CARE DIRECT & SUPPORT SOLUTIONS LTD. PRIVACY NOTICE

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CARE DIRECT & SUPPORT SOLUTIONS PRIVACY NOTICE

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At Care Direct & Support Solutions we are very much committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services.

The Privacy Notice below explains how we use information about you and how we protect your privacy.

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•   Who we are

•   Why we collect your personal information

•   Why do we need your personal information?

•   Consent & Your Preferences

•   We only use what we need

•   Visiting our website

•   Who do we share your information with?

•   Keeping your information safe

•   How long do we keep your personal information ?

•   Your Rights

•   How to tell us of data breach

•   Where can I get advice?

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Who we are

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This privacy notice relates to all personal information processing activities undertaken by Care Direct & Support Solutions Ltd.

 

As a company we are a data controller and when it comes to handling personal information we process in connection with our business.

 

Our main address is : The Rear, 18 Bloomfield Avenue, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU2 0PS.

 

Our website details are : www.caredirectandsupportsolutionsltd.co.uk

 

We have great respect for individuals’ rights to privacy and to the protection of personal information. This Privacy Notice is intended to explain how we collect and use personal information in connection with our business.

 

From time to time we may update our Privacy Notice and we would encourage you to visit our website regularly to stay abreast with the purposes for which we process your information and your rights to control how we process it.

 

 

Why we collect your personal information

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Do you know what personal information is?

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Personal Information can be regarded as anything which identifies and connects to a living person. Such information may include details which when put together with other information can then identify an individual.

 

The information we may collect about you may include but not limited to the following:

•   Name

•   Address

•   Telephone numbers

•   Email details

•   Date of Birth

•   Bank details

•   Employment details

•   National insurance number

•   Identification Documents

•   Communication formats

•   Next of kin details

•   Health data

•   Criminal data

•   Service needs & preferences

•   Photographs

 

We may also obtain personal information from professional teams and others with whom you live with such as:

•   Social workers

•   Family & household members

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Did you know that some of your personal information might be classified as ‘special’? 

 

Certain information is classified as ‘special’ because of its sensitivity and therefore requires more protection. This is usually the information you would not ordinarily want it to be widely known and is very private to you. Such information may include the following:

•   Ethnicity

•   Trade union membership

•   Sexuality and sexual health

•   Physical or mental health

•   Religious or philosophical beliefs

•   Genetic/biometric data

•   Political opinion

 

We will only ask for this type of information if it is relevant to your contract so that we can provide the right services to you.

 

If you give us this information about yourself when communicating with us, you do so because you consider it forms part of a legitimate interest for us to hold this information on our records.

 

If we ask for any sensitive personal data about you, we will always communicate with you why we require it and ask for your consent to hold it. We will not share such private information with anyone unless there are legal requirements for us to do so or we have your consent.

 

Why we may need your personal information

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It may be necessary to use some information about you for the following reasons:

•   To deliver services and support to you

•   To manage those services we provide to you.

•   Service improvement

•   Prevention/detection of fraud/crime.

•   To help investigate any complaints you have about your services

•   To help with research and planning of new services

•   To check the quality of services     

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How the law permits us to use your personal information. There are several legal reasons why we may need to collect and use your personal information.

 

In general we may collect and use your personal information when:

•   You are entering or have entered into contract with us

•   You or your legal representative have given consent

•   It is essential to protect someone in an emergency

•   It is required by law

•   It is necessary for legal cases

•   You have made your information publicly available

•   It is essential for archiving, research or statistical purposes

   

 

Your Consent and Preferences

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We may from time to time contact you or send you communication to inform you about how we are performing in terms of care service delivery for Quality Assurance purposes.

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We won’t need your consent to communicate with you in this manner as we have assessed that it forms part of our agreement with you and further its our legitimate interest or mutual interest for us to keep you informed as its relevant to your contract with us.

 

We will also provide you with an unsubscribed option on communications in which you would have a choice to object. You will have the opportunity to update your communication preferences at

anytime by contacting us by calling the office on 01582 725998 / 07932659527 or emailing to :caredirectss@btinternet.com to inform us about which service you are removing your consent in order for us to deal accordingly with your request.

 

 

We only use the information we need

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Where necessary, we will only collect and use personal information if this is required to assist us in delivering a service or meet a requirement.

 

We would not sell your personal information to anyone

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We won’t share or sell your information to other companies.

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When you visit our website

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When you visit our website, we collect standard internet log information for statistical purposes.

 

We use cookies to gather information in an anonymous manner and this includes visitors who access our website.

 

We do not make any attempt to identify visitors who access our website, neither do we attach information obtained from our site with personally identifying information from any source.

 

When personal information is collected, for instance through an online form, we will give an explanation as to what we propose to do with it.

 

 

The way we use your telephone number and email address

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We may contact you and share information with you about relevant matters relating to the care service we provide via text messages, telephone or email.

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We will continue to keep in touch with you via these channels of communication.
 

We may share your contact details: telephone number or email when required to do so by law. We never share or sell your telephone numbers to telesales/marketing companies.

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Sharing your information with Local Authorities

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As and when required we will disclose your personal information to the relevant department at the Local Authority for the purposes of resolving issues relating to the care service we provide to you.

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Insurance

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We may share your personal information with our insurers in the event of a public liability claim.

 

We will only share data specifically relevant to the claim. Our insurers will provide you or make available to you the Privacy Notice which is linked to our insurance policy.

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Safeguarding & support agencies

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We may have to share your information with support agencies if we have a suspicion that there may be safeguarding concerns about yourself , family members leaving with you or the way care is delivered. We will take every necessary step to ensure that we share only that personal information related to the safeguarding issue.

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Communication with you

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We may monitor or record calls, emails, text messages or other communications in accordance with applicable laws for the purposes of improving our service to you.

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Keeping your information secure

We store personal information both electronically and in paper form. We implement security policies, processes and technical security solutions to protect the personal information we hold from:

•   Unauthorised access

•   Improper use or disclosure

•   Unauthorised modification

•   Unlawful destruction or accidental loss

 

We’ll do what we can to make sure we hold records about you ( on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we’ll only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Examples of our security include:

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•   Encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password). This is done with a secret code or what is called a ‘cypher’. The hidden information is said to then be ‘encrypted’

•   Pseudonymisation, meaning that we’ll use a different name so we can hide parts of your personal information from view. This means that someone outside of Care Direct & Support Solutions could work on your information for us without ever knowing it was yours

•   Controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it

•   Training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong

•   Regular testing for our technology and ways of working including keeping up to date on the latest security updates (commonly called patches)

   

When you contact us, we may ask you to provide us with some information so that we can confirm your identity. If other people (e.g. family members, support workers, solicitors) act on your behalf

we will take steps to ensure that you have agreed for them to do so. This may include asking them to provide us with supporting information to indicate your consent. We do this to protect you and to make sure that other people cannot find things out about you that they are not entitled to know.

 

Employees and third parties who have access to, or are associated with the processing of, your personal information are obliged to make reasonable efforts to safeguard it.

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Where in the world is your information?

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Your personal information is stored on our systems in the UK.

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How long do we keep your personal information?

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There’s often a legal or a contractual reason for keeping your personal information for a set period of time. We will keep your information for the duration of providing a service to you under the terms of a contract, such as the care service agreement.

 

When your contract has ended we will keep your personal data for a set time for auditing and reporting purposes and for legitimate interest purposes, after that time we will either anonymise or destroy your information.

 

You can ask us for a copy of our retention periods by contacting us at 01582 725998 or by email : caredirectss@btinternet.com

 

 

Your Rights

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The law gives you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us. You can contact us regarding any of the rights below by emailing us at: caredirectss@btinternet.com

 

We will deal with your request within one month from receiving your request and if we need additional information from you to identify you we will ask for this without undue delay. You can ask for access to the information we hold about you. You have the right to ask for the information we have about you. When we receive a request from you in writing, we must give you access to what personal information we’ve recorded about you.

 

A request for personal information can be made via email or in writing. This is known a subject access request.

In order to make a subject access request you will need to provide the following information:

•   Your name

•   Your address

•   Enough information to identify your records

   

If we have doubts about your identity or we are finding it difficult to locate your personal information we may ask you to provide us with proof of identity.

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What types of documents could I submit as proof of ID?

 

•   Copy passport with signature (please remove your passport number)

•   Copy driving license picture with signature (please remove your driver number)

   

You can write to us at the following address:

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The Rear
18 Bloomfield Avenue Luton
Bedfordshire
LU2 0PS

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Alternatively email us at contact us (Please ensure you provide enough information for us to identify your records). We will not start your subject access request until we are satisfied that you have provided us with enough information for us to identify you.

 

Once you have made a request you will receive an acknowledgement and your request should be answered within one month. In certain circumstances, we are allowed to take longer but we will inform you if we feel we may need longer without undue delay from when we receive your request. We can refuse to handle your request for access if it is manifestly unfounded or excessive

 

 

You can ask to change information you think is inaccurate

 

You should let us know if you disagree with something we may have recorded about you.

 

We may not always be able to change or remove that information but we’ll correct factual inaccuracies and may include your comments in the record to show that you disagree with it.

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You can ask to delete information (right to erasure)

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In some circumstances you can ask for your personal information to be deleted, for example:

•   Where your personal information is no longer needed for the reason why it was collected in the first place.

•   Where you have removed your consent for us to use your information (where there is no other legal reason us for us to use it).

•   Where there is no legal reason for the use of your information.

•   Where deleting the information is a legal requirement.

   

Where your personal information has been shared with other professionals, we’ll do what we can to make sure those using your personal information comply with your request for erasure.

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You can ask to limit what we use your personal data for

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You have the right to ask us to restrict what we use your personal information for where:

•   You have identified inaccurate personal information, and have told us of it.

•   Where we have no legal reason to use that information but you want us to restrict what we use

  it for rather than erase the information altogether.

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We will assess whether you have a right to a restriction and where restriction of use has been granted, we’ll inform you before we carry on using your personal information.

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Where possible we’ll seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or use information because we are required to by law or we have a legal basis to do so, such as a contract.

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You can ask to have your information moved to another provider (data portability)

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You have the right to ask for your personal information to be given back to you or another service provider of your choice in a commonly used format. This is called data portability.

 

However this only applied if we’re using your personal information with consent (not where we are processing your personal information for contractual, legitimate interest, legal obligations or vital interests as a legal basis) and if decisions were made by a computer and not a human being.

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It’s likely that data portability will not apply to the service you receive from Care Direct and Support Solutions.

 

 

Right to understand Automated Decisions made about you

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We do not process your personal data using automated decisions

 

You also have the right to object if you are being ‘profiled’. Profiling is where decisions are made about you based on certain things in your personal information, e.g. your health.

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If and when your personal information is used to profile you, in order to deliver the most appropriate service to you, you will be informed.

 

 

How to tell us of a data breach

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Care Direct and Support Solutions takes responsibility to protect the personal information we hold about those with whom we work seriously. We are accountable for our processing and take necessary technical and operational steps to information security protections.

 

If you suspect your personal information or that of others may have been at risk of a data protection breach please inform us by calling:

01582 725998

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Where can I get advice?

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If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, please contact the office by calling:

01582 725998 Or by email: caredirectss@btinternet.com

 

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

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Information Commissioner’s Office Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow

Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate)