We take your privacy seriously and will only keep and use your personal information for reasons that the law requires or allows.

The council is the data controller for the personal information we hold in relation to the council's Stray Dog Collection Service it provides.  In order to comply with data protection legislation we want to be sure you understand how we use this information.

The purposes for which your data will be used are:

• To enable us to comply with our legal obligations relating to stray dog collections.
• To ensure the efficient operation of the council’s stray dog collection service to residents. For clarity, the council may use customer’s data to contact the customer about service issues - such as service delay due to time of collection for example.
• To ensure that enquiries, complaints and service requests are dealt with in accordance with the above by the council and its partnering collection and/or kennelling provider(s).
• To assist with the planning and performance monitoring of the service.

We are able to do this because we are legally obliged to do so. The council's main legal obligations in relation to stray dog collections can be found in the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Depending upon its relevance (i.e. if a complaint requires investigating) we may share your information with our contractor partner(s), Noah’s Ark Environmental Services, who collect stray dogs on our behalf, or other departments within the Council such as Environmental Health.

Otherwise, we will only share your data if you ask us to, or if the law requires or allows us to.

Your personal data is processed (including storage) within the European Economic Area only.

How long will we keep your information?

We will only keep this data for the time specified in our retention schedule or as required by law.

Data protection law provides you with certain rights, however, not all of these rights will be available to you in all situations, particularly where we process your information as part of one of our statutory duties. Where we are under a legal duty to use data for a particular purpose you will not have the right to prevent it being used in that way.

A full list of the rights you may have, under data protection law, is given in the 'Your Rights' section on Data Protection - Privacy Notices.

For specific enquiries regarding personal data which we process, you can contact the Data Protection Officer on dpo@staffordbc.gov.uk or at Civic Centre, Riverside, Stafford ST16 3AQ.

If you wish to complain about how your personal information has been handled by the council then please contact the Data Protection Officer in the first instance using the details above. If you are not satisfied you can submit a formal complaint to the Council.

Finally, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, Tel: 0303 123 1113 or you can visit their website at ico.org.uk.

You can also find details of how we handle your personal information by visiting Data Protection - Privacy Notices.