Environmental health - privacy notice

If you contact us to register a complaint or to ask for our advice, we'll make a record of the information you give us, including your name, your address and the nature of the complaint. This'll allow us to carry out a comprehensive investigation of the issue you have raised with us and to keep a record of any advice we provided you with.

It'll also allow us to take the appropriate enforcement action, where necessary. If you give us information, or we've got information about you from a third party, we'll use the information given, and may gather more from internal services such as housing or council tax, for example. More information about the third parties that we get information from is available below.

We use your personal information to give advice and guidance, conduct investigations and ensure compliance with the relevant laws. This includes:

• receiving and investigating complaints from members of the public
• responding to service requests from businesses and individuals
• monitoring, researching, analysing and reporting intelligence requirements to detect and prevent crime
• ensuring compliance with legislation through a range of enforcement activities including visits, inspections and testing
• conducting investigations and enquiries into criminal offences and civil law breaches
• managing registration, certification and licensing
• planning and improving the service we offer

Under Article 6(1) (e) of the GDPR, the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law. While the list isn't exhaustive, the main laws relating to environmental health are:

• Animal Health and Welfare Legislation
• Public Health (Scotland) Act
• Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978
• National Assistance Act 1948
• Environmental Protection Act 1990 (as amended)
• Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982
• Housing (Scotland) Acts
• Food Safety Legislation
• Health and Safety at Work and associated legislation

contact the Environmental Health team for a full list of environmental health legislation.

For some activities, we may process more sensitive personal information about you known as special category data such as health information. Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest as set in Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and in Article 9(2) (g) of the GDPR.

Where the collection of your information is a statutory requirement, you're obliged to give the information. In other circumstances, this may mean that we can't provide a service for you.

We collect information about you either directly from or from a variety of sources and these are set out in the table in our Retention Schedule.

We'll only keep your personal information for as long as is necessary and ensure that it's securely deleted when it's no longer needed or until the law states that it should be destroyed. At present we keep your information in line with our Retention Schedule.

Where it's required by law, or necessary to carry out our statutory function, we'll share your information with:

• the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS)
• Police Scotland
• the Health and Safety Executive
• other enforcing authorities
• other council services

You've the right to:

1. Be informed of our use of your information. This notice is intended to give you relevant information to meet this right.
2. Access personal data held about you.
3. Request rectification of your personal data.
4. Request that we restrict processing of your personal data.
5. Object to the processing of your data.
6. Ask us to delete your information.

More information about these rights and how you can exercise them can be found in our privacy policy.

If you've an issue with the way we handle your information or wish to exercise any of the above rights in respect of your information you can contact our Data Protection Officer. 

You also have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). Contact details for both our Data Protection Officer and the ICO can be found in our privacy policy.

While you can go directly to the ICO, we would welcome an opportunity to address any issues you have in the first instance.

Contact us if you need this information in an alternative format.

This notice will be kept under regular review and was last updated in March 2021.