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Privacy notice – Smokefree focus groups

North Somerset Council is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for the purposes of processing personal data.  The focus groups and telephone interviews you have agreed to take part in will be conducted on behalf of Smokefree North Somerset who are part of North Somerset Council and will be conducted by our partner, Health Watch North Somerset.

The information you provide will be held and used in accordance with the requirements of UK and European data protection law. Unless otherwise agreed with you, we will only collect the minimum personal data required to deliver the service, which includes name, address and telephone number.

Your name and telephone number will be shared with Health Watch North Somerset who will then use these details to contact you to arrange your attendance at the focus groups or telephone interviews. The information will be held by SmokeFree North Somerset Team, and held until you give notice for this to be deleted. It does not include any special category personal information, or information relating to criminal convictions or offences.

In accordance with Article 6(1)(a) of GDPR, we rely on your consent to process your personal data, and as such you can revoke your consent at any time.  To request removal of your data please contact smokefree North Somerset on 01275 546 744 or email smokefree@n-somerset.gov.uk

Following the interviews/focus groups, with your permission Health Watch will require your postal address so that they may forward you the £25 gift voucher as a thank you to you for taking part. If you wish to, you may decline to give your address however this will mean that we will be unable to provide you with the gift voucher. Your telephone interviewer will ask your permission to use your address to send you your voucher in the post and your consent will be recorded, North Somerset Council will keep a record of your consent. Your address will not be shared with any other organisation and will not be used for any other purpose other than providing you with the voucher. Your address details will be securely stored and deleted once the voucher has been dispatched.

If at any point you decide you do not wish to take part, you can call Health Watch on 01275 851 400.

Following the focus groups/telephone interviews, a report will be produced detailing the responses of all participants who took part. However, all answers will remain completely confidential and anonymous, your personal details will not feature anywhere in the report. The anonymous report will also be shared with NHS North Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group who are funding the work.

We will not use your personal information in a way that may cause you unwarranted nuisance.  Failure to provide the information means that we are unable to offer smoking cessation support to individuals as information is required for health and safety reasons.

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.

You have the right to see the personal data we process about you, as well as the right of rectification and restriction (of destruction of records only). 

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