Privacy Notice, Disclaimer & Copyright

At Citizens Advice we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information we:

• only access it when we have a good reason
• only share what is necessary and relevant
• don’t sell it to anyone

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

• to comply with the law – for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’
• to protect someone’s life – for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’
• to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity – for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’
• for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest – for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’
• to carry out a contract we have with you – for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’
• to defend our legal rights – for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law – including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

You can check our main Citizens Advice policy for how we handle most of your personal information.

This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.

How Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham collect your data

We collect data which you give us voluntarily. We use ‘legitimate interest’ as the basis for recording your name, address and contact details. Where we collect ‘special category’ data (such as ethnicity or disability) we ask for your explicit permission to record this. When we see you face to face we do this by asking you to sign a consent form.

What Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham ask for
To find out what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy

How Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham use your information
To find out how we use your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy

Working on your behalf
When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, we’ll need to share information with that third party (for example, the DWP, the Council, your creditors).

How Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham store your information
Details of your case, contact details and special category data that you have consented to our recording for the purposes of assisting you are stored on our national Casebook case-recording system.

How Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham share your information
We also ask for your consent to share your data with relevant third parties where necessary in order to assist you, or where the funder of the service we are assisting you under wants us to do so. We will always explain who we are sharing your data with and why we are sharing it. Organisations that we frequently share data with (with your permission) include Hammersmith & Fulham Council, Hammersmith & Fulham Law Centre, and Debt Free Advice. Debt Advice under the Debt Free Advice project is funded by the Money and Pensions Service who are mandated by the Government to fund and improve the quality, consistency and availability of debt advice. As this is a statutory function, if we are assisting you under Debt Free Advice your data will be shared with the Money and Pensions Service, their lead delivery partner in London, Toynbee Hall, and Recognising Excellence, appointed by them for quality control purposes, unless you object.

Contact Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham about your information
If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our registered office, which is:

Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham
Avonmore Library & Neighbourhood Centre
7 North End Crescent
London W14 8TG
Email: manager@cahf.org.uk

Our office is open Monday to Friday 10am-5pm

You can contact us to:

• find out what personal information we hold about you
• correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete
• request we delete your information
• ask us to limit what we do with your data – for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already
• ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service
• ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information
The national Citizens Advice charity and Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means we and national Citizens Advice are ‘joint data controllers’ for your personal information that’s stored in the Casebook system.

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.

You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.

Website disclaimer
Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham has tried to ensure that the information on this website is accurate. However, Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham will not accept liability for any loss, damage or inconvenience arising as a consequence of any use of or the inability to use any information on this website. Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham endeavours to provide a service of the highest quality. However, we cannot guarantee that our service will be uninterrupted or error-free. We are not responsible for claims brought by third parties arising from your use of this website.

Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham assumes no responsibility for the contents of linked websites. The inclusion of any link should not be taken as endorsement of any kind by Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham, of the linked website or any association with its operators. Further, we have no control over the availability of the linked pages.

Copyright
Material on this website, including text and images, is protected by copyright. It may not be copied, reproduced, republished, downloaded, posted, broadcast or transmitted in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Prior written consent of the copyright holder must be obtained for any other use of material. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham and other copyright owner(s) as specified. No part of this site may be distributed or copied for any commercial purpose.

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