North Somerset Council is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for the purposes of processing personal data. See the full details of how we use personal data.
When do we process personal data?
In accordance with Section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, North Somerset Council will host a public inquiry in which planning inspectors from the Planning Inspectorate will consider the appeal of Persimmon Homes (Severn Valley) to the council’s refusal to grant outline planning permission as detailed in planning application 21/P/1766/OUT.
Your personal data may be processed by the council as a result of one or more of the following possible involvements in the inquiry:
- Participating in the inquiry by giving evidence to the inspectors either in person in the inquiry chamber or remotely by video-conference
- Attending a live session of the inquiry as a spectator
- Viewing the inquiry through the livestream
- Submitting a comment that you wish to be considered as part of the planning appeal.
Participating in the Inquiry
The inquiry will be live streamed to the internet and each session will be retained on the internet for the duration of the inquiry. As a participant in the inquiry, you must therefore understand that your identity and evidence will be on public display for a period of time without restriction. The record of each session will consist of a mixture of wide shots of the inquiry chamber as well as close up camera shots of individual participants. The audio from the chamber sound system will also form part of the record. Each participant in the inquiry will have a personal microphone which is under the direct control of the individual on a push to talk, push again to silence operation. A visible red light on each microphone clearly indicates when it is live. There are no microphones in the chamber which capture ambient sound.
Attending a live session of the inquiry as a spectator
A public viewing gallery has been established for the purposes of accommodating visitors wishing to watch the proceedings in the chamber. As a visitor sitting in one of the galleries you will not be the focus of the cameras in the chamber however you may be caught in the background of a shot that is being streamed to the internet. It is not possible to provide a camera shot of some of the seating positions in the chamber without also including spectators located in the ground level gallery.
If you do not wish your image to be captured in camera shot under any circumstances, you are advised to view the inquiry proceedings using the live stream and not visit the inquiry chamber.
Audio for the live stream will only be taken from the chamber microphone system which does not pick up ambient noise from the public viewing galleries.
Viewing the inquiry proceedings through the livestream
The inquiry will be streamed to the council’s YouTube channel using the streaming services offered by Google LLC. Individuals wishing to watch the proceedings do so under the terms and conditions offered by Google. The council does not capture any personal data arising from individuals watching the livestream. Live chat will be disabled for the duration of the inquiry, so it is not possible to post comments on the livestream pages.
Submitting a comment that you wish to be considered as part of the planning appeal
A fundamental part of the planning process allows for comments from the public that are relevant to the application to be taken into consideration. You can find detailed guidance covering many aspects of commenting on a planning application, including how we use personal information on our website.
Comments we receive about the Farleigh Farm appeal form part of the public record relating to the inquiry and these are published on the inquiry website.
We operate a policy whereby we routinely redact the following personal details before making comments available online:
- personal contact details for the applicant – for example telephone numbers and email addresses
- signatures
- special category data – for example supporting statements that include information about health conditions or ethnic origin
- information agreed to be confidential
Why do we process your personal data?
We will process personal information as part of this planning appeal as it is overwhelmingly in the public interest for as many people as possible to have access to the decision-making process demonstrated at the public inquiry.
Are we allowed to process your personal data?
We are permitted to process your personal data in the circumstances described in the previous section under Article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us as a data controller by Section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Where you choose to provide information that is categorised as special category information, we are allowed to process that information under Article 9(2)(g) of the GDPR which allows processing for reasons of substantial public interest which are defined in the UK Data Protection Act 2018 Section 10(3) and Schedule 1, Part 2, Paragraph 6:
Processing is necessary for:
(1)(a) the reason of substantial public interest
(2)(b) the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a government department.
Do we share your personal information with other organisations?
As described previously, we will stream the proceedings taking place in the council chamber live to the internet where it is shared without restriction. Each session will be recorded and will be available for future reference as part of the public record of the inquiry. As part of the streaming process we engage the services of Google LLC which acts as a data processor for us. We are satisfied that security of personal data processed by Google as described in the contractual terms and conditions of the service is appropriate for the nature of the personal information involved and given that the intention is for the information to be available in the public domain.
Comments that have been submitted either in favour of, or opposed to, the original planning application will also be published in a redacted form to the internet without restriction as part of the public interest in the transparency of the decision-making process.
As part of the administration of the inquiry regular exchanges of information take place between us and officials at the Planning Inspectorate for which both organisations have entered into a formal information sharing agreement for the duration of the inquiry.
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.
Do we process any personal information outside of the UK or EU?
Each session of the inquiry will be streamed live to the Internet through our YouTube channel and a recording of each session will be retained for future viewing whilst the inquiry continues to sit. Both the livestream and recorded sessions are made available for public consumption without restriction. Data processing through YouTube may incur processing by Google LLC outside of the UK/EU. Embedded in the terms and conditions of Google workspace accounts are standard clauses relating to data protection that ensure an adequate level of protection is afforded to personal data. Further information on these standard clauses can be found on the Google website:
We are satisfied that the assurances provided in the standard terms and conditions provide an adequate level security for the data and is appropriate for information which is intended for public disclosure.
For how long will we retain personal information?
The information processed as part of the livestreaming of the public inquiry will be retained whilst the inquiry continues to sit. The material recorded will be irrevocably deleted within one calendar month of the closure of the inquiry.
Am I subject to any automated decision-making processes as a result of you processing my personal information?
We do not make any automated decisions using the personal information we process as part of the public inquiry.
What information rights do I have under the law?
The General Data Protection Regulation and the UK Data Protection Act give you certain rights over your personal information that we process. Not all of those rights are relevant to the information we process for the purposes of the public inquiry. We do not for example require nor ask for your consent to process your personal information as there are other lawful bases we can use which we have highlighted above in the section headed Are we entitled to process your personal data?
- You have the right to receive ‘concise and transparent information’ about how we handle your personal data. We achieve this through the use of this privacy notice as well as other privacy information published on our website
- You have the right of access to the personal information we hold about you, the reasons it is being processed, whether it is shared with other organisations, how long we hold it for, and whether there has been a security breach involving your personal data. To exercise this right you can make a subject access request online
- You have the right to request that we correct any data we hold about you that is incorrect.
- You have a right to make a complaint if you are unhappy about the way we process your personal information. The procedure for making a complaint is described in the following section.
How to make a complaint about the way we process your personal information
If you wish to make a complaint about how we handle your personal data, we ask that you give our Data Protection Officer the opportunity to respond in the first instance, but you are not obliged to do this. You can make your complaint directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dpo@n-somerset.gov.uk
The Information Commissioner is the designated regulator in the UK for all complaints relating the processing of personal information. If you are unhappy with the way we have managed your information you can seek more advice and raise a complaint via the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at https://www.ico.org.uk
The ICO helpline can be contacted either via a webchat feature on the website or by telephone on 0303 123 1113.
Finally, you can also contact the ICO in writing at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF