Request of an Immigration Letter Privacy Statement

Who we are?

Glasgow City Council is a local authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Its head office is located at City Chambers, George Square, Glasgow G2 1DU, United Kingdom, and you can contact our Data Protection Officer by post at this address, by email or by telephone on 0141 287 1055.

Why do we need your personal information and what do we do with it?

You are giving us your personal information to allow us to process your request for a letter where overseas authorities require a letter for immigration purposes. The purpose of the letter is to certify that no overcrowding would be created by additional occupier(s). We also use your information to verify your identity where required, contact you by post, email or telephone and to maintain our records.

Legal basis for using your information

We provide these services to you as part of our statutory function as your local authority. You can find more details of our role on our website. Processing your personal information is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest by the council.

We also need to process more sensitive personal information about you for reasons of substantial public interest as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018. It is necessary for us to process it to carry out key functions as set out in law.

Who do we share your information with?

We are legally obliged to safeguard public funds so we are required to verify and check your details internally for fraud prevention. We may share this information with other public bodies (and also receive information from these other bodies) for fraud checking purposes.

We are also legally obliged to share certain data with other public bodies, such as HMRC and will do so where the law requires this. We will also generally comply with requests for specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate.

Your information is also analysed internally to help us improve our services. This data sharing is in accordance with our Information Use and Privacy Policy and covered in our full privacy statement on our website. It also forms part of our requirements in line with our Records Management Plan approved in terms of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.

How long do we keep your information for?

We only keep your personal information for the minimum period amount of time necessary. Sometimes this time period is set out in the law, but in most cases it is based on the business need. We maintain a records retention and disposal schedule which sets out how long we hold different types of information for. You can view this on our website (PDF, 4 MB)(opens new window) or you can request a hard copy from the contact address stated above.

Your rights under data protection law

Access to your information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you.

Correcting your information

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Therefore you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.

Deletion of your information

You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:

• you think that we no longer need to hold the information for the purposes for which it was originally obtained
• you have a genuine objection to our use of your personal information - see Objecting to how we may use your information below
• our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.

Objecting to how we may use your information

You have the right at any time to tell us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Restricting how we may use your information

In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold about you or we are assessing the objection you have made to our use of your information.

This right might also apply if we no longer have a basis for using your personal information but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right is realistically applied will mean that we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Please contact us as stated above if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

Information you have given us about other people

If you have provided anyone else's details on this form, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to Glasgow City Council. We will only use this information to process your request. If they want any more information on how we will use their information they can visit our website or email.

Complaints

We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. If your complaint is about how we have handled your personal information, you can contact the Council's Data Protection Officer by email or by telephone on 0141 287 1055.

However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint about data protection matters with the Information Commissioner's Office, who can be contacted by post at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

By phone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745. Visit their website (opens new window) for more information.

Please note if your complaint is not about a data protection matter and concerns the handling of your immigration letter, you can find details of how to make a complaint on our website.