Privacy Notice - CCTV

This page contains information about:

Who we are

Spelthorne Borough Council (SBC) will be the Data Controller for the personal information it collects via its Council Offices' CCTV system. Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person.

Why we collect your personal information

SBC will use CCTV for the purposes of reducing crime, disorder, anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime by helping to provide a safer environment for those people who work in the offices and for visitors attending the office building.

The Council currently has CCTV installed in its buildings in Staines-Upon-Thames and the attached car parks and external space, a few permanent cameras installed in the borough and may install CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) cameras in various locations within the borough as and when required.

Generally, signs are displayed in all locations, notifying you that overt CCTV is in operation and providing details of whom to contact for further information about the scheme.

There may be occasions, where the council needs to use covert CCTV and therefore there will be no signs displayed notifying you that CCTV is in operation. On such occasions the Council will comply with all relevant legislation, including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).

The main purposes of the CCTV system is to provide assistance to the police and enforcement agencies to detect, deter and prevent crime and disorder; to help identify, apprehend and prosecute offenders; to provide the police/council with evidence to enable criminal and/or civil proceedings to be brought in the courts; and to maintain public order.

Some examples of how we use your data are provided below; please note this is not an exhaustive list:

  • providing evidence in criminal proceedings (Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and Criminal Procedure and Investigation Act 1996)
  • providing evidence in civil proceedings
  • the prevention and reduction of crime and disorder
  • the investigation and detection of crime
  • identification of witnesses

The legal basis for holding and processing the data comes under;

  • Section 163 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
  • Crime and Disorder Act 1998
  • Protection of Freedoms Act 2012
  • In certain Circumstances - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and Health and Safety at Work 1974

Public task - the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law

Who we may share your information with

We will only disclose CCTV recordings or images to third parties such as the police to comply with a legal obligation, or where legally permitted, such as for crime prevention and detection

Information may be shared with:

  • Spelthorne Borough Council CCTV operators
  • internal/external enforcement agencies Trading Standards, HMRC, Immigration
  • Police Forces
  • Fire and Rescue Services
  • we will also share information with Insurance companies, but only when we have a lawful basis to do so

Accessing the information we hold about you

You have the right to request, in writing, details of the information that is held about you and also the right to access a copy of the footage. This may be by the Council providing copies of documents or by inviting you to view the footage at one of its offices, if appropriate.

Spelthorne Borough Council will not charge a fee to access your information. Sometimes there may be information that we are not allowed to show you, such as

  • details about other people - this is called third party information

If you wish to make a Subject Access Request, please follow the link below or email our data protection officer (details at the bottom of this privacy notice).

Making subject access request

How long we keep information about you

All CCTV recordings are retained for a period of 31 days and automatically deleted thereafter. However, on occasions there may be a need to keep images for longer - for example where a crime is being investigated. In these instances, Spelthorne Borough Council will hold your data for up to 12 years after any relevant investigations have been undertaken and closed.

Further information

You, as the data subject, have the following rights:

  • you have the right to be informed via Privacy Notices such as this
  • you have the right to request access to and to receive a copy of any information we hold about you (including in an electronic format) - to request a copy of this information you must make a subject access request in writing
  • if you find that the information Spelthorne Borough Council holds about you is no longer accurate, you have the right to ask to have this corrected
  • you have the right - under certain conditions - to ask us to erase your personal data
  • you may request that Spelthorne Borough Council stops processing your personal data in relation to any council service (this may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you, we will seek to comply with your request but may be required to hold or process information to comply with our legal duties)

To exercise any of these rights contact the Data Protection Officer at data.protection@spelthorne.gov.uk. Please see our website for further information on exercising your rights.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). This is an independent body responsible for making sure that organisations comply with Data Protection legislation.

The ICO will always expect you to have raised your concerns with us before submitting a complaint.

Last modified: 17/09/2025