PN020 - Registrars Service Privacy Notice

Torfaen County Borough Council is committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. This Privacy Notice is designed to give you information about the data we hold about you, how we use it, your rights in relation to it and the safeguards in place to protect it.

TCBC Service Area: Adults & Communities
Work area: PSSU - Registrars
Contact Details: Chantell Hatherall
Privacy Notice Name: Registrars

The superintendent registrar is a data controller for birth, death and marriage registrations and can be contacted at registrars@torfaen.gov.uk.

The Local Authority is the data controller for Civil Partnership Registrations and Citizenship ceremonies and can be contacted at registrars@torfaen.gov.uk.   

The Registrar General for England and Wales is a joint data controller for Birth, Marriage, Death and Civil Partnership registrations and can be contacted at:  The General Register Office, Trafalgar Road, Southport. PR8 2HH     

If you wish to raise a concern about the handling of your personal data, please contact the Data Protection Officer using the details below:

Torfaen County Borough Council, c/o Civic Centre, Pontypool, NP4 6YB
Tel: 01495 762200
Email: dpa@torfaen.gov.uk

The purpose of this privacy notice is to tell you about how we collect and use personal data in connection with our services. We may update this privacy notice from time to time. When we do this, we will communicate any changes to you and publish the revised privacy notice on our website.

Who provides your data to the Council?

The personal information we process is provided to us directly by you, another individual or an external agency.

We get most of this information from you and from what we learn about you through your use of our services, but we may also get some information about you from:

  • NHS Child Health
  • HM Coroner
  • The Home Office
  • Other local authorities

How does the Council collect this information?

  • Face to face contact / appointments
  • Over the telephone, mail & email
  • Via a third party
  • Manual and Computer based application forms

What information does the Council collect about you?

The Registrars service collects the following information:

Registering a birth

  • Baby: name, date of birth, place of birth, sex
  • Parents: name, place of birth, address, occupation, marital or civil partnership status, telephone number, email address.

Registering a death (including Tell Us Once)

  • Deceased person: name, date of death, place of death, date of birth, place of birth, sex, occupation, address, spouse’s name, occupation, cause of death, name of certifying doctor or coroner.
  • Informants: Name, address, telephone number, email address.

Registering a still birth

  • Baby: name, date of death, place of death, date of birth, place of birth, sex.
  • Parents: name, place of birth, address, occupation, marital or civil partnership status, telephone number, email address.

Marriages, and civil partnerships

  • Booking appointment: name, address, nationality, marital or civil partnership status, date of ceremony, place of ceremony, sex, telephone number, email address
  • Taking notice of marriage or civil partnership: name, address, nationality, marital or civil partnership status, date of ceremony, place of ceremony, sex, passport, birth certificate, driving licence, divorce or dissolution document, death certificate, change of name deed, photographs, visa information, ID card, telephone number, email address.

Citizenship ceremonies

  • Name, telephone number, email address.

Producing and issuing certificates

  • Person ordering the certificate: name, telephone number, address, email address.
  • Person on the certificate: name, date of birth / death / ceremony, place of birth / death / ceremony, sex, parents place of birth, address, occupation, marital or civil partnership status, cause of death, spouse’s name, address, occupation, informants name, address.
  • Name, telephone number, email address.

Why does the Council process your personal data?

Under Article 6 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

(c) We have a legal obligation.

(e) We need it to perform a public task.

Personal information collected from you in order to register an event is required by law. The main legislation which governs the collection of registration information is the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the Marriage Act 1949 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004. You may be legally obliged by these acts, and other pieces of legislation, to provide certain pieces of information.  If you fail to provide information you are required to give us you may, amongst other things, be liable to a fine, or we may not be able to provide the service you are applying for, such as a marriage or a civil partnership.   

Personal information may also be collected from you if you make an application to this office, for example for a certificate or to correct information contained in a register entry.   

The information you provide will be held and processed by registration officers for this registration district.     

Special categories of personal data

We collect the following special category data:

  • data concerning health

Whilst we do not directly ask you for the following special category data, it may be included within information provided to us:

  • personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin
  • personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs
  • data concerning a person’s sexual orientation

We collect this under Article 9 of the UK GDPR.

We do not collect any or criminal data.

Who has access to your data?

Registration information held at this office may be shared internally only with the appropriate staff, or with other organisations, in the course of carrying out our functions, or to enable others to perform theirs. We will only share information where there is a lawful basis to do so for the following reasons:   

  • Statistical or research purposes
  • Administrative purposes by official bodies e.g., ensuring their records are up to date in order to provide services to the public   
  • Fraud prevention or detection, immigration and passport purposes.   

Further information on data held by the registration service and a full list of the organisations with whom registration data is shared, the purpose and the lawful basis for sharing the data can be accessed via the Torfaen Register office. Please contact 01495 742132 or email registrars@torfaen.gov.uk for details.

Apart from where previously stated, we do not pass your details to third parties unless we are lawfully required do so.

Is the Data transferred out of the UK?

No

How does the Council keep your data secure?

The Council has internal policies in place to ensure the data it processes is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed. Access to this data is restricted in accordance with the Council’s internal policies and in compliance with the UK GDPR.

Data will be stored securely in the following locations:

  • Main central repository at the Register Office and annex to the RO
  • Secure computer-based software systems (Microsoft office, teams, word etc)
  • Registration-based computer software systems (RON & RISE)
  • Financial systems (Civica Purchasing, MCS & Webpaystaff)
  • In secured locked filing cabinets

Where the Council engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions. These third parties are also under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate measures to ensure the security of data.

How long does the Council keep your data?

We will hold this information for as long as it is needed, or if we are required to do so by law. In practice this means that your personal information may be retained for the relevant period listed below:

  • Registration information is retained indefinitely as required by law
  • Appointment information is retained for one year
  • Certificate application information is retained for two years.

Are we making automated decisions/profiling with your data?

No

Your rights

You have a number of Rights you can exercise:

  • Access - to obtain a copy of your data on request
  • Rectification – to require the Council to change incorrect or incomplete data
  • Object, Restrict or Delete - under certain circumstances you can require the Council to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
  • Data portability – to receive and/or transmit data provided to the Council to other organisations (this applies in limited circumstances)
  • Withdraw your consent at any time (where consent has been given)
  • To know the consequences of failing to provide data to the Council
  • To know the existence of any Automated Decision-making, including profiling, and the consequences of this for you.
  • To lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (Information Commissioners Office)

In relation to registration data, you have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you, to be informed about the collection and use of your personal information, for incorrect information to be corrected (where the law permits) to request us to restrict the processing of your personal information. In certain circumstances you also have the right to object to the processing of your personal information.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact: Chantell Hatherall. The Civic Centre, Pontypool. Torfaen NP4 6YB chantell.hatherall@torfaen.gov.uk

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (Wales), 2nd Floor, Churchill House, Churchill Way, Cardiff, CF10 2HH. Telephone 0330 414 6421 or e-mail Wales@ico.org.uk.

Last Modified: 17/07/2023 Back to top