Privacy notices

The Council’s Travel Assistance Team works with children and young people who may be entitled to travel assistance if they cannot walk or use public transport to school/college because of their Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or mobility problems. We also work with adults who use our services. Travel assistance is not an automatic right; an assessment is always made of children and adult needs and individual circumstances.

We will ask detailed but necessary information because:

• we need to make sure you are eligible for travel assistance; and
• if we can offer help, we need to be sure that the arrangements are suitable to meet your needs

This Privacy Notice explains why Croydon Council collects and uses your personal information, the reasons for holding it and the third parties to whom we may pass it on to when carrying out the specific functions for which we are responsible for. Under the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018 and the Data Protection Act 2018, this notice applies to any activity involving our use of your personal data, for example, collecting, storing, sharing, and destroying personal information.

The categories of information we process include:

• name, DOB, gender, address, contact number, email address
• unique pupil number
• details of parent/carer and additional emergency contact details
• details of special educational needs and/or disabilities
• educational provision
• medical and health information
• details of any risk factors
• attendance, exclusions and behavioural information
• details of transport requirement and days transport needed
• information that other organisations tell us to help us understand your situation and needs to co-ordinate your transport services more effectively
• written information about you in the form of assessments, support plans and reviews
• any additional information about you given to us by your family and/or carers as part of the application process

Why we collect and use your information

We use your data to:

• enable us to carry out the provision of travel assistance
• establish eligibility for travel assistance in line with our policies and statutory guidance
• comply with Department for Education (DfE) and other government department research and statistical returns
• produce statistics and reports that inform planning and decision-making (e.g. audits and strategies to develop sustainable travel/transport infrastructure to ensure the needs of our service users are best catered for). Statistics are used in such a way that individual children or adults cannot be identified from them
• account for our decisions and investigate complaints
• evaluate, monitor and make sure the service you receive is efficient and effective

The lawful basis on which we use this information

Under GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, the Council must have a lawful basis for processing your information, this includes:

• when you, or your representative, have given consent
• when it is necessary to perform our statutory duties under relevant legislation and associated statutory guidance
• when it is necessary in a contract for the supply of services
• if we need to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights, including protecting public interests or in the exercise of official authority:

• it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency
• it is necessary to deliver health or social care services
• for law enforcement purposes, prosecutions and Court/Tribunal proceedings

Collecting children, young people and adult information

We collect personal information via the travel assistance applications returned to us by parents/carers or from other internal Council departments. Other Council staff (e.g. Complaints, Finance and Legal teams) may access personal information that is essential to carry out their work and statutory functions but may share data between themselves where this is necessary to provide you with a complete service and/or to ensure compliance with our legal obligations.

Your personal data is necessary for us to process your request for travel assistance. Whilst the majority of personal information you provide to us is mandatory, some of it is requested on a voluntary basis. To comply with the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, we will inform you whether you are required by law to provide certain information to us. If you do have a choice where providing information is not mandatory, your explicit consent will be requested.

If you do not provide us with the information required, we may be unable to conclude our assessment/appeal of your eligibility. This may lead to your application being declined because of a lack of relevant information. If this is the case, we will let you know.

The information we hold about you is confidential. Any records we hold can only be seen by authorised staff and others with a right to know, including you.

The parent/carer is responsible for their child’s consent up to age 16. From age 16 onwards the young person can provide their own consent.

Storing your data

We will keep information about you and the services we provide on your record. There is usually a legal reason for keeping your personal information for a set period of time

Following the relevant retention period, we will securely destroy the information. In line with common practice.

If you would like to know more about how we store your data and the retention schedule, please contact passenger.transport@croydon.gov.uk.

Who we share your information with

We routinely share your information with:

 

• Education providers (e.g. schools, colleges and day-care providers)
• Department for Transport, Department of Health and Department for Education and other agencies with whom we have a duty to co-operate with
• School transport operators
• Other Croydon Council teams so they can carry out their statutory roles and support our service (e.g. social care, housing, education, Complaints, Business Intelligence, Corporate Finance, Legal Services)
• Transport contractors (taxi and bus providers)
• NHS
• IT providers that support our transport functions (e.g. text messaging to parents/carers, and database and routing systems)
• The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability)
• relevant agencies and parties in relation to safeguarding and child protection matters
• other Local Authorities (education, social care, relevant housing, employment and other services)
• emergency and medical services (e.g. ambulance, school nurse or GP)
• commissioned social care and/or health services

Providing us with accurate information

It is very important that you provide us with accurate and up-to-date information to enable us to process your application more quickly. If any of your details have changed, or change in the future, please inform us without delay so that we can review and ensure that the travel arrangements remain suitable to meet your needs.

Requesting access to your personal data

Under the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, parents/carers and our service users have the right to request access to information about them that we hold. To make a request for your personal information, please contact the Council’s Information Management Team at SAR@croydon.gov.uk.

Further information

The GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 give you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us. Information about your individual data rights is listed in the Council’s Privacy Notice on the Council’s website at www.croydonc.gov.uk/privacy.

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we collect, store or use your personal information, please contact in the first instance passenger.transport@croydon.gov.uk

For independent advice about data protection issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at www.ico.org.uk.

We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Notice at any time and will keep it under review. If we do make any changes, we will post the current version to our website at this address.

Last updated: June 2018