Privacy Policy

Citizens Advice Brighton & Hove Privacy Policy

At Citizens Advice Brighton & Hove  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

We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation. We’ll always explain how we use your information.

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.

What Citizens Advice Brighton and Hove ask for

To find out what information we ask for, 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. Third parties may include the local DWP Jobcentre or a council department that provides discretionary funding, for example. We will not share your information without your consent and understanding why we are sharing it.

How Citizens Advice Brighton & Hove store your information

We store information about our clients securely using the national Citizens Advice case management system Casebook. We use 2-step verification to access this information and no-one outside of Citizens Advice Brighton & Hove has access to any of our systems. We store some information securely on our local server. 

How Citizens Advice Brighton and Hove share your information

We have a partnership  with the cancer charity Macmillan and we administrate and provide advice casework for the Macmillan Welfare Benefits Service at the Horizon Centre. We will share your information with that service with your consent only.

We provide debt advice funded by the Money and Pension Service. We record personal and financial information to provide advice and manage debt cases with clients. We produce anonymous statistics for use by other organisations (e.g. Government departments, local authorities and MAS).  We will also gather consent for clients to be evaluated by a research company to help us improve our service.

Contact Citizens Advice Brighton & Hove about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office. Please submit your query through our online enquiry form or call our office number on 01273 733390 ext 510.

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 your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system. 

Citizens Advice Brighton & Hove 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.