PRIVACY POLICY
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Oakview Care provides high quality residential care homes for adults with learning disabilities, challenging behaviour and mental health issues.
What is a “privacy notice”?
We care about your personal data and it’s important that you know how we use it and how we keep it safe.
A privacy notice is a statement that describes how we collect, use, retain and disclose personal and confidential information. It is sometimes referred to as a “privacy statement”, “fair processing statement” or “privacy policy”.
Issuing this privacy notice helps us to demonstrate our commitment to fairness and transparency with regards to how we handle and use personal and confidential information.
It helps us to empower individuals by explaining what rights they have to control how we use their personal information.
We will review our Privacy Notice on an annual basis.
This Privacy Notice is not exhaustive and we are always happy to provide any additional information or explanations where needed.
What personal information might we collect and how might we use it?
On occasion, we may gather information about your computer for our services and to provide statistical information regarding the use of our website.
Such information will not identify you personally it is statistical data about our visitors and their use of our site. This statistical data does not identify any personal details whatsoever.
Cookies are small text files which are stored by the browser on your computer. Only the information that you provide, or the choices you make while visiting a website, can be stored in a cookie. Allowing a website to create a cookie does not give that or any other site access to the rest of your computer, and only the site that created the cookie can read it.
Some cookies may be stored on your machine by third parties when you use our website. We have no control over these cookies or how the third parties use them.
All computers have the ability to decline cookies. This can be done by activating the setting on your browser which enables you to decline the cookies. Please note that should you choose to decline cookies, you may be unable to access particular parts of our website.
We may use cookies for the following purposes:
Session cookies – Used to remember which pages you visited, or for when you use the 'Back' button. Once you close your browser or log out, the cookie will expire and be deleted.
Persistent cookies – Can be used to store information or settings about you to improve your experience on a website. For example, “Remember me” cookies which store your username and password when you visit a site. This is not used to identify you: only to make logging into a website faster and more convenient.
Third Party cookies – These are cookies placed by another website or service i.e. it has a different address to the one you see in your browser’s address bar: in other words a third-party. They are used to allow that third party to provide a service to us.
The third party cookies possibly used by our site are as follows:
Purpose: To enable Google functionalities such as Google search, Maps, Analytics. Their privacy policy can be viewed here: http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/policies/privacy/
Photosnack
Purpose: To enable photo galleries. Their privacy policy can be viewed here: https://www.snacktools.com/en/legal-information/privacy-policy/
Wufoo
Purpose: To enable our “Contact Us” form. Their privacy policy can be viewed here: http://www.wufoo.com/privacy/cookies/
Anonymous analytics
Every time a user visits oakviewcare.com, web analytics software provided by a third party generates an anonymous analytics cookie. These cookies can tell us whether or not you’ve visited the site before. Your browser will tell us if you have these cookies, and if you don’t, we generate new ones.
This allows us to track how many individual unique users we have, and how often they visit the site. These cookies cannot be used to identify individuals; they are used for statistical purposes only. This allows us, for example, to group similar audiences for customised content and marketing.
Our analytics cookies are only accessible to us, and the data cannot be altered or retrieved by any other service. However, if you’d prefer to restrict, block or delete cookies from oakviewcare.com, or any other website, you can use your browser to do this.
Our legal basis for processing this data is as follows:
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Website Visitors: The individual has given clear consent for us to process their personal data for a specific purpose.
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How information is retained and kept safe?
We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only process personal confidential data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, the General Data Protection Regulation (2018), the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality and the Human Rights Act 1998
Oakview Care is a Data Controller and under the terms of the General Data Protection Regulation (2018) we are legally responsible for ensuring that all personal data that we collect and use i.e. hold, obtain, record, use or share about you is done in compliance with this legislation.
Information is retained in secure electronic and paper records and access is restricted to only those who need to know. Further information can be obtained by requesting a copy of our “Access to Files by Staff / Service Users” policy.
Everyone working for Oakview Care is subject to the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality and the Data Protection Act 1998 (from 25thMay 2018, this will be superseded by the General Data Protection Regulations). Information provided in confidence will only be used for the purposes to which consent has been provided, unless there are other circumstances covered by the law.
All staff are required to undertake training in data protection, confidentiality & IT/cyber security and have contractual obligations to uphold confidentiality, enforceable through disciplinary procedures.
Your rights
You have certain legal rights, including a right to have your information processed fairly and lawfully.
You have a right to request copies of the information that we hold and to have it rectified or erased should it be inaccurate. To exercise these rights, you should submit a request either in writing to:
The Directors,
Oakview Care,
1 Oak Croft,
Bearsted,
Maidstone,
Kent,
ME14 4GF
Or via the following email address:
Or speak to one of our employees.
You will need to give adequate information (for example full name, address, date of birth, and details of your request) so that your identity can be verified, and your records located.
In most normal circumstances. we will respond to you within one month.
You also have rights to restrict the data we collect, have your personal data provided in a form that is portable and the right to object and have your objection listed to fairly. We have a prepared a short leaflet explaining these rights and if you would like a copy please let us know.
Retention and disposal of personal data
We maintain a retention and disposal schedule which explains how long we keep different types of records and documents, including records and documents containing personal data.
Personal data is deleted or securely destroyed at the end of its retention period.
Contacting us if you have a complaint or concern
We try to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. We encourage people to bring concerns to our attention and we take any complaints we receive very seriously.
You can submit a complaint through our “Complaints Procedure”, by writing to:
The Directors,
Oakview Care,
1 Oak Croft,
Bearsted,
Maidstone,
Kent,
ME14 4GF
A copy of our “Complaints Procedure” is available on request.
If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of your complaint, you may wish to
contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Their web site is at www.ico.gov.uk.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
This regulation will become law on 25thMay 2018. It will supersede the Data Protection Act 1998 and will impose much stricter controls on how we collect and use personal data. It will encompass all the current requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 and enhances the rights of individuals in a number of areas.
Further information about it can be found on Information Commissioners Office website www.ico.org.uk