Elections

In order to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), where personal data relating to a data subject is collected, Lancashire County Council would like to provide you with the following details.

Identity and contact details of the data controller

  • Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Contact details of the data protection officer

  • Our Data Protection Officer is Paul Bond. You can contact him at dpo@lancashire.gov.uk or Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Purposes for processing

Lancashire County Council processes your personal data in order to fulfil its responsibilities in relation to the organisation and administration of elections.

Lancashire County Council has a Returning Officer who acts as a data controller for personal data processed for these purposes. The Returning Officer for Lancashire County Council is as follows,

Angie Ridgwell, Returning Officer, Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ (Information Commissioner's Officer reference: ZA342720)

The Returning Officer has the following duties in connection with the conduct of elections:

  • publishing the notice of election
  • administering the nomination process
  • printing the ballot papers
  • publishing the notice of poll, statement of persons nominated and notice of situation of polling stations
  • the provision of polling stations
  • appointing Presiding Officers and Poll Clerks
  • managing the postal voting process
  • verifying and counting the votes
  • declaring the result

The Returning Officer appoints deputy Returning Officers who act on behalf of the Returning Officer in each district council. Your personal data will be processed in order to carry out these functions as required.

District councils within Lancashire have Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) who undertake some duties on behalf of Lancashire County Council in the delivery of the county council elections.

Each of these Electoral Registration Officers acts as a data controller with a statutory duty to process certain personal data to maintain the electoral register.

The Electoral Registration Officers within each District Council collect and process information about you for the following purposes:

  • Registering you to vote.
  • Processing an application for a postal or proxy vote.

Category of personal data being processed

  1. Personal data (information relating to a living, identifiable individual)
  2. Special category personal data (racial, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation)

Legal basis for processing personal data

The legal basis for processing your personal data, in accordance with the UK GDPR is:

(e) Public Task: the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law. You must reference the applicable task/function and its' basis in law if you wish to rely on this basis for processing.

Your personal data for the purposes set out in this privacy notice and relies on the lawful basis UK GDPR Article 6 (1) (e) to do so.

We rely on this lawful basis by virtue of the following legislation:

  • Representation of the People Act 1983, 1985 and 2000
  • Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000
  • Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001
  • Local Elections (Principal Areas) (England and Wales) Rules 2006
  • Local Elections (Parishes and Communities) (England and Wales) Rules 2006
  • Electoral Administration Act 2006
  • Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013
  • The Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013

Legal basis for processing special categories of personal data

The legal basis for processing your special categories of personal data, in accordance with the UK GDPR is:

(g) Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

(j) Processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes.

Lancashire County Council processes your personal data for the purposes set out in this privacy notice and relies on the lawful basis UK GDPR Article 9 (2) (g) to do so.

The lawful basis for processing special category data for electoral purposes is the performance of a public task (for example administering the election) that it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest and with a basis in UK law.

Recipients of the data

Your personal data may be shared by the Lancashire County Council Returning Officer with the following individuals and organisations:

  • Deputy Returning Officers operating on the Returning Officer's behalf
  • Electoral Returning Officers operating within Lancashire
  • Local authorities within Lancashire

Information we share

The following categories of personal data may be processed by the Returning Officer, Deputy Returning Officers and local Electoral Returning Officers during the preparation for and conduct of elections:

  • Basic details about you, for example, name, address, date of birth and nationality
  • Unique identifiers (such as your NI number),
  • Scanned application forms & dates of any letters of correspondence,
  • Notes about any relevant circumstances that you have told us
  • Details and records about the service you have received,
  • Your previous or any redirected address
  • The other occupants in your home
  • If you are over 76 or under 16/17
  • Whether you have chosen to opt out of the Open version of the Register

Any transfers to another country

In certain circumstances we may transfer your information to organisations in other countries on the basis that anyone to whom we pass it to protects it in the same way we would and in accordance with applicable laws.

Retention periods

The Returning Officer (as well deputy Returning Officers and Electoral Returning Officers) are obliged to process your personal data in relation to preparing for and conducting elections.

Your details will be kept and updated in accordance with our legal obligations and in line with statutory retention periods.

Your rights

You have certain rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), these are the right:

  • to be informed via Privacy Notices such as this.
  • to withdraw your consent. If we are relying on your consent to process your data then you can remove this at any point.
  • of access to any personal information the council holds about yourself. To request a copy of this information you must make a subject access request in writing. You are entitled to receive a copy of your personal data within 1 calendar month of our receipt of your subject access request. If your request is complex then we can extend this period by a further two months, if we need to do this we will contact you. You can request a subject access request, either via a letter or via an email to Information Governance Team, address below.
  • of rectification, we must correct inaccurate or incomplete data within one month.
  • to erasure. You have the right to have your personal data erased and to prevent processing unless we have a legal obligation to process your personal information.
  • to restrict processing. You have the right to suppress processing. We can retain just enough information about you to ensure that the restriction is respected in future.
  • to data portability. We can provide you with your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable form when asked.
  • to object. You can object to your personal data being used for profiling, direct marketing or research purposes.
  • in relation to automated decision making and profiling, to reduce the risk that a potentially damaging decision is taken without human intervention.

If you want to exercise any of these rights then you can do so by contacting:

Information Governance Team
Lancashire County Council
PO Box 78
County Hall
Preston
PR1 8XJ

Or email: dpo@lancashire.gov.uk

To ensure that we can deal with your request as efficiently as possible you will need to include your current name and address, proof of identity (a copy of your driving licence, passport or two different utility bills that display your name and address), as much detail as possible regarding your request so that we can identify any information we may hold about you, this may include your previous name and address, date of birth and what council service you were involved with.

Further information

If you would like any further information about Electoral Services within the County Council please contact Elections@lancashire.gov.uk.

For more information about how we use personal information see Lancashire County Council's full privacy notice.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact the Information Governance team who will investigate the matter.

Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ or email: dataprotection@lancashire.gov.uk

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).