Bereavement Services - privacy notice

Information about how the Cemeteries and Crematorium Service uses your personal data

St Helens Borough Council Bereavement Services are committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. This Privacy Notice explains how the Cemeteries and Crematorium Service (as a Data Controller) collects, uses and protects personal data that we hold.

Data Controller

St Helens Borough Council is the data controller. This means it decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.

St Helens Borough Council
Bereavement Services
St Helens Crematorium
Rainford Road
St Helens
WA10 6DF 

Personal Data

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller's possession or likely to come into such possession.

Issues of how data is handled are dealt with by the council's Data Protection Officer, who can be contacted by email at dataprotection@sthelens.gov.uk.

As a public authority, we must comply with all relevant legislation relating to data handling.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is the supervisory authority in the United Kingdom established to ensure that your data rights are upheld. See Formal Resolution below for the ICO address.

Categories of personal data we hold

Obtaining, recording, holding and dealing with personal information is known as 'processing'.

Information collected by the Cemeteries and Crematorium Service:

• Name
• Address
• Contact telephone number
• Email

How departments within the council collect and use your personal data

St Helens Borough Council has overall responsibility for a wide range of public services across our local authority area and it is necessary to collect personal data to enable those services to be delivered to residents.

St Helens Bereavement Services process your information in line with Data Protection Regulations. The lawful basis for processing personal data is to comply with the Cremation Regulations 2018 and Local Authorities Cemeteries Order 1977.

Providing a service

We hold the details of those people who have requested a service in order to provide it. However, we only use these details to provide the service requested or for other closely related services.  

Marketing

St Helens Borough Council Bereavement Services provide discretionary memorial information, available within the service, in order to inform users of our services, which may interest you. This personal data is collected only where you provide your consent that you wish to be informed. 

You are able to and have the right to unsubscribe or ask for your data to be erased when you no longer wish to receive marketing information.

The source of personal data

The vast majority of personal data we hold will have been provided to us directly from you.  

In addition to this, St Helens Crematorium/Cemetery has CCTV for the interest of safety.

How we protect your data

We will take appropriate steps to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we will only make them available to those who have a right to see them.

People we share data with

Data will only be shared with others where it is to enable a requested or statutory service to be provided. This could be where we collaborate with other agencies, for example Funeral Directors, to open a grave for a burial to take place.

Transfer of information required by law

We also share personal information where we are required to do so by law. Examples include where we are required to publish or report matters to the government, to assist law enforcement agencies to prevent, detect and prosecute crime, to protect the vital interests of the person concerned or to comply with a court order.

How long we keep your data

Data is held for no longer than is necessary and the council follows legal, financial and regulatory requirements as well as professional best practice on how long information should be kept before destruction or archiving.

Information will be kept for a maximum of 15 years from the date the paperwork is received at St Helens Crematorium or until such time as the data is reviewed by us. However, applicant and grave record details will remain on the cremation register or grave record indefinitely to comply with the Cremation Regulations 2018 and Local Authorities Cemeteries Order 1977.

Transfers outside the European Economic Area

We do not share personal information beyond the European Economic Area (EEA).  

If ever a situation arose that your personal information might be transferred outside of the EEA, you would be notified beforehand and consent sought if required and recorded, providing that does not conflict with a legal obligation imposed upon the council.  

Your data rights

Right to be informed

We must be completely transparent with you by providing information 'in a concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language'. Our privacy notice is one of the ways we try and let you know how data is handled.

Right of access

You have the right to access your personal information except where:

• It contains confidential information about other people and the council has to balance the rights of other individuals
• Includes information a care professional thinks will cause serious harm to your or someone else's physical or mental wellbeing
• information which may prejudice an investigation if disclosed

Right to rectification

You have the right without undue delay to request the rectification or updating of inaccurate personal data.

Right to restrict processing

You can ask for there to be a restriction of processing such as where the accuracy of the personal data is contested. This means that we may only store the personal data and not further process it except in limited circumstances.

Right to object

You can object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing. The right to object also applies to other types of processing such as processing for scientific, historical research or statistical purposes (although processing may still be carried out for reasons of public interest).

Right to erasure or 'right to be forgotten'

You can request the erasure of your personal data when:

• the personal data is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected and processed.
• the council's lawful basis for processing your personal data was consent and you no longer provide your consent and there is no other legal ground for the processing, or
• you object to the processing and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing. The Information Commissioner regulates data handling by organisations in the UK and works to uphold the data rights of citizens. The Information Commissioner's website provides more information on the rights available to you.

Withdrawing consent

If you consented to providing your personal information for marketing purposes to us and you have changed your mind and you no longer want the council to hold and process your information, please let us know. In the first instance please contact the relevant department.

Withdrawing consent should be as easy to do as when you provided consent in the first place. If that isn't your experience with a particular service, it is important you let us know of your difficulties so that we can put that right.

If you encounter any difficulties in withdrawing consent, please contact the council's Data Protection Officer by email at dataprotection@sthelens.gov.uk or by writing to: Data Protection Officer, St Helens Borough Council, Town Hall, Victoria Square, St Helens, Merseyside, WA10 1HP.

The council does not carry out automated decision-making, and as such any decision taken by us which affects you will always include human intervention. We do on occasion carry out profiling to enable us as a local authority to target services to those in society who are in need of help and support and who may suffer harm without our assistance.

The right to complain about data handling

The council sets very high standards for the collection and appropriate use of personal data. We therefore take any complaints about data handling very seriously. We encourage you to bring to our attention where the use of data is unfair, misleading or inappropriate and we also welcome suggestions for improvement.

Informal resolution

In the first instance we would ask that you try and resolve data handling issues directly with the relevant department before applying for a formal resolution.

Formal resolution

You can ask for your issue to be investigated by our Information Complaints handler in writing by email, phone or website.

If you are dissatisfied with the resolution of your complaint, you can request a review by the Data Protection Officer by email at dataprotection@sthelens.gov.uk or by writing to:

Data Protection Officer, St Helens Borough Council, Town Hall, Victoria Square, St Helens, Merseyside, WA10 1HP.

If you remain dissatisfied following an internal complaint, you can lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner: 

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Tel: 0303 123 1113

Changes to our Privacy Notice

We regularly review our privacy notice and encourage you to check it from time to time. This notice was last updated in December 2018. 

Privacy Notice for live streaming