Environmental and Consumer Protection's privacy policy (the Pollution Control and the Food & Plant Security teams)

​​Introduction

The Food and Plant Security and the Pollution Control teams are registered as ‘data controllers’ under the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 (Ref number 15801) as we collect and process personal information about you. We are part of Environmental and Consumer Protection in the Regulation Directorate which sits under Infrastructure and Environment.

We process and hold your information in order to provide public services and meet our statutory obligations. This notice explains how we use and share your information. Information may be collected on a paper or online form, by telephone, email, or by a member of our staff, or in some cases, by another Government department.

We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our services and feedback from service users, as well as to comply with changes in the law.

What information we collect about you

We collect a variety of information about you, including:

• your name
• email address
• telephone number
• postal address
• details of any new or existing waste or water project proposals or licenced activities you wish to undertake
• financial information 
• details about your borehole, well or watercourse
• mapping information showing location of water sources and discharge points
• business, organisation and agent contact details
• details of potentially polluting discharges which you may make into controlled water sources
• your water source and abstraction details
• number of occupants in your household/business 
• the water consumption of your household or business
• vehicle registration numbers
• signatures
• your occupation
• your professional qualifications and experience
• land ownership, and land occupancy details
• previous criminal offences relating to environment and waste management
• on-going and historic environmental investigations and resulting actions
• details of any current or past insolvency proceedings or declarations of bankruptcy
  
• details of plant and animal products you are importing, exporting, manufacturing, distributing or handling
  
• information about your use of pesticides
  

Why we collect information about you

We need to collect and hold information about you, in order to:

• manage the regulation of permits and licenses​
  
• to discharge potentially polluting substances into the water environment
• to authorise water abstraction from water sources such as boreholes  and stream
• to operate waste management sites
• manage and regulate water quality through pollution prevention campaigns
• investigate potential breaches of the water pollution, water resources and waste management laws
• where necessary for our law enforcement functions
• to protect and safeguard the availability of our water resources through registration and licensing
• control and enable the export of hazardous waste off-island (Transfrontier shipment consent)
• respond to unauthorised waste activities including fly tipping and burning
• regulate waste management sites and hazardous waste carriers
• respond to plant disease outbreaks, environmental contamination or similar events
• inspect plants and products of animal origin imported / exported through the harbour, airport and post office
• ​investigate pesticide spray complaints
• to issue relevant permits and licences 
• undertake on-island surveys of plant pests and diseases
• protect public health through proactive risk management measures

How we will use the information we hold about you

We will use the information you provide in a manner that conforms to the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 and endeavour to keep your information accurate and up to date. We will process your information for the following purposes:

• to carry out the service you have requested and to monitor and improve our performance in responding to your service request
• to verify your experience and suitability to be granted a license or permit
• to allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the provision of services
• to process financial transactions where you are required to pay a fee
• to prevent pollution to the environment and harm to human health
• to ensure that we meet our statutory and legal obligations
• to allow the statistical analysis of data
• to advise you about a pollution incident in proximity to your water supply
• to prevent and detect criminal offences and / breaches under the following laws:

• Water Pollution (Jersey) Law 2000
• Water Resources (Jersey) Law 2007
• Waste Management (Jersey) Law 2005

• conduct species audits and carry out investigations
• assess and mitigate risks associated with foodborne illnesses, contamination incidents and non-compliance
• to protect the island from unwanted invasive species and diseases in plants
• to manage the import and export of plant and animal products
• to ensure safe and proper use of pesticides and prevent​ them from entering the island's water supply

We will not pass any personal data on to anyone outside of the Government of Jersey, other than those who either process information on our behalf, or where we are required to do so because of another legal requirement.   We will only do this, where possible, after we have ensured that sufficient steps have been taken by the recipient to protect your personal data and where necessary we will ensure that the recipient has signed a data sharing agreement.  A data sharing agreement sets out the purpose of the sharing and the rules that must be followed when processing your data.

We will not disclose any information that you provide ‘in confidence’, to anyone else without your permission, except in the few situations where disclosure is required by law, or where we have good reason to believe that failing to share the information would put someone else at risk. You will be told about this.

Data Processing

We use the following organisations to process information on our behalf.

Information processed outside of the European Economic Area ('EEA')

We do not currently process any personal data overseas using web services that are hosted outside the European Economic Area.

Data sharing

We may need to pass your information to other Government of Jersey (GOJ) departments or organisations to fulfil your request for a service or to meet our legal obligations. These departments and organisations are obliged to keep your details securely, and only use your information for the purposes it was transferred.

Other forms of sharing

There is provision within the Water Resources (Jersey) Law 2007 for the Minister to make available for public inspection information relating to registration of abstractions.  As such data relating to your registrations may be shared with the public or any organisation upon request. 

If we need to disclose any sensitive or confidential information about you, we will only do so if absolutely necessary or once we have obtained your consent where appropriate or unless we are legally required to do so. Examples of this include, but are not limited to: where the disclosure is necessary for the purposes of the prevention and/or detection of crime or for the purposes of meeting our legal obligations.

At no time will your information be passed to organisations for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consent.

Data Security

We have put appropriate security measures in place to prevent your personal data from being used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a legal or legitimate business need to know.

All of our staff have received training on data protection awareness and security. We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and the Office of the Information Commissioner of any breach where we are legally required to do.

Publication of your information

We may need to publish your information on our website and/or in the Jersey Gazette for the following reasons:

• where a public consultation is carried out regarding a Discharge Permit
• where a public consultation is carried out regarding a Waste Management License
• where a public consultation is carried out regarding a Water Resources License
• where you have responded to a public consultation, although your comments will be anonymised to protect your identity.
• where we are required to provide statistical information; although your data will be anonymised to protect your identity.

How long we keep information about you

We will endeavour not to keep your information for longer than is necessary. In some instances the law sets the length of time information has to be kept. Our retention schedules are available for you to view on-line. These set out what information we hold, how long we plan to keep it for and what we plan to do with it at the end of its lifecycle.

In some instances we will not be able to remove your data automatically from our files because of the limitations of some of our legacy processes and systems. There are also some instances where we are still working towards meeting the requirements set out in our retention schedules.

If you are concerned about us continuing to hold your personal information you can contact us to ask that we remove the data immediately. We will always seek to comply with your request but we may require further information from you to be able to locate your data or we may still be required to continue to hold or process your information in order to comply with a legal requirement.

Telephone calls

We do not record or monitor any telephone calls you make to us using recording equipment, although if you leave a message on our voicemail systems your message will be kept until we are able to return your call or make a note of your message. File notes of when and why you called may be taken for record keeping purposes. We will not pass on the content of your telephone calls, unless is it necessary for us to do so; either to fulfil your request for a service; to comply with a legal obligation, or where permitted under other legislation.

Emails

If you email us we may keep a record of your email address and a copy of the email for record keeping purposes. For security reasons we will not include any confidential information about you in any email we send to you. We would also suggest that you keep the amount of confidential information you send to us via email to a minimum or use our secure online services where possible or correspond with us by post. We will not share your email address or your email contents unless is it necessary for us to do so; either to fulfil your request for a service; to comply with a legal obligation, or where permitted under other legislation.

Your rights

You can ask us to stop processing your information

You have the right to request that the Environmental Protection section stop processing your personal data in relation to any of our services. However, this may cause delays or prevent us delivering a service to you. Where possible we will seek to comply with your request but we may be required to hold or process information to comply with a legal requirement.

You can withdraw your consent to the processing of your information

In instances where the processing of your information can only be carried out with your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent to the further processing of your personal data.  However, this may cause delays or prevent us delivering a service to you. We will always seek to comply with your request but we may be required to hold or process your information in order to comply with a legal requirement.

You request that the processing of your personal data is restricted

You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information.  You can exercise this right in instances where you believe the information being processed in inaccurate, out of date, or there are no legitimate grounds for the processing. We will always seek to comply with your request but we may be required to continue to process your information in order to comply with a legal requirement.

You can ask us to correct or amend your information

You have the right to challenge the accuracy of the information we hold about you and request that it is corrected where necessary.  We will seek to ensure that corrections are made not only to the data that we hold but also any data held by other organisations/parties that process your data on our behalf.

You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you

You are legally entitled to request a list of, or a copy of any information that we hold about you. You can submit a subject access request (SAR) using our online form.

However where our records are not held in a way that easily identifies you, for example a land registry, we may not be able to provide you with a copy of your information, although we will do everything we can to comply with your request.

Complaints

If you have an enquiry or concern regarding the Government of Jersey processing your personal data you can contact the Central Data Protection Unit.

You can also complain to the Jersey Office of the Information Commissioner about the way your information is being used.