your personal data in order to provide you with Council services.

The Data Protection Act 1998 gives you a right of access to your personal data.

For more information about the Data Protection Act visit the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website. The ICO has specific responsibility for the promotion and enforcement of the Data Protection Act.

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Accessing your personal data

Access requests must be in writing: we suggest you use our online request form to ensure that we have all the details we need to process your request. Please note that once you have completed this form, you will need to print it out, sign it and post it to us along with your payment and evidence confirming your identity. There is a fee of £10 for each access request. We will need to confirm your identity before we can process your request.

Access requests should be sent to:

Data Protection Officer, Woking Borough Council, Civic Offices, Gloucester Square, Woking, Surrey, GU21 6YL.

You can access personal data held about yourself by a number of services. If you are only interested in a specific service, selecting it will enable us to process your request more quickly.

In some cases we may have to withhold data if it refers to other people who have not consented to disclosure, or if disclosure could cause damage or distress, or prejudice crime prevention or legal proceedings.

Paying the fee

A fee of £10 is payable for each search. If you are applying by post, please send a cheque or postal order made payable to ‘Woking Borough Council’ together with your proof of identity (photocopies of ID are acceptable) and completed request form. If you are applying in person at the Civic Offices, payment can be made by cheque or cash.

Confirming your identity

In order to confirm your identity, you will need to submit copies of two forms of identification with your application. The two forms of identification will need to be made up of one from each of the following groups:

Applying on behalf of another person

If you are applying on behalf of another person, you will need to show proof of your identity as well as theirs, plus proof that you have permission to act on the data subject’s behalf.

We will accept one of the following as proof that you have permission to act on the data subject’s behalf:

• a signed declaration by the data subject
• a signed declaration by a health professional, police officer or MP confirming that the data subject is unable to make the request themselves
• a document confirming that you are the parent or guardian of the data subject (if this is the case and the data subject is a minor).

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Correcting your personal data

If you think your personal data is inaccurate or out of date you can write to us explaining why and asking us to correct your data.

Please write to:

Data Protection Officer, Woking Borough Council, Civic Offices, Gloucester Square, Woking, Surrey, GU21 6YL.