This website (www.watercommission.co.uk) is operated by the
Water Industry Commission for Scotland. We,
the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, take your privacy seriously and we
ask that you read this policy carefully, as it contains important information
on:
·
the
personal information we collect about you;
·
what
we do with your personal information; and
·
who
your personal information might be shared with.
We are the controller of the personal
information that we collect from you on our website, which means that we are legally
responsible for how we collect, hold and use your personal information. It also means that we are required to comply
with data protection laws when collecting, holding and using your personal
information.
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer
(DPO), who ensures that we comply with data protection laws. If you have any questions about this
statement or how we hold or use your personal information, please contact the
DPO via email at: [email protected]
Your attention is particularly drawn to section 2 of this policy,
which confirms that you consent to your personal information and sensitive
personal information being held and used by us as described in section 1 of
this policy.
1. What personal information do we collect about you and why?
Our website is a place for you to find out more
about us and the work that we do.
When you visit our website, we collect personal
information about you when you:
- provide
comments on the standard of service that you have received from your water
supplier (for both home and business customers);
- submit
an access to information request to us under access to information laws;
- make
a complaint against us;
- apply
for employment with us; or
- otherwise
provide feedback or make contact with us.
We use such personal information to:
·
communicate
with you, including in response to your enquiries and comments;
·
respond
to access to information requests made by you;
·
handle
and resolve complaints made by you;
·
process
your application for employment with us; or
·
keep
the personal information that we hold about you accurate and up-to-date (if you
provide any new personal information to us via the website)
We may not be able to fully respond to your
enquiries, comments, information requests or complaints if you do not provide
us with sufficient personal information to allow us to do so.
We may also collect information about you via
cookie files. A cookie is a small text
file that is placed on to your computer or other access device when you visit
our website. We use cookie files for
analytics purposes to gather statistical information on your use of our website
and to improve your experience of using our website.
The information we obtain from our use of
cookies will not usually contain your personal information. Although we may
obtain information about your computer or other access device, such as your IP
address, your browser and / or other internet log information, this will not
usually identify you personally.
The table below provides more information about
the cookies we use and why:
Name of cookie
|
Owner
|
Purpose
of the cookie
|
Google Analytics
|
Google Inc.
|
This is a web analytics service provided by
Google Inc., which uses cookies to show us how you found and explored our website,
and how we can enhance your experience. It provides us with information about
how you used our website e.g. how long you stayed on the website, the average
number of pages viewed and also tells us how many visitors we have had.
|
ASP.NET_SessionId
|
Water Industry Commission for Scotland
|
This cookie ensures that you connect to the
right service on our website when we make any changes to the way the website
works, but it will not be used to gather any personal information about you.
|
__utma
__utmb
__utmc
__utmz
|
Water Industry Commission for Scotland
|
This cookie collects information about how
you use our website, such as which pages you visit and if you experience any
errors. These cookies do not collect any information that could identify you,
and the information is only used to help us improve how our website works and
understand our visitors’ interests.
|
civicAllowCookies
civicShowCookieIcon
|
Water Industry Commission for Scotland
|
This cookie remembers the settings you have
applied, such as layout, text size, preferences and colours. Information may be shared with partners to
provide a service on our website, but will not be used for any other purpose.
|
If you do not want to accept cookies, you can
change your browser settings so that cookies are not accepted. If you do this,
please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of our website.
2. What is our legal basis for holding and using your personal
information?
Data protection laws require us to have a legal
reason for collecting, holding and using your personal information.
In some circumstances, we may rely on your consent as the
legal reason. By providing us with your
personal information and sensitive personal information (relating to your
health, racial or ethnic origin, religious or other beliefs or sexual
orientation) and the personal information and sensitive personal information of
other individuals via our website, you:
•
consent to it being
used by us as described in section 1 of this policy; and
•
confirm that you have
informed the other individuals of 12 years old and above of the content of this
policy and they have provided their consent to their personal information and
sensitive personal information being used by us as described in section 1 of
this policy.
You and the other individuals have the right to withdraw
your consent to us holding and using your and their personal information and
sensitive personal information by contacting us. Once you / they have withdrawn your / their
consent, we will no longer use your / their personal information and sensitive
personal information for the purpose(s) set out in section 1 of this policy,
which you originally agreed to, unless we have another legal reason for doing
so.
Our other legal reasons for holding and using
your personal information are:
·
compliance
with the legal and regulatory obligations that apply to us, such as access to
information laws;
·
exercise
of our official authority vested in us in terms of the Water Services etc.
(Scotland) Act 2005 and associated legislation; and
·
our
legitimate interests – while you have a legitimate interest in the protection
of your personal information, we also have an overriding legitimate interest in
handling and using your personal information, for example, to ensure the
effective functioning and availability of our website.
3. Who do we share your personal information with?
We do not ordinarily share personal information
about visitors to our website with third parties. However, we may share such personal
information with law enforcement agencies for the prevention or detection of
crime where communications that you send to us via our website would suggest
that you have engaged, or are about to engage, in unlawful or criminal
activity.
4. How long do we keep your personal information?
We will only keep your personal information for
as long as we need to for the purposes described in section 1 of this policy,
including to meet any legal, accounting, reporting or regulatory
requirements. More information is contained
in our data retention policy, which is available by contacting our Data
Protection Officer (DPO).
5. How do we keep your personal information secure?
The security of your personal information is of
important to us and we use technical and organisational measures to safeguard
your personal information.
However, while we will use reasonable efforts
to safeguard your personal information, the use of the Internet is not entirely
secure and, for this reason, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal
information that is transferred by or to you via the Internet. If you have any concerns about the security
of your personal information, please contact our DPO for more information.
6. What rights do you have in relation to your personal
information that we collect, hold and use?
It is important that the personal information
that we collect, hold and use about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed of any changes by
contacting our DPO. Under certain
circumstances, the law gives you the right to request:
•
A
copy of your personal information and to check that we are holding and using it
in accordance with legal requirements.
•
Correction
of any incomplete or inaccurate personal information that we hold and use about
you.
•
Deletion
of your personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to
hold and use it. You also have the right
to ask us to do this where you object to us holding and using your personal
information (details below).
•
Temporarily
suspend the use of your personal information, for example, if you want us to check
that it is correct or the reason for processing it.
•
The
transfer of your personal information to another organisation.
You can also object to us holding and using
your personal information where our legal basis is a legitimate interest
(either our legitimate interests or those of a third party).
Please contact our DPO if you wish to make any
of the above requests. When you make a
request, we may ask you for specific information to help us confirm your
identity for security reasons. You will
not need to pay a fee when you make any of the above requests, but we may
charge a reasonable fee or refuse to comply if your request for access is
clearly unfounded or excessive.
7. Feedback and complaints
We welcome your feedback on how we hold and use
your personal information, and this can be sent to our DPO.
You have the right to make a complaint to the
Information Commissioner, the UK regulator for data protection, about how we
hold and use your personal information.
The Information Commissioner’s website is https://ico.org.uk/ and complaints can be
made here.
If you would like to receive this policy in
alternative format, for example, audio, large print or braille, please contact
our DPO.
8. Updates to this policy
We may update this policy at any time, and you should
check this policy occasionally to ensure you are aware of the most recent
version that will apply each time you access our website.
Last updated: May
2018