Citizens Advice is committed to safeguarding your privacy, while providing a high quality of service. Citizens Advice will treat your personal information as confidential and your details will not be given or sold to anyone.

We will use the information collected online to help us understand more about how our site is used by visitors, and to develop and enhance our services to you.

We are bound by the Citizens Advice Information Charter.

We use cookies* to:

Track aspects of user visits, including the length of a user's visit, their browser and geographic location.

*cookie - a bit of information kept on a user's computer.

If you don't want to receive cookies, you can change settings in your web browser so that your browser tells you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set.

If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies, the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, these sites can provide more information on how to do this:

www.allaboutcookies.org
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At Citizens Advice we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives. We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential. When we record and use your personal information we:

• only access it when we have a good reason
• only share what is necessary and relevant
• don’t sell it to anyone At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:
• to comply with the law - for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’
• to protect someone’s life - for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’
• to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity - for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’
• for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest - for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’
• to carry out a contract we have with you - for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’
• to defend our legal rights - for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law - including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. You can check our main Citizens Advice policy for how we handle most of your personal information. This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.

How Citizens Advice Exeter collect your data

We need to record information about you to help with your enquiry. We have a legitimate interest to do this.

What Citizens Advice Exeter ask for We'll only ask for information that's relevant to your problem. Depending on what you want help with, this might include:

• your name and contact details - so we can keep in touch with you about your case
• personal information - for example about family, work, or financial circumstances
• details about services you get that are causing you problems - like energy or post
• details of items or services you've bought, and traders you've dealt with • information like your gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation

If you don't want to give us certain information, you don't have to. For example, if you want to stay anonymous we'll only record information about your problem and make sure you're not identified. To find out what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy

How Citizens Advice Exeter use your information

First and foremost your information will be used to provide you with advice. We also use information in a way that doesn’t directly identify you to understand how different problems are affecting society and to take action to tackle these problems. As this is used for research it is kept separate from your case record.

Where you have given us your permission and contact details, we, or in some instances a trusted research partner, may contact you to ask you for feedback on the service you received and your overall experience of Citizens Advice.

To find out how we use your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy’

Working on your behalf When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, we’ll need to share information with that third party.

How Citizens Advice Exeter store your information

The record of your case will be stored securely in an electronic case management system used jointly by all of the Citizens Advice service. We are all responsible for keeping it safe. As part of solving your problem, we might also make written notes, download copies of your case or send emails containing your information. We will make sure any information is stored securely and only accessed when there’s a good reason by staff and volunteers of the Citizens Advice service.

How Citizens Advice Exeter share your information

We will generally not share information without your permission, unless required to do so by law or in some very limited situations, like to protect you or someone else from serious harm. If a particular service involves sharing your information without permission, we will always let you know upfront that it isn’t confidential.

Contact Citizens Advice Exeter about your information If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office. If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact us at Dix’s Field, Exeter EX1 1QA

You can contact us to:

• find out what personal information we hold about you
• correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete
• request we delete your information
•  ask us to limit what we do with your data - for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already
• ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service
• ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

The national Citizens Advice charity and your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system. Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity.

The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law. You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.