Privacy Notice - Big Conversation workshops

This privacy notice explains how North Somerset Council collects, uses, and protects your personal data for workshops taking place as part of the Big Conversation project.

North Somerset Council is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for the purposes of processing personal data. For full details of how we use personal data, please see the Privacy section on our website. 

The workshops are being held as part of our Big Conversation community engagement project. The Big Conversation aims to understand what local people think about a future with cleaner, healthier, safer and more connected transport and travel in North Somerset. 

Workshop discussions are an important part of the Big Conversation, allowing us to hear from a range of people and groups through meaningful, in-depth conversations. What we hear will help set our vision for cleaner, healthier travel, putting us in a better position to collaborate with communities, and to secure the future funding needed to make it possible. 

When it will be processed

The main purpose of processing participants’ personal data is to communicate workshop arrangements and to follow up about matters arising through workshop discussions, if needed. We will also capture participants’ voices (categorised as biometric data) when recording the workshop, which is solely for the purposes of transcription and to analyse themes from the discussion, to identify the key findings of the Big Conversation project.

Why it will be processed

We collect your personal information to:

• contact you with the workshop details for the workshop you are participating in
• follow up on matters arising through the workshop discussions, if needed
• capture consenting participants’ voices (categorised as biometric data) when we record the audio from the workshop discussion. This recording is made solely for the purposes of transcription, to help us effectively analyse discussion themes and identify key findings from the Big Conversation project.

How we are allowed to process your data

Within the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), we are permitted to process the personal information we gather. This is because we believe processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the exercise of official authority vested in us as a local council under Article 6(1)(a) – Consent and Article 9(2)(a) – Processing of special categories of personal data.

What data we will process

When taking part in a workshop for the Big Conversation project, we may collect your personal information from you if you:

1. share your personal information, such as your name and email address, with us voluntarily, through correspondence related to the workshop, or completion of the participation agreement form
2. give your email address voluntarily or other contact information voluntarily to receive further updates from us about the Big Conversation project
3. voluntarily give personally identifiable information as comments made during workshop discussions as they are recorded (manually and using digital audio technology), on the understanding that this is solely for the purposes of transcription and analysis by the project team after the workshop. 

Sharing your data with other organisations

Workshop discussion data will be reviewed by North Somerset Council officers managing the Big Conversation, to understand the key findings from the project.

Additionally:

• responses may be shared with relevant council departments or external partners where relevant to their work areas
• all responses will be anonymised before being included in any public reports
• personal information (such as your name, organisation name, or email address) will not be disclosed without your explicit consent unless required by law.

We may also share your personal information with other agencies if required to do so by law, such as for preventing and detecting fraud.

Processing your data outside of the UK

None of the information covered by this privacy notice will be processed outside of the UK or EU.

How long we will keep your data

Your personal details will be retained for a period of six months after the workshop. After this period, your information will be anonymised, ensuring it does not identify you, but allows us to conduct future analysis of workshop discussion data.

However, workshop recordings containing participants’ voices will be deleted as soon as the workshops have been transcribed, no longer than a month afterwards.

Automated decision processes and your data

No decisions are made solely on the basis of automated data processing. 

We will use secure artificial intelligence tools to support qualitative analysis of workshop discussion data, alongside manual review. This tool will only ever be used to supplement human judgment to uncover the key findings of the Big Conversation community engagement project.

The UK General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act give you rights over your personal information that we process. The extent of the rights granted to you is determined by the reasons that the processing is deemed to be allowed; we have explained these reasons in the section earlier on this page. 

The rights that are granted to you relating to the information covered by this privacy notice are:

• you have the right to receive ‘concise and transparent information’ about how we handle your personal data. We achieve this by this privacy notice as well as other privacy information published on this 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 and the process for doing this can be found on our website
• you do not have to make a subject access request in writing or via the website; you can make such a request verbally if you wish
• you have the right to request that we correct any data we hold about you that is inaccurate
• you have the right to request us to restrict the extent of our data processing, for example if you believe that the information we hold about you is incorrect. You might also not want us to delete information as it approaches the end of its retention period. In these circumstances we are allowed to continue to store the information but not use it for any other purpose
• you have the right to object to us processing your personal information in the manner described within this privacy notice. You can do this in writing or by speaking to us. Please contact us initially at consultation@n-somerset.gov.uk
• 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.

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). 

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