Privacy

Victims First Hub Privacy Notice

Who is responsible for how your information is handled?

The Victims First Hub is a service provided by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC). The Police and Crime Commissioner is the ‘Data Controller’ and is responsible and liable for processing your personal information in compliance with current data protection legislation (Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)). 

How we use your information:

This privacy notice explains why and how the Victims First Hub collects and processes your personal information. It applies to information we collect about:

• people who use our services, e.g. victims, witnesses and family members affected by crime
• people who we notify under the Data Protection Act 2018, such as the emergency services in the event of a safeguarding concern

How the Victims First Hub uses your information and our lawful basis for doing so:

When the Victims First Hub makes initial contact with the victims we will gain your consent before collecting and processing further personal information. We only use the details we receive to provide our support service to victims of crime and for other closely related purposes. For example, we will use the contact details you provide to contact you and if needed, will use other information you provide to assess your need for support. We might use information about people who have indicated they are happy to receive a 6 month call back to carry out a survey to find out if they are happy with the level of service they received. 

The following categories of personal information that are likely to be processed are:

• Your contact details
• Some information about the offence you were victim of and how that made you feel
• Information about your individual support or counselling needs
• Information about services and service providers you have consented to be referred on to
• Your views on the quality of the service provided by the Victims First Hub
• Details of the Victims First Hub staff that provided your service

Once you have engaged with our services, you can withdraw your consent at any time and we will delete your information immediately. If you wish to withdraw your consent you can do so by contacting the Victims First Hub by telephone, email or in writing at the following address:

Your information may be provided to the following recipients:

•  If it is identified that you may benefit from specialist support services, we will share your details with them only if you consent to being referred.  
• We use a third party as a Data Processor to provide and support the IT system that we record your information in. It is managed securely and stored in the UK and may occasionally be supported from the USA. 
• When victims call the Victims First Hub, we can offer a translation service for people when English is not their first language, this is provided by a third party company Capita TI. Capita TI does not retain any information from the calls or record them.
• If there are safeguarding concerns about children or vulnerable adults we may need to make the appropriate safeguarding authorities aware.

In exceptional cases where there is a domestic homicide review or serious case review, it may be necessary to retain your information for a further period, in the public interest, and only for purposes of the review. 

If at any time you chose to withdraw your consent for the Victims First Hub to process your information, we will delete your personal information immediately.

Automated decision making:

The Victims First Hub will not make any significant decisions about you that are solely automated. A human being will always be involved in making decisions about the service you are provided by the Victims First Hub.

Transferring your data outside of the UK:

The IT system that your information will be stored in is securely managed within the UK. In exceptional circumstances the IT System may need to be supported by a specialist IT Support Company based in the USA. The OPCC conducts security assessments and has added contractual assurances to provide safeguards so that when this happens your data remains secure and is only accessed temporarily and only in order to maintain the IT system. To ensure data is accessed appropriately, an audit takes place by the Victims First Hub Manager on a weekly basis and details are recorded in an inspection log.  

Your information rights:

Under the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 you are entitled to the following data rights:

1. The right to be informed about how the organisation processing your personal information will use it. This information is being provided to you via this Privacy Notice. 

2. The right of access to confirmation that your personal information is being processed, access to a copy of your personal data, and other supplementary information that can be seen on the Victims First Privacy Notice. Unless your request is excessive or manifestly unfounded your request will usually be processed free of charge and within 1 month. 

3. The right to have your personal information rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete.

4. The right to ask for the erasure of your personal information.

5. The right to restrict the processing of your personal information in the following circumstances:

• You contest the accuracy of the personal information.
• Where you have objected to the processing and your objection is being considered.
• Where the processing is unlawful but you do not want the data to be erased.
• Where the personal data is no longer needed but you want it to be retained for the purpose of establishing / exercising / defending a legal claim.

6. The right to data portability where you can ask for a copy of the personal information you provided so you can easily reuse it with another service provider.

7. The right to object to the processing of your personal information and other activities such as profiling, direct marketing and for scientific / historical research requests.

8. Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling so that you can:

• Obtain human intervention
• Express your point of view
• Obtain an explanation of the decision and challenge it

If you wish to exercise any of your rights as explained above please contact the OPCC’s Data Protection Officer:

If you wish to make a complaint:

If you have any concerns or complaints about how we handle your information you can contact the Office of the Police and Crime Commission as below:

In addition if you feel that that Victims First Hub has not handled your information appropriately in accordance with the current Data Protection legislation you can also make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). You can contact the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113 or via the ICO website www.ico.org.

External links:   

This website contains external links to third party sites. Our Privacy Notice applies only to information collected by or on behalf of the OPCC. If you go to another website, you should read their Privacy Notice before you give them any personal details.   

Cookies:

We use cookies to compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions in order to offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may also use trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf. 

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You can do this through your internet browser settings. Since each browser is a little different, look at your browser’s Help Menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. 

If you turn cookies off, some of the features that make your site experience more efficient may not function properly. It may adversely affect your experience of this site, making it less efficient and it may not function properly. 

www.allaboutcookies.org/

We also use cookies to enable our online Live Chat communication provided by Click4Assistance. Information about the types of cookies used and the data stored and processed by Click4Assistance can be found here -

http://www.click4assistance.co.uk/click4assistance-web-chat-software-cookie-policy

Google:  

We, along with third party vendors such as Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third party identifiers together. We use them to compile data regarding user interactions only.  

Opting out:  

You can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative Opt Out page or by using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on. https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Does our site allow third party behavioural tracking?  

It is also important to note that we do not allow third party behavioural tracking.

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