Privacy & Cookies Statement

What we do

Our principal activities are to provide a range of local government services to local people, businesses, visitors and local organisations. Our privacy policy covers the website of Bournemouth Borough Council.

 

Confidentiality and Security

Access to all our user’s information is restricted and as such only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally-identifiable information. The servers that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure environment. On occasions the collection of data may include bank or credit card details associated with the payment of services the Council provides. Any payment information is passed directly to the banks for processing and we do not hold that information. All employees and data processors who have access to, and are associated with the processing of personal data are obliged to respect the confidentiality of our visitors personal data. The Council is also fully committed to compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

 

Access to the personal data we may hold about you

You have a right of access to personal information we hold about you. This is usually referred to as 'subject access rights'|.

The leaflet ‘Our Commitment to you and your rights’ will help to provide further information about how we protect your personal information.

For further information about Data Protection please email: information.compliance@bournemouth.gov.uk|

 

Providing visitors with anonymous access

Visitors can access our homepage and browse the Council website without the requirement of logging on using a unique personal login. The Council website does not enable its visitors to communicate with other visitors or to post information to be accessed by others.

 

Disclosure and visitor choice

Information may on occasion be collected from users when completing an online form, consultation or feedback form as part of a service provided by the Council. The information provided by you via these services will be acted upon and used exclusively for providing you with the information or service which you have requested and will not be shared with any other organisation. In some circumstances this may involve contacting users to reply to the issues raised.

 

Automatic collection of information

All personal information collected on the website will be used for the purpose of delivering the service for which the information was supplied. In addition, the information may be used to make you aware of new or improved services available from us, unless you refuse us permission to do so.

We will not sell, share or rent any part of your information collected on the website to third parties in any way, unless stated on the web page at the point of collecting information from you, or as outlined in our policy statement, or as required by law.

 

Use of cookies by Bournemouth Borough Council's website

A "cookie" is a small file stored on your computer by a web site that assigns a numerical user ID and stores certain information about your online browsing. Bournemouth Borough Council only uses "cookies" to ensure the integrity of transactional processes on our web sites. No personal information is retained and the session identification number automatically assigned to you when you use our web site is deleted at the end of the transaction.

The table below explains the cookies we use and why:

Cookie	Name	Purpose	More Information
Google Analytics	_utma _utmb _utmc _utmz	These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where vistors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.	An overview of Google Analytics privacy|   To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics you can use thier 'Opt out tool'|.
ASP.NET	ASP.NET_SessionId	This cookie is essential for various forms and web pages to operate. It is set upon site arrival and is deleted when you close your browser.	How and why session IDs are reused in ASP.NET - Microsoft |

 

Our payment portals for HSBC and Santander require cookies for secure payment so we have not restricted these cookies in anyway.

We have, in some places, embedded videos which are hosted on YouTube.  We endeavour at all times to provide the version of the video from YouTube that doesn't require cookies. 

If you would like more control or information about cookies on your computer, please refer to the AboutCookies.org| website for instructions on this for a number of Internet Browsers widely used today (they also have a very nice receipe for the edible version of cookies).