Mendip District Council Privacy Policy

This page explains how our website website, which is managed by Mendip District Council, uses any information you give to us, and the ways in which we protect your privacy.

The Data Protection Act

Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it. We recognise, however, that this medium can never be fully secure and you should be aware of this when you use the site. We may pass on your details to any third party or government department provided always that we act in a fair and lawful manner.

What information do we collect?

We collect four kinds of information from visitors to www.mendip.gov.uk: registration information for our e-mail alert service, feedback (through our comments and complaints forms), personal details collected via forms when you apply for services, and site usage information, from session cookies and log files.

1) E-mail alert registration

You have the option to sign up to receive information via e-mail from Mendip District Council. This facility is called "E-mail alert" on the site.
The registration information we collect is: your user name (which does not need to be your real name), an e-mail address and a list of preferences you have selected. This information is stored securely by our server. We keep it indefinitely so that you do not need to re-register when you come back to the site. We may pass this information on to any third party or government department provided always that we act in a fair and lawful manner.

2) Feedback

You can send us your feedback by using our Feedback / Report it! / Complaints forms, or by telephoning or writing to us using the contact details published in various parts of the site. In order to answer your question or deal with your complaint we may need to contact Somerset County Council or other government departments. The details captured by some of the e- forms are sent directly to other local government agencies (eg. Somerset County Council) where they have been identified as the agency responsible for the service. In these cases it is always made clear which agency it will be sent to, before you have completed the form.

We will not share your personal details with any private company, unless it is contracted to provide the service which you are applying for or commenting on.

3) Requests for services

You can apply on-line for some services by filling in a form in our Online Services section. Applications are not stored on our Internet server, but forwarded directly to the section responsible for processing applications. In some cases this may be another government agency, but if it is it will be made clear where the information will be sent before you have completed the form. Applications processed by Mendip District Council are only stored for as long as they are necessary in each case and in any event for no longer than twelve months.

4) Site usage information

i) Session cookies

Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a website. The cookies our site uses are "session cookies", which means that your "preferences", such as your choice of language, are stored temporarily while you move around the site. You can set your computer not to accept cookies. However, if you do this, you will not be able to use www.mendip.gov.uk because we need to record your preferences in order to give you the information you need during your visit.

Session cookies are deleted when you leave the site. They do not contain any personal information about you, and do not hold any information about which sites you visited before www.mendip.gov.uk.

ii) Log files

Log files allow us to record visitors' use of the site. We keep log file information collected from all our visitors, which we use to make changes to the layout of the site and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it.

Log files do not contain any personal information or information about which other sites you have visited.

What happens when I link to another site?

This website contains links to other websites, both those of government departments and of other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our site, so you should always be aware when you are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any site which collects personal information.

Access to your information and contacting Mendip Customer Services

You can change your registration information or de-register from the e-mail alert facility at any time. To do this, you should choose "Change your registration" and change your details or choose "remove me from all e-mail alerts". Removing yourself from all e-mail alerts removes from our records any details you have given to us.

If you wish to see our records of any correspondence you have sent to us, or if you have a query or complaint about this privacy policy or about the site, you can contact us by e-mail:
e-mail: webmaster@mendip.gov.uk

Changes to this privacy policy

If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we will share it with other parties.