This local council respects your privacy. The information that you provide us with, or that is gathered automatically, helps us to monitor our services and provide you with the services that you are entitled to as a local resident or visitor to our website.

Our Commitment to Privacy

Is my visit to this web site anonymous?
Yes! Your visit to this site is anonymous (no personal information about you is recorded or gathered) unless you contribute to it or fill in a form requesting information. Each time you visit our web site, our system automatically recognises your domain name, but not your specific email address.

What's a domain name?
Your email address might look like john.smith@gmail.com, our system only recognises the part 'gmail.com'. If you have specifically provided us with your email, postal address or telephone number and do not want us to contact you in the future, please write to us (contact details are on each screen). We will then ensure that we do not process your contact information for purposes not connected with your initial enquiry. However, once you have submitted items to the site or completed a form we may need to contact you for administrative or verification purposes in relation to your contribution, or in relation to particular projects. See 'Your Rights' below.

Cookies and Traffic Logs
We use cookies on our website to collect limited personal information. These cookies are used to assist in the delivery of services to you and for some technical reasons such as mapping coordinates. You can use your browser software to restrict or to refuse to accept these, or at a later point in time, to remove them. We do not pass on information gathered from these cookies to any third party without your express consent. Cookies will not be used where the data can be obtained anonymously.

What's a Cookie?
A cookie is small file placed on a user's computer by a Website, which logs information about the user and their previous/current visits for the use of the site next time the user makes contact. More information about cookies can be found in Guidance to the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 which can be accessed by going to the Information Commissioner's website and following the relevant link.

What are Traffic Logs?
We use traffic logs to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our Website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes.

Links?
Our website contains links to other sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices within any of these other sites. We encourage you to be aware of this when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements on other websites you visit which collect personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected on our website.

Your Rights - The Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act we have a legal duty to protect any personal information we collect from you. We do not pass on your details to any third party or government department unless you give us permission to do so or the law requires/permits it. We are committed to respecting your privacy. We have structured our website so that, in general, you can visit it without identifying yourself or revealing any personal information. Once you choose to provide us with any information by which you can be identified, then you can be assured that it will only be used for the purpose for which it was originally collected or compatible purposes. Please be advised that any information, unless stated otherwise, will be sent to us via the open internet and is therefore not secure during transmission to us. This is because your information may pass from your contact pc to an internet service provider and then via other providers to us, much in the same way as most email correspondence.

The Information Commissioner
The Information Commissioner enforces and oversees the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act. We have to notify the Information Commissioner of the types of personal data we process and for what purpose we use it for and whom we share it with.

The Data Protection Act provides you with rights in relation to the personal data we may hold about you, namely:

• Be provided with a copy of your personal data that we process and information concerning the processing.
• Prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress
• Prevent processing for the purposes of direct marketing.
• Rights in relation to automated decision taking.
• Take action for compensation from the COuncil if damage results from any breach of the Act by the Council.
• Take action to rectify, block, erase or destroy inaccurate data.

With regard to your rights to be provided with a copy of your personal data, you are entitled to this within 40 days of making the request, providing the request is in writing. Requests must contain the information required to satisfy the council as to the identity of the person making the request (we may require proof of your identity). Requests must contain the information required to enable the council to locate the information which is being sought. We will assist you where possible. We may charge up to £10 for this data.

Further information about the Data Protection Act can be obtained from Information Commisioner

Notification of Changes to Policy
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post details of any changes in this section on this website. This will help ensure that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we share it with other parties. If you have any concerns, questions or comments please email the council.

Accessibility
We are committed to making our site accessible to all

Accessibility Standards and this Website
We are continuously improving this website to ensure that it meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines issued by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The WAI website content guidelines, published in 2008 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), are the globally used and accepted standard for website accessibility, by both the corporate and public sector.

This website has been developed to serve the largest possible audience, using the broadest range of systems and to consider any needs that users with disabilities might have.

For our part we're providing a site which has been designed and coded to achieve an AA level of compliance. To achieve an AAA level of compliance depends on the content and how it's written, and that is down to individual site editors to achieve. If the content is written correctly then the individual website might be able to achieve AAA level of compliance.

Accessibility Help - Change the way this website looks - Using tools on your computer
You can control the look and functionality of this website, depending on your computer settings, Most computers will have accessibility settings you can change including; the way the screen looks (e.g. changing; fonts, sizes, colours, etc) the way the kayboard or mouse works and possibly speaking and listening to commands as well as a range of other features.

As several organisations have already produced lots of very good content about how to make computers and websites more accessible, we have linked to these sites rather than duplicate their content.

My Web My Way produced by the BBC is a comprehensive site with loads of useful information and a wealth of accessibility links

If you're a regular computer users then in Windows - Click on the 'Start' button, then 'Programs', then 'Accessories', then 'Accessibility'.

Your browser will usually have controls which you can use to enlarge the text on your screen.

Feedback
If you experience any problems with our pages, please contact us and we will try to provide you with the information you need. Please let us know which page (including the page address/URL) you experienced problems with, and if you have any suggestions for how we could improve this page.