Privacy Notice - Infectious Disease

Who we are

Spelthorne Borough Council's Commercial team is part of the Environmental Health Department and we have a duty to investigate certain cases of infectious disease.

What we need

As part of an infectious disease investigation we may ask you to complete a medical questionnaire. The information required will include; name, gender, address, phone number, email, date of birth, doctor's surgery address, details of places visited, details of food and water consumed. In certain circumstances details of sexual activity may also be requested.

We will do this if you are a resident in the borough that submitted a stool sample following a gastrointestinal illness and the laboratory test has shown the presence of an infectious disease, or where you may be linked to an outbreak under investigation. Following national arrangements under the Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010, Spelthorne Borough Council's Commercial Team will be informed of this result. In order for us to establish the cause of your illness it is important that we investigate the case as fully as possible. We would therefore request your cooperation in filling out the appropriate questionnaire related to your illness.

Where a significant outbreak occurs an incident investigation report into the incident may be created.  

Why we need it

The purpose of this information is to enable investigation and to minimize the spread of infectious disease in the community.

What we do with it

Your personal information will be treated as confidential. It will be accessed by authorised Council employees and may be shared with other agencies including but not limited Public Health England, GPs, Health and Safety Executive and other Local Authorities. We will only use your information in ways which are permitted by the General Data Protection Regulations and the current UK Data Protection law.

This authority has a duty to protect the public funds it administers, and may use information held about you for all lawful purposes, including but not limited to the prevention and detection of crime including fraud and money laundering.

The Council may also use your information for the purpose of performing any of its statutory enforcement duties. It will make any disclosures required by law and may also share your information with other bodies responsible for detecting/preventing crime including fraud or auditing/administering public funds.

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

You 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)

If you require further information about the use of your data or would like to exercise any of the above rights, please contact the data protection officer, whose contact details are below.

How long we keep your information

We will keep your information for as long as it is required by us or other regulatory bodies in order to comply with legal and regulatory requirements or for other operational reasons. More information on our retention schedule can be found on our website.

Use of cookies

The Spelthorne Borough Council Web site use "cookies" to help you personalise your online experience, for more information on this please see our cookie policy.

Contacts

If you have any concerns about how this Department or the Council is handling your personal data, these can be raised with the Council's Data Protection Officer:

Spelthorne Borough Council, Council Offices, Knowle Green, Staines upon Thames, TW18 1XB

Email: data.protection@spelthorne.gov.uk

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.