Privacy notices: Enforcement and partnerships

Who we are

Trading Standards
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
Town Hall, St Ives Road
Maidenhead SL6 1RF

The lawful basis for processing the information

The processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
For Trading Standards the major legislation enforced includes; Animal Welfare Act 2006, Consumer Protection Act 1987, Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, Food Safety Act 1990, Health & Safety at Work Act 1974.

How do we collect information

We collect information from consumers, individuals, witnesses, victims, businesses, internal and external partners and agencies, enforcement agencies and following initial advice provided by the Citizens Advice Consumer Service.

We collect the information in a number of ways:

• paper or electronic forms or letters.
• email.
• telephone.
• website.
• social media.
• face to face (via our employees or partners).
• via third parties such as the Citizens Advice consumer helplines.

What type of information is collected

“Personal data” is any information about a living individual, which allows them to be identified from that data (for example a name, photographs, videos, email address, or address).

Identification can be by directly using the data itself or by combining it with other information, which helps to identify a living individual.

Personal information is included within complaints, intelligence and inspection reports, visit sheets, investigative procedures and service requests received by the department in regards to consumer and business related matters, issues and investigations/enquiries into criminal and civil matters as well as ensuring  compliance of such with legislation through a variety of activities including visits, inspections and testing.

This will include names, dates of birth, characteristics (such as gender), addresses (including email), telephone number, trading details of complainants, consumers, businesses, victims and witnesses.

How we use the information provided

• enable us to carry out our licensing and regulatory duties.
• crime prevention and prosecution offenders.
• produce statistics required by government and other agencies.
• to help us to build up a picture of how we are performing.
• local fraud initiatives.
• carrying out health and public awareness campaigns.
• corporate administration and all activities we are required to carry out as a data controller and public authority.
• maintaining our own accounts and records.
• undertaking research.

Who has access to the information about you

We store your personal data securely. We have in place security policies which are intended to ensure, as far as possible, the security and integrity of all personally identifiable information.

Who we may share your information with

We will usually seek your consent prior to processing or sharing your information, however, if there is a legal reason, we may not require your consent, e.g. where the disclosure is necessary for the purposes of the prevention and/or detection of crime.

Where we need to disclose sensitive or confidential information such as medical details to other partners, we will do so only with your prior explicit consent or where we are legally required to.

Where necessary and lawful, or when required by legal obligation, we may share information with other teams in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council, another local authority, other regulatory bodies, National Trading Standards and Regional Investigations Teams, HMRC, Police, Fire and Rescue services, Community Safety Partners or Central Government Departments e.g. Office for Product Safety and Standards.

How long we store your information

We will process your personal data for the above purposes for no longer than necessary. Full details of our retention schedule can be given upon request.

Does your service utilise automated decision making? – No