We are committed to meeting our statutory and moral duties to safeguard our employees’ wellbeing, in the delivery of our services.
It is sometimes necessary for the us to record information about individuals to help us understand and manage risk. This information is often included in a warning marker which is recorded on a register, managed in accordance with our guidance on ‘Violent and Potentially Violent Persons Warning Markers – Their Use and Best Practice’.
The purpose of warning markers is not to stigmatise individuals, but to manage risk. Warning markers alert our staff and others acting on our behalf, to the potential risks of dealing with a particular individual and allows them to take all reasonable and practical measures to assess the risks and put in place the necessary control measures to protect them against any violence etc.
Information requirements and processing activity - to assess whether there is a risk to our staff and other third parties when they contact or visit you, our processing activities may include:
- name
- address
- contact details
- reasons for the warning marker
- notes and other information we obtain directly from you about actual or potential violent behaviour e.g. we may make a note of threatening words used
- notes and information we obtain from our departments and /or third parties, in relation to actual or potential violent behaviour
Lawful bases -our lawful bases for processing your personal information
- UK GDPR Article 6(1)(c) - the processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject, in service to the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and RIDDOR – Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (recording and reporting incidents of work-related violence)
In the event or likelihood of this happening, personal information about you will be collected to assess the risks to our employees (including the risk of reasonably foreseeable violence) and retained on a Potentially Violent Persons Register (PVPR).
- UK GDPR Article 6(1)(e) and section 8(c) DPA 2018 - where needed for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest under the laws that apply to us or the exercise of official authority vested in us
- UK GDPR Article 9(2)(g) and DPA 2018, sections 10(3) and 10(5) and Schedule 1, Part 2, para.6(1) & (2)(a)) and para.10 - where processing is necessary for the reasons of substantial public interest (under the above legislation)
Some of the information collected may comprise:
- special category personal data e.g. health
- criminal convictions and offences (including alleged offences).
Markers are likely to record information relating to:
- the apparent mental stability of an individual; and/or
- any threatening actions, incidents or behaviour the individual has or is alleged to have committed.
We have a Data Protection Policy that sets out how this information will be handled.
Data sharing – it may be necessary for details contained on a warning marker to be shared between our departments, Ombudsmen,Courts and Police. We may also share this information with third party providers and partner agencies that are delivering services on our behalf and who may come into direct contact with you. The sharing will be strictly on a need to know basis.
We will only share information that is adequate, relevant and not excessive and will only share information where this is necessary to safeguard our staff and other third parties from potential harm.
We may rely on a number of exemptions, which allow us to share information without needing to comply with all the rights and obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018. Please refer to the Kent and Medway Information Agreement for further details on our sharing arrangements.
Retention period – we keep your personal information for the minimum period necessary. Markers are reviewed at regular intervals to assess whether they can be removed or should remain on file, for a further period.
All information will be held securely and disposed of confidentially.
Anonymisation- your personal information may be converted ('anonymised') into statistical or aggregated data in such a way that ensures that you cannot be identified from it. Aggregated data cannot, by definition, be linked back to you as an individual and may be used to conduct research and analysis, including the preparation of statistics for use in our reports.
Changes to this Privacy Notice – we review this Privacy Notice regularly and will place updates on our website.
Please refer to our Corporate Privacy Notice for further details of how we process your personal information and for details on your additional rights.