Privacy Policy

1) About This Policy
This page explains how hyndburnbc.gov.uk uses any information you give to us, and the ways in which we protect your privacy. You may be asked to submit personal information about yourself by filling in a registration form if you wish to receive or use some services on our website. The kind of information required may include, but not be confined to: name, postcode, email address. You may also be asked to submit personal information when using online forms provided for the purpose of contacting our information providers or partners directly. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy.

2) The Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act 1998, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use security technology to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it. We recognise, however, that this medium can never be fully secure and you should be aware of this when you use the site. We may pass on your details to any third party or government department provided always that we act in a fair and lawful manner.

3) What Information Do We Collect?
We collect four kinds of information from visitors to Hyndburn Borough Council's website: feedback (through our comments forms), personal details collected via forms when you make enquiries or apply for services, and site usage information, from session cookies and log files.

a) Feedback To Hyndburn Borough Council
You can send us your feedback by using our comments forms, or by telephoning or writing to us using the contact details published in various parts of the site. In order to answer your question or deal with your complaint we may need to contact Hyndburn Borough Council or other government or national bodies. We will not share your personal details with any private company, unless it is contracted to provide the service which you are applying for or commenting on.

b) Online Forms
You can make enquiries or request some services by filling in forms on the Information portion of the website. Such information is not stored on our Internet server, but forwarded directly to the service provider to whom you are applying. In some cases this may be another government agency, but if it is it will be made clear where the information will be sent before you have completed the form.

c) Site usage information

i) Session cookies
Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a website. The cookies our site uses are "session cookies", which means that your "preferences", such as your choice of language, are stored temporarily while you move around the site. Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors You can set your computer not to accept cookies, but session cookies are deleted when you leave the site. They do not contain any personal information about you, and do not hold any information about which sites you visited before www.hyndburnbc.gov.uk

ii) Log files
Log files allow us to record visitors' use of the site. We keep log file information collected from all our visitors, which we use to make changes to the layout of the site and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it.
Log files do not contain any personal information or information about which other sites you have visited.

4) What Happens When I Follow A Link To Another Site?
www.hyndburnbc.gov.uk contains links to other websites, both externally, to government departments and other organisations/businesses, as well as sites hosted on Hyndburn Borough Council's website that are maintained by private individuals, businesses, or community/voluntary groups. This privacy policy applies only to content in the main section of the site, and not to privately hosted sites on Hyndburn Borough Council's website, even if they contain our name or logo. You should be aware that linked sites have their own privacy policies that may differ from ours. You should always check if you have any concerns.

5) What Happens To My Information?
Any information you provide via the website will only be used by Hyndburn Borough Council. It will never be supplied to anyone outside these bodies without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged or permitted by law to disclose it. We reserve the right to pass any or all of your personal information to the police or any other relevant body for the purposes of crime detection or prevention or for any purpose associated with your misuse, or suspected misuse, of the Portal or in relation to any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings.

We may also use your information to gather statistics about the website users, their traffic patterns, demographic makeup, preferences and activities. These statistics may be passed to the Regional Development Agency, government agencies, government offices or local authorities. However, these statistics will not include any personal information.

6) Access To Your Information And Contacting Hyndburn Borough Council
You can change your registration information or de-register from the web-based email or message boards at any time. To do this, you should notify administrator@hyndburnbc.gov.uk and advise them of your user name so that you can be removed from the system.
De-registering removes from our records any details you have given to us, and any emails that you have sent or received that are stored in the email database.
If you wish to see our records of any correspondence you have sent to us, or if you have a query or complaint about this privacy policy or about the site, you can contact us by e-mail at: enquiries@hyndburnbc.gov.uk

7) Users 16 or Under
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to hyndburnbc.gov.uk or any of our service providers. Users who do not have this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

8) Changes To This Privacy Policy
If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we will share it with other parties.

© 2006 Hyndburn Borough Council. Address: Hyndburn Borough Council, Scaitcliffe House, Ormerod Street, Accrington, BB5 0PF. Telephone: 01254 388111.
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