Privacy policy | Our Place

Privacy

www.ourplace.scot is managed by the Scottish Government.

This privacy policy tells you what to expect when the Scottish Government collects your personal information.

Why do we collect personal data?

The Our Place website provides information and resources to help support better health and wellbeing outcomes for the population and to protect and enhance the environment. The site supports the statutory functions of the planning system and community planning outcomes which are in the public interest. This means that the legal basis for collecting and using personal data will be that the information is needed for performing a task carried out in the public interest – under the GDPR this is known as Public Task. Examples are supporting local development planning, local place planning, and providing information on community right to buy land.

We gather this information in order to:

improve the site by monitoring how you use it
respond to any feedback you send us, if you've asked us to
send out email alerts to those who have requested them
record and/or publish your response to a survey or consultation
publish your comment on a blog or discussion site
request feedback on the functioning of the website to inform future improvements

The personal data you send us can be viewed by authorised people in the Scottish government and supplier organisations. Providing your personal data is voluntary. If you choose not to provide personal data you will not be able to register as a Group Owner for the Place Standard tool, but you will be able to access all of the other content on the Our Place site.

Who is responsible for ourplace.scot?

The Planning, Architecture and Regeneration Division within the Scottish Government manage the website with support from the Place Standard partners. The Place Standard tool partners are Scottish Government, Public Health Scotland, Architecture & Design Scotland, the Improvement Service and Glasgow City Council.

The content on the site and the placestandard@gov.scot mailbox are controlled by the Scottish Government. The wider Place Standard partners act in an advisory capacity on ourplace.scot.

The servers and databases are maintained by Scottish Government's contracted IT providers.

What data do we collect?

1. Visitors to our websites

We use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect information on how you use the site, using cookies and page tagging techniques.

The information we - and Google - collect through this route doesn't identify anyone, and is kept for a maximum of 38 months. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through the site, we will be up front about it.

2. Email contact

If you choose to contact us through the site at placestandard@gov.scot then we collect and retain your email address and any other information that you choose to include. This information is only kept for as long as we require . In the case of personal data processed as part of the general Our Place website content, this data will be kept only as long as the website page is online and relevant. In the case of data held as part of the Place Standard tool Group Owner accounts, this data will be kept for as long as an account is open and in use. Accounts with no activity for 24 months or more will be deleted, along with any linked data.

We do not share your email address or personal data on the Our Place website unless you have provided permission for this. If you are contributing content which will be uploaded to Our Place which includes your personal data then we will discuss this with you and make sure that you approve of the way in which your data is used. Your personal information and is only kept for as long as is required to support the active content population on the website.

3. Place Standard tool

We retain the numerical scores and any text comments that are entered by users when they complete a Place Standard assessment using the online tool.

We retain the details that are entered on the Getting Started page of the site. We do not store full postcodes – the last digit of any postcode entered on the site is removed automatically and is not stored on the database. This means that you cannot be identified by us or anyone else by completing a place Standard assessment. The Place Standard tool seeks your views on the quality of a place anonymously, so when entering any text, we ask that you don't add information that could identify you to others.

If you register as a Group Owner, we retain the email address details and password that you enter. This will continue to be retained for as long as you have an account with the service. Accounts that are inactive (i.e there has been no login for 24 months) and the email address associated with the account are deleted. We may occasionally require Group Owners to reset their password in order to keep details up to date and accurate

4. Feedback

If you contact us asking a question or giving feedback, we collect your email address and any other personal data contained in your message. If you contact us asking for information, we may need to contact other government bodies to find that information.

Links to other websites

When we link to other websites, we encourage you to read the privacy policy statements contained on those sites.

How to find out more about the privacy policy

We aim to resolve any enquiries or concerns that our users may have about the processing of their personal data whilst using ourplace.scot. For any enquiry or concern about this privacy policy, please contact us at placestandard@gov.scot in the first instance.

How can you access your personal data?

You have the right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data.

You have a right of access to any personal data we hold about you, by making a Subject Access Request (SAR).

You also have the right of

Rectification - The UK GDPR includes a right for individuals to have inaccurate personal data rectified, or completed if it is incomplete. If you believe that the data we hold is inaccurate or incomplete you can ask us to update our records

Restriction of processing – you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances. - If you are unhappy with the way in which we process your personal data you can request that we restrict processing your personal data.

Object to processing- If you are unhappy with the way in which we process your personal data you can request that we stop processing your personal data or ask us to delete the personal data we hold about you.

Find out more about your rights on the Information Commissioner's site.

In some circumstances we may not be able to comply with your request. This is because some of these rights are conditional and can only be applied in certain circumstances and/or where there is no compelling reason to continue to process your personal data.

Contact

Data Protection Officer
Victoria Quay
Commercial Street
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ

Email: DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scot

Complaints

If you feel we have been unable, or unwilling, to resolve your information rights concern, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO are the supervisory authority responsible for data protection in the UK.

For further information, including independent data protection advice and information in relation to your rights, you can contact the Information Commissioner at:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 08456 30 60 60
Website: www.ico.org.uk

You can also report any concerns here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/handling/