FAQ

Who we are and what we do

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a data controller under the UK Data Protection law as we collect and process personal information about you in order to identify risks to children at the earliest point and respond with the most effective interventions.

Data controller and purpose

This privacy notice applies to you ("the service user") such as children and families; the London Borough of Tower Hamlets council takes the privacy of your information very seriously.

This privacy notice applies to the council’s use of any and all of the data provided by you or collected by the council in relation to your use of this service. It is important that you understand that sometimes we will need to share your data with other agencies where necessary or appropriate and by engaging with our service you understand that that your data may be shared.

The information you provide will be used by the London Borough of Tower Children Services Social Care Teams (MAST) to store and process your personal data and special category data, process incoming referrals to social care, to assess risk to children and young people and to support and safeguarding for children and their families to better meet the needs of the children and families and to provide the help that they require as early as possible. 

Also, to provide services internally, except in the instances where organisations provide services (such as schools/Health and voluntary sector) where this will be a joint service.

What is the source of your personal data?

In most cases we will obtain your personal data directly from you. If we get it from another source, we will: 

1. Inform you of the source within a reasonable period after obtaining the personal data, but at the latest within one month or when we first communicate with you using that information (which) ever is the earliest

What type of information is collected from you?

Demographic details (Name, DOB, Gender, Sexuality, Ethnicity, Marital Status, Income, Education, Employment etc.)

Condition for processing personal data

It is necessary for us to process your personal data such as name, DOB, address, contact details, under GDPR Article 6:

1. 6(1)(a) consent
2. 6(1)(b) performance of a contract
3. 6(1)(c) compliance with a legal obligation
4. 6(1)(e) task in the public interest or official authority vested in the controller.

And more personal data such as health, personal and household circumstances and Special Category Data under GDPR Article 9:

5. 9(2)(b) employment, social security or social protection law, collective agreement
6. 9(2)(h) preventative or occupational medicine, working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or management
7. 9(2)(j) archiving in the public interest, or scientific and historical research purposes or statistical purposes.

Other specific legislation and reasons for processing information:

1. Children Act 1989
2. Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000
3. Adoption & Children Act 2002 and associated regulations
4. Childcare Act 2006
5. Children and Families Act 2014
6. Children and Social Work Act 2017
7. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
8. Section 11.1, Pre-birth ‘Good Practice Steps’
9. Section 47 of the Children Act 1989
10. Section 20 of the Children Act 1989
11. Digital Economy Act 2017
12. The Education Act 1996
13. The Education Act 2002

A delay in you providing the information requested may result in a delay in providing appropriate services. 

Why we need your information and how we use it

• Under the 1989 and 2004 Children Act we have a duty to safeguard the welfare of children. S17 of the 1989 Children Act places a duty to assess children in need. S47 of the 1989 Children Act places a duty to investigate if a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.
• In order to safeguard children and young people and their families we need their demographic information to create a record on our Information Communication Systems. Information gathered is used to safeguard children from harm.
• Provision of Services to and monitoring of vulnerable children and young people, including services to children in need, safeguarding, looked after children, children leaving care and children with disabilities.

Information sharing

Your personal information may be shared with internal departments or with external partners and agencies involved in delivering services on our behalf.

Internally

• Demographic information (name, gender, DOB, ethnicity, address etc.) about the child and their family
• Reason for referral
• Children & families (Child protection & assessment teams, education & inclusion)
• Corporate parents with parental responsibility.

Externally

1. NHS and other Health Agencies
2. Police
3. Courts and other Judicial Agencies
4. Education providers (Schools and Colleges)
5. Housing Department
6. Probation
7. Youth Offending Service
8. Other Local Authorities who need to carry out checks for their MASH, child and family assessments and child protection enquiries.
9. Department for Education (DfE) in respect of children in need and looked after children to help the DfE develop national policies, manage Local Authority performance, administer and allocate funding and identify and encourage good practice. For more information about the data collection requirements placed on council by the DfE. Please see looked after children or children in need on GOV.UK.
10. Ofsted,
11. the Ministry of Housing,
12. Communities and Local Government,
13. schools,
14. Health organisations and services provided by the Voluntary Sector

The council has a duty to protect public funds and may use personal information and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. Information may be shared with internal services and external bodies like the Audit Commission, Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police. This activity is carried out under Article 9(2)(b) of the GDPR, under social protection law.

We have a duty to improve the health of the population we serve. To help with this, we use data and information from a range of sources including hospitals to understand more about the nature and causes of disease and ill-health in the area. This data would normally be anonymised and never used to make decisions on a specific individual or family. 

How long do we keep your information?

We will only hold your information for as long as is required by law and to provide you with the necessary services. This would vary depending on the service you received. Each service has a different retention, For further details, you can view our retention schedule.

Business Intelligence, profiling and automated decision making

We may analyse your personal information to improve services and for the following purposes:

1. Undertake statutory functions efficiently and effectively
2. Service planning by understanding your needs to provide the services that you request.
3. Understanding what we can do for you and inform you of other relevant services and benefits
4. Help us to build up a picture of how we are performing at delivering services to you and what services the people of Tower hamlets need.

The council is however committed to using pseudonymised or anonymised information as much as is practical, and in many cases this will be the default position.

We may use your information from the different services that you engage with to create a single view and profile of you, which will help us to better understand your specific needs and ensure we are providing the right and efficient services to you in accordance with your needs as well as ensure that we hold one accurate record of your basic personal data across all our council services; such as your name, DoB, address, email address, change in circumstances etc. 

Profiling will be carried out only when it is necessary in order to provide you with the service you have agreed to receive or where the council has a statutory obligation or where to the law allows.   However, we will notify you where we would do this.

Your information choice and rights

Where we use your personal data for other purposes other than what you have consented or where we have to fulfil a statutory obligation, or where the data protection law allows, then we will let you know so that you can make an informed choice about how your information is used.

If you do not want your information to be used for any purpose beyond providing the services you have agreed to receive, such as; sharing it with our partners or providers for service delivery planning or improvement of services or for Business Intelligence, profiling research or statistical purposes (in such instance only minimum and necessary, anonymised or pseudonymised data will be used), you can choose to opt-out of this.

Data protection legislation gives you a number of rights in relation to your personal data. The rights available to you will depend on the Lawful basis that we rely on to process your personal data. We have a legal obligation to process your personal data for the provision of this service, as such the following rights are available to you:

1. Right to rectification
2. Right to restrict processing (limited cases).

You can find out more about your rights on our Data Protection page and this includes details of your rights about automated decisions and how to complain to the Information Commissioner. 

We process your data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and if you have any concerns, the Council’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted on DPO@towerhamlets.gov.uk.

There has been an expansion on the offence of undue influence that came into force on 1 November 2023.

1. a person will be guilty of a corrupt practice if guilty of undue influence.
2. a person will be guilty of undue influence if that person carries out an activity listed below in paragraph 4 for the purpose of
   1. inducing or compelling a person to vote in a particular way or to refrain from voting, or
   2. otherwise impeding or preventing the free exercise of the franchise of an elector or of a proxy for an elector.
3. a person is also guilty of undue influence if that person carries out an activity falling within any of the activities listed from (a) to (f) on account of
   1. a person having voted in a particular way or refrained from voting, or
   2. assuming a person to have voted in a particular way or to have refrained from voting
4. the activities are as follows
   a) using or threatening to use violence against a person
   b) damaging or destroying, or threatening to damage or destroy, a person’s property
   c)damaging or threatening to damage a person’s reputation
   d) causing or threatening to cause financial loss to a person
   e) causing spiritual injury to, or placing undue spiritual pressure on, a person
   f) doing any other act designed to intimidate a person
   g) doing any act designed to deceive a person in relation to the administration of an election.

For the purposes of (2) and (3) above an activity is carried out if it is

• a) by that person
• b) by that person jointly with one or more other persons, or
• c) by one or more other persons on behalf of that person, with that person’s authority or consent.

In 4.f. & 4.g. above, “act” includes an omission (and references to the doing of an act are to be read accordingly).

All electors, who vote at a polling station, will be required to show an accepted form of photographic identification from Thursday 4 May 2023 before they receive a ballot paper and then cast their vote.

In Tower Hamlets this will occur for the first time from Thursday 2 May 2024 at the GLA polls.

There are no exceptions to this requirement and will also include those who are registered as anonymous electors. 

If you act as a proxy for an elector, you will also need to show ID but will not have to provide ID for the person you are acting as a proxy for.

There is currently no requirement for postal voters to provide identification.