Trading standards - 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, to 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. This will also allow us to take the appropriate enforcement action, where necessary. If you give us information, or we have 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 in the table 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 consumer complaints
• responding to service requests from businesses and individuals
• monitoring, researching, analysing and reporting intelligence requirements to detect and
• prevent crime or fraud
• 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
• operating assurance schemes for businesses and referral agencies
• 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 trading standards are:

• The Consumer Rights Act 2015
• The Enterprise Act 2002
• The Weights and Measure Act 1985

A full list of trading standards legislation is available on request or on our trading standards web page.

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. More information is set out in the table to this notice.

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.

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 for the current year plus 5 years in line with our retention schedule (PDF) [2MB] (opens new window) . If information given relates to the storage of petroleum spirit then this information will be held indefinitely, as is needed by the law.

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

Depending on why we need to process your information you'll have rights to how your information is used. More information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, can be found within our main privacy policy.

If you've concerns about the processing of your personal data by us, you can contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing, visit the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website (opens new window).

Please contact us if you need this information in an alternative format.

This notice will be kept under regular review and was last updated on the 16 December 2020.