Restricted contact - we may impose a restriction on your access to our services if it is necessary to protect our staff from unacceptable behaviour as defined in our Policy on Unreasonably Persistent and/or Vexatious Complainant’s Behaviour and in our guidance on ‘Violent and Potentially Violent Persons Warning Markers – Their Use And Best Practice’.
Policy on Unreasonably Persistent and/or Vexatious Complainant’s Behaviour - We will explain to you the restriction that we have applied and why we feel it is necessary. Restrictions will be reviewed in accordance with the Policy.A SpoC (see below), may be appointed if the service manager considers this appropriate.
Violent and Potentially Violent Persons Warning Markers – In most circumstances, we will disclose the fact that there is a Marker on your file. However, if we consider that disclosure may actually cause serious harm to your physical or mental health or create a risk of a violent reaction from you against staff etc., existence of the Marker will not be disclosed. This is decided on a case-by-case basis, in consultation with the Data Protection Officer. Markers will include your name, contact details, a description of why we have applied the Marker e.g. aggression towards staff and the need for the appointment of a SPoC (see below). We will review the Marker on a six monthly basis. The Marker will be removed, for example, where your behaviour has ameliorated or you no longer have contact with us.
Lawful bases[1] - our lawful bases for processing your personal information are:
- UK GDPR Article 6(1)(c) - where processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject i.e. Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 – to comply with our duty of care to protect our employees from harm;
- UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f) - where processing is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests (we can use ‘legitimate interests’ if we can demonstrate that the processing is for purposes other than for performing our tasks as a public authority). In this context, our objective for implementing the Policy on Unreasonably Persistent and/or Vexatious Complainant’s Behaviour is to manage complaints in such a way, so as to ensure that other service users and our staff do not suffer any detriment from complainants making repeated, persistent and unreasonable complaints. A complainant could reasonably expect and conclude to be subject to contact restrictions in specific situations. We have a Legitimate Interests Policy that sets out how this information will be handled.
We may process the following personal information:
- Special Category Personal Data as defined by Article 9(1) e.g. health, pursuant to UK GDPR Article 10 and Data Protection Act 2018, section 10(5), Schedule 1, Part 2, paras. 6(1) and 2(a) – processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest; and
- Criminal Offence Data as defined by UK GDPR Article 10 and supplemented by the Data Protection Act 2018, section 11(2), Schedule 1, Part 2, para.10(1) (preventing or detecting unlawful acts).
We have a Data Protection Policy, which sets out how this information will be handled.
[1] Note that we may process your personal information on more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information
Single point of contact (SPoC) - A decision will be made by a service manager to appoint a SPoC. This may be where you have several complaints and we believe it will be more efficient for us to deal with them in this way. We will make a record of the fact that you have a SPoC. All relevant staff will know about the SPoC to ensure that communications between you and us are managed appropriately.
Data sharing - your information may be shared with:
- our service departments
- Councillors
- our contractors
- Ombudsmen
- Police
- Courts
We rely on a number of exemptions, which allow us to share information without needing to comply with all the rights and obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018. Please refer to the Kent and Medway Information Agreement for further details on our sharing arrangements.
Retention period - we keep your personal information for the minimum period necessary. The information outlined in this Privacy Notice will be kept for one year from the date of the file closure unless exceptional circumstances require longer retention eg: a pending court case. All information will be held securely and disposed of confidentially.
Right to object - where processing your personal information is required for the performance of a public interest task or legitimate interests (see our lawful bases above), you have the right to object on ‘grounds relating to your particular situation’. We will have to demonstrate why it is appropriate for us to continue to use your personal data.
Changes to this Privacy Notice - we review this Privacy Notice regularly and will place updates on our website.
Please refer to the following Privacy Notices for further details of how we process your personal information and for details on your additional rights:
Complaints Process Privacy Notice
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1 Note that we may process your personal information on more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information
GDPR/Privacy Notice/ Managing Customer Contact