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Privacy notice - Council Tax

North Somerset Council is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for the purposes of processing personal data. The Council Tax service is administrated on behalf of North Somerset Council by our partner Liberata UK Ltd.

The information you provide will be held and used in accordance with the requirements of UK and European data protection law. The information will form part of your Council Tax account, and held for six years after the closure and final action on that account.

Unless otherwise agreed with you, we will only collect the minimum personal data required to deliver the service, which includes your name, address, email address and contact telephone number(s). It does not include any special category data. We are required, under the provisions of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, and in accordance with Article 10 of GDPR, to be notified if you are remanded in custody for any period of time.

The information will be used in the administration of council tax; our statutory duty under the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, in accordance with Article 6(1)(c) of GDPR. We will not use your personal information in a way that may cause you unwarranted nuisance.  Failure to provide the information could result in the incorrect administration of your council tax account.

The information provided will be shared with the DWP and HMRC, who have demonstrated that they have a lawful and legitimate interest in the information, due to the official authority they hold. The information will also be shared with Electoral Services, for them to fulfil their legal requirement to contact residents to give them the option to register for the electoral role. The information may also be shared with other teams internally, where they are required to verify the address and identity of a resident.

If your account falls into arrears, if all steps taken to recover the funds owed are unsuccessful, your information will be shared with the Magistrates' Court and, if necessary, enforcement agents, in order to fulfil our legal duty to protect the public purse.

We may lawfully disclose information to public sector agencies to prevent or detect fraud or other crime, or to support the national fraud initiatives and protect public funds under the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. Under the conditions of the Digital Economy Act 2017, we may also share personal data provided to us with other public authorities as defined in the Act, for the purposes of fraud or crime detection or prevention, to recover monies owed to us, to improve public service delivery, or for statistical research. We do not share the information with other organisations for commercial purposes, and at no point is your data shared or processed outside of the UK.

As we don’t rely on your consent or we are acting in the public interest, the right of erasure or objection is not relevant in the council tax process. However, you have the right to see the personal data we process about you, as well as the right of rectification and restriction to destruction of records in some circumstances.

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we process your personal data, contact our Data Protection Officer at DPO@n-somerset.gov.uk