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Cookie and Privacy statement

Cookies

The Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service website does not automatically capture or store personal information, other than logging the user's IP address and session information, such as the duration of the visit and the type of browser used. This is recognised by the web server and is only used for system administration and to provide statistics that Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service uses to evaluate the use of the site.

We use cookies on this site for accessibility settings, and to manage the Azure translate feature, they are necessary for the site to function and are not used for data collection.

We also use cookies for Google Analytics to monitor the effectiveness of our site, the information collected is anonymous and users are presented with an option to accept or decline these when they visit the site.

Online forms on our website have a short privacy statement you can read before you enter any data.

Privacy

Scope

This privacy notice applies to all individuals to which the NFRS collects personal information.

Summary

Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you when you make contact with us or use one of our services. This is all done in accordance with data protection law, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Security classification: Official
Author: Information Governance and Data Protection Officer
Department: Strategic Support
Approved by: Head of Strategic Support

Version Date Modified by Changes
1.0 23/01/2024 IG Officer Updated to new template

  1. Key information

    1. Introduction

      1. 1.1 Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you when you make contact with us or use one of our services. This is all done in accordance with data protection law, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
      2. Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service ‘NFRS’ is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.
      3. The processing of personal data is covered by the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.

    2. Data Protection Principles

      1. We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:
        • Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
        • Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
        • Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
        • Accurate and kept up to date.
        • Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
        • Kept securely.

    3. What kind of information does NFRS collect about you and for what purpose?

      1. NFRS collects personal data, or personal information, which means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed which is classed as anonymous data and not covered under the data protection act.
      2. We use personal information about members of the public, businesses, and organisations to provide fire prevention, fire protection and emergency services to the communities that we serve. We also collect and use personal information relating to our own staff.
      3. We collect, store, and use personal information about you for the following purposes:
        • Firefighting, responding to road traffic accidents and other emergency situations.
        • Identifying risk areas, taking referrals and carrying out home safety visits.
        • Fire investigations at homes, business, and public areas.
        • Fire prevention awareness, advice, assistance, and events.
        • Business fire safety concerns, advice, inspections, and enforcement actions for businesses and some types of shared accommodation fire safety. Fire safety inspectors sometimes use body worn video cameras to help with their inspections.
        • Improving community safety
        • Reducing arson
        • Responding to community emergencies
        • Planning our services and checking the quality and effectiveness of our services
        • Maintaining our own records and accounts
        • To check our services, meet legal duties, including for diversity and equality of opportunity
        • To get your feedback about our services
        • Supporting and managing our staff and to help with workforce planning
        • For firefighter and support staff pensions
        • CCTV on our buildings and vehicles for the investigation of emergency incidents, and for prevention and detection of crime
        • Investigating complaints about our services

  2. Primary information

    1. Legal reasons for using your personal data

      1. We keep and use this information to manage our relationship with you effectively, lawfully and appropriately, during our operations.
      2. All the reasons we use your personal data meet at least one of the reasons in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
        • To carry out our public duties of a Fire and Rescue Service from the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.
        • To meet our duties under the Equality Act 2010.
        • To work with other public organisations such as the police, ambulance service and local councils for public safety including community emergency responses under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
        • For the investigation, detection, and prevention of crime or if we are required to do so by law.
        • To protect someone from danger from themselves or others. This could be danger to you, people around you, our staff, or staff in other services like the Police or Ambulance Service.
        • Explicit consent for activities that help us in carrying out our public duty of improving general community safety.
        • For staff recruitment, employment, or social security reasons.

    2. The categories of the information that we collect, process, hold and share include:

      1. To deliver our services effectively, we may need to collect and process personal data about you. We collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

        For taking 999 calls and responding to emergencies:

        • Incident details, including location
        • What services have been provided
        • Recording of 999 calls
        • Type of household, e.g., single occupant, children
        • Information about buildings which might affect how we respond to an emergency, for example, stored flammable goods
        • Any specific communication needs for 999 calls (Pegasus scheme)
        • Specific risks, for example, large amounts of fuel stored at a property

        For community emergency response and recovery with other agencies:

        • Needs of specific households, e.g. need for evacuation or delivery of specific items
        • Type of household and any specific needs, e.g. single occupant, children, general health vulnerability

        For advising on fire risks at home:

        • Personal details – for example, name, age, address
        • Contact information
        • Physical or mental health details
        • Lifestyle and social circumstances relating to fire risk or other high risks
        • Opinions and decisions on fire safety
        • What services have been provided

        To identify community fire risks:

        • Locations of fire related incidents
        • Addresses of fire related risks, e.g., occupiers over 65, use of home oxygen, threats of arson
        • Neighbourhood characteristics information (like census information)
        • Types of electrical items involved in fires

        For business fire safety advice and enforcement action:

        • Contact information
        • Licenses, certificates held
        • Opinions and decisions on fire safety

        To check our services, meet legal duties, including for diversity and equality of opportunity:

        • Age group
        • Gender identity
        • Disability
        • Racial or ethnic origin
        • Religious or other beliefs
        • Sexual orientation

        When you make an information request, or make a complaint:

        • Contact information
        • Details of your request or complaint
      2. We will never use your data for third party marketing.

    3. How we protect your information

      1. We are committed to keeping your personal data safe. We have physical, electronic and organisational procedures to protect and safely use the information that we hold about you. These include:
        • Secure work areas and storage.
        • Information security training for all staff.
        • Access controls on information systems.
        • Encryption of personal data and cybersecurity.
        • Testing and checking security controls.
        • Checking privacy when we change how we use or store personal information. We use privacy impact assessments as part of business plans.
        • Written contracts with companies we use for storing or processing information.
      2. Where we use more sensitive data, like health information, we protect this information with extra controls.
      3. We use anonymised data wherever we can, so individuals can't be identified.
      4. Our commitments are in our Data Protection policy (POL 3004).

    4. Where do we get your information from?

      1. During recruitment and selection, you provide some personal employment information yourself that we process, but we also use other sources during recruitment and selection. For example, from the Disclosure and Barring Service for criminal record checks, referees to confirm suitability for post and doctors for medical reports.

      We collect data using:

        • Online forms to use our services
        • Telephone calls
        • Personal contact including visits and events
        • Letters and paper forms
        • Emails
        • Large sets of information, like census information

      Who we might get your personal information from:

        • You
        • Your family members, employer or representative
        • Your landlord
        • Other public bodies such as the police, ambulance service, local councils, and the NHS
        • Charities and support services who you have given permission to share your information for fire safety reasons
        • Other organisations such as companies who you have given permission to share your information for security or key holding purposes
        • Office of National Statistics and other neighbourhood data providers

    5. Who do we share your personal information with?

      1. We may share your information with: Sometimes, we share personal information about you with others. These organisations include, but are not limited to:
        • Other blue light emergency services, for example police and ambulance so we can respond to incidents.
        • Public utilities, for example to cut off a gas supply in an emergency.
        • Local councils, if we have serious concerns about your wider safety that a local council can help with. Also, electrical item safety.
        • Local Resilience Forum (Opens in a new window) organisations (e.g. Councils, Health, Utilities), if we are part of an emergency response.
        • NHS, if needed for public health.
        • Welfare organisations if you agree to your information being shared.
        • Central government, for example anonymised information about our activities used for national fire statistics.
        • Courts and law enforcement, prosecuting authorities, solicitors.
        • Insurance companies and loss adjusters where they are authorised to act on your behalf following an incident at your property.
        • For staff, employee assistance programmes and pension providers.
      2. Information will only be shared when it's strictly necessary, to help us meet a legal duty, you agree, or it's fair to share under another data protection reason. You may have the right to refuse.
      3. We may use some commercial companies to store and manage your information on our behalf, for example, we use Microsoft 365. Where we do this, there is always a contract to ensure that the requirements of the GDPR on handling personal data are met.

  3. Support information

    1. How long we keep your information

      1. We only keep your information for as long as we need it. This is to meet our legal responsibilities and best practice reasons. For example, we keep home safety check records and finance information for eight years, we keep unsuccessful recruitment information for one year, and we keep 999 call recordings for six months unless we need them longer for criminal investigations.

    2. Automatic decision making and use of information to assess risk of fire safety

      1. NFRS use an online questionnaire for the public to ask for home fire safety advice. Your answers are used to provide you with standard fire safety information or to offer you a personalised fire risk check and advice. You can contact us to ask we consider your personal situation if you're unhappy with the information or offer of a personalised fire risk check.
      2. NFRS use information about communities that may put households at a higher fire risk. For example, NHS England, the Royal College of General Practitioners and fire and rescue services in England work together to share information to allow fire service staff to offer Home Safety Checks for people who have a higher risk of experiencing a house fire. This is by sharing data that lets NFRS identify home address of people over 65 so we can offer home fire safety checks to households identified with a possible higher fire risk. If you want more information about how NHS England use and share your information, please click on the following link: NHS Privacy Information

    3. Requesting access to your personal data and your rights

      1. Under data protection law, you have rights for use of your personal data. You have the right to:
        • Be informed of how we process it.
        • Request a copy of what we hold about you.
        • Have it deleted (where we don’t have a legal requirement to keep it).
        • Correct any errors in your personal information and restrict processing until completed.
        • Object to us using it, depending on its use and the legal basis for this. For example, we can’t stop using salary information for taxation.
        • Erase personal information, depending on the service and legal basis.
        • Data portability (in certain circumstances).
        • Withdraw consent and have your data deleted, if consent is used as the legal
        • basis for that data.
        • To be informed of any automated decision making if we use this.
      2. Where possible we will try to meet your request, but we may need to hold, retain or process information to comply with a legal duty.
      3. If you want a copy of, or a description of, the personal data we hold that relates to you, you can contact HR or OH direct or contact DataProtection@notts-fire.gov.uk. Please be as specific as possible about the information you want.
      4. We will reply with your information within one month of receipt. There are some lawful restrictions on information we send you, for example, other people's personal information.
      5. Please send your request:
      6. Post:
        Subject Access Request, Strategic Support, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, Joint Headquarters, Sherwood Lodge, Arnold, Nottingham, NG5 8PP
      7. Fax: 0115 926 1081
      8. Email: DataProtection@notts-fire.gov.uk
      9. Phone: 0115 967 0880
      10. We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our services and feedback from staff, as well as to comply with changes in the law. When such changes occur, we will revise the 'last updated' date at the top of this notice.

    4. Data Protection Officer contact details

      1. Our Data Protection Officer is Christopher Smith. If you wish to contact him, you can do so using the following:
      2. Email: DataProtection@notts-fire.gov.uk
      3. Post:
        Information Governance and Data Protection Officer, Strategic Support, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, Joint Headquarters, Sherwood Lodge, Arnold, Nottingham, NG5 8PP
      4. Or you can contact us via our webform contact us

    5. How to complain

      1. If you want to complain about your personal information rights please contact the NFRS Information Governance and Data Protection Officer:
      2. Email: DataProtection@notts-fire.gov.uk
      3. Post:
        Information Governance and Data Protection Officer, Strategic Support, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, Joint Headquarters, Sherwood Lodge, Arnold, Nottingham, NG5 8PP
      4. If you're not happy with how we deal with your personal information complaint you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO is an independent body set up to uphold information rights in the UK. They can also provide advice and guidance and can be contacted through their website: www.ico.org.uk, or their helpline on 0303 123 1113, or in writing to:
      5. Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF