Vale, Valleys and Cardiff Adoption Collaborative Privacy Notice

Your privacy is important to us, and this policy explains how we will manage information you give to us and your rights in respect of that information. It explains what type of information about you we will collect, use and share with others, how we will process it, transfer it, and store it.

• Who is collecting and using your personal data?

  Vale, Valleys and Cardiff Adoption Collaborative (VVC) collect and use your personal information in relation to whichever aspect of the adoption process you are involved with. By consenting choosing to use this service or by being required in law to participate you agree to VVC collecting and using your data for purposes related to the adoption process you are involved with. The VVC are allowed to process your personal data under data protection laws because they are legally obliged to provide this service and are carrying out a public task by providing this service.

  VVC act as a Regional Adoption Agency on behalf of:
  • Vale of Glamorgan Council
  • Cardiff County Council
  • Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
  • Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council

  The Vale of Glamorgan Council is the host authority for VVC.

• What sort of data will we be collecting?

   In terms of person seeking approval to adopt, VVC will gather a range of personal information, such as:
  • Name
  • Address
  • Date of Birth
  • Gender
  • National Insurance number
  • Legal Status
  • Religion
  • Ethnicity
  • Medical information
  • Criminal convictions
  • Family history
  • Details of dependents
  • Financial information

  In terms of other persons seeking access to post adoption support services, VVC will with also need to gather a range of personal information such as:
  • Personal identifiers
  • Demographic data
  • Family history
  • Legal status
  • Demographic data
  • Legal status
  • Medical information
  • Behavioural needs
  • Emotional and developmental needs
  • Educational needs
  • Background history
  • Birth Parent information
  • Sibling(s) information
  • Wider family history

  VVC processes information from our Local Authority partners in respect of children requiring adoptive placements such as:
  • Personal identifiers
  • Demographic data
  • Legal status
  • Medical information
  • Behavioural needs
  • Emotional and developmental needs
  • Educational needs
  • Background history
  • Birth Parent information
  • Sibling(s) information
  • Wider family history

• Why are we collecting and processing your personal data?

  To deliver the services of Vale, Valley and Cardiff Adoption Collaborative, we need to process personal data about prospective adopters and, children who have been referred and placed for adoption and adopted adults.

  The legal basis we rely upon for processing personal data about prospective adopters is public task and legal obligation. Articles 6 1 (c) and 6 1 (e) of the General Data Processing Regulations (GDPR). 

  Personal data about persons seeking approval as adopters and children referred and placed for adoption is processed to satisfy our obligations under the Children Act 1989, The Adoption and Children Act 2002 and the Adoption Agencies (Wales) Regulations 2005.

  We may also use personal data to send communications such as newsletters about adoption services we offer. Anybody who wishes to opt out of receiving such communications should write to contact@adopt4vvc.org to request this.

• Whom will we share your personal data with?

  To deliver adoption services it may be necessary for us to share personal data about prospective adopters and children placed for adoption with the following:
  • Independent Adoption Panel members who are responsible for assessing the suitability of prospective adopters to adopt a child
  • Other local authorities with statutory responsibility for safeguarding children and for delivering adoption services
  • With Social Workers and other VVC staff who need to access information to deliver the adoption service
  • With third party organisations who may assist in a variety of support functions

  The above list is not exhaustive.

  We will not share your personal data with other organisations unless we are allowed to do so under the Data Protection Act.

• How long will we hold your personal data?

   We will only hold your data for as long as necessary. All data is held in accordance with the relevant laws and each Local Authority, which form part of Vale, Valleys and Cardiff Adoption retention schedules. Details of the retention schedules and/or further information regarding this can be obtained by contacting the Vale Valleys and Cardiff Adoption Collaborative at contact@adopt4vvc.org.

• Exercising your rights

   ou have the right to request access to and correction of information held about you.

  This means you have the right:
  • To ask for copies of the information we hold about you
  • To ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate
  • To ask to complete information you think is incomplete
  • To ask us to erase your information in certain circumstances
  • To ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
  • To object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
  • To ask for the transfer of your personal information in certain circumstances to another organisation

  You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you in most circumstances.

  Please contact us at contact@adopt4vvc.org if you require any of the above to be considered.

• Your right to complain

  If you wish to complain about the way that your personal data has been handled by Vale, Valleys and Cardiff Adoption Collaborative then you should contact the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s Data Protection Officer (DPO).

  The DPO can be contacted about matters such as this via the following e-mail address DPO@valeofglamorgan.gov.uk. When writing you should try and set out clearly your concerns, as this will assist in investigating the issues.

  Where you are unhappy about how your personal data is/has been handled Vale, Valleys and Cardiff Adoption Collaborative ask that you get in touch with the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s DPO in the first instance. The Collaborative takes the handling of your personal information seriously. Your privacy and information are understood to be important and confidential.

  Where there are concerns the Collaborative will want to investigate and try to resolve if possible and/or learn from the incident to ensure it improves practice for the future.

  If you remain dissatisfied with the way your personal data has been handled, you may refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office whose contact details are below:

  Information Commissioner’s Office – Wales
  2nd Floor, Churchill House
  Churchill Way
  Cardiff
  CF10 2HH

  Please phone 0330 414 6421 to talk to the team.

  Email: wales@ico.org.uk

  Website: www.ico.org.uk

Cookies

When someone visits  www.adopt4vvc.org we collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. We collect this information in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. We will not associate any data gathered from this site with any personally-identifying information from any source. If we do want to collect personally-identifiable information through our website, we will be upfront about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it

Use of cookies by Vale, Valleys and Cardiff Adoption

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. The table below explains the cookies we use and why.

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit  http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit  http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

YouTube cookies

We embed videos from our official YouTube channel using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode. This mode may set cookies on your computer once you click on the YouTube video player, but YouTube will not store personally-identifiable cookie information for playbacks of embedded videos using the privacy-enhanced mode. To find out more please visit  YouTube’s embedding videos information page.

As the Vale, Valleys and Cardiff Adoption creates new services, this may mean we need to amend this statement. If our privacy policy changes at any time in the future, it will be posted on this page.