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Our core data protection obligations and commitments are set out in the council’s Primary Privacy Notice.
Customer Services processes personal data to carry out its functions and services. This privacy statement explains some important information about how we use your personal information.
When you contact the council by phone, your call may be answered first by our digital assistant, CeCe. CeCe helps direct your enquiry and is powered by ICS.AI, a specialist provider of conversational AI solutions for the public sector.
You can also choose to interact with CeCe on our website.
When you use CeCe, we may collect:
- Chat transcripts: The messages you send and receive
- Usage data: Time, duration, and frequency of interactions
- Technical data: IP address, browser type, device information
- Optional personal data: If you voluntarily provide personal information (e.g., name, email or SMS) during the conversation
We use your data to:
- Respond to your queries and provide support
- Improve CeCe’s performance and accuracy
- Monitor usage trends and ensure system security
- Comply with legal obligations
We do not actively request or collect sensitive personal data. However, if you voluntarily provide such information during your interaction with the Chatbot, it may be processed as part of the conversation.
We strongly advise users not to share sensitive personal data via CeCe unless explicitly asked for.
We collect or obtain your personal information for the following purposes:
- Redirect you to the appropriate officer
- Provide a first point of contact for customers by telephone and email
- Give advice and assistance on a range of council services
- Process service requests, queries, complaints, compliments, or suggestions
- Process payments (e.g., council tax)
- Process Blue Badge applications
- Record telephone calls for quality monitoring, auditing, training, and complaint resolution
We may contact you for feedback via email surveys. You can opt out using the unsubscribe link.
Calls requiring action are logged through the appropriate system.
The personal information collected may include:
- Name, address, contact details
- Date of birth
- National Insurance number or proof of identity
- Statistical data (age, gender, disability)
- Photographs and CCTV footage
- Telephone recordings
- Health condition details (for Blue Badge)
- Credit/debit card details (not retained)
- Details of your service request or complaint
- Documents, images, and other files shared
We must have a lawful basis for processing personal data. As a public authority, most processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or exercise statutory duties under Article 6(1)(e) of GDPR.
Examples include:
- Registering for council tax
- Assessing housing benefit eligibility
- Processing voting rights
- Investigating complaints
Functions are governed by legislation such as the Local Government Act 1972.
Where special category data is processed, it is done under Article 9 UK GDPR. Refer to individual department privacy notices for more details.
Customer Services shares information with other council departments and approved contractors (e.g., Ringway Jacobs).
We participate in the National Fraud Initiative to protect public funds. This involves data matching to prevent and detect fraud. See our National Fraud Initiative page for more details.
Usually from you or someone acting on your behalf. It may also be:
- Provided by other council services or officers
- Provided by another member of the public
- Provided by other organisations
Contact Centre call recordings: 12 months (stored in CXone).
Customer Relationship Management records: up to 7 years (Microsoft Dynamics 365).
Complaints, compliments, suggestions: 7 years (iCaseWork).
Other retention periods are listed in our Information Asset Register.
All data is stored electronically on secure council-operated IT systems with password protection and individual logins. Data is held on secure servers.
We may not be able to log your request, query, or complaint.
Yes, in some cases (e.g., Waste and Recycling, Blue Badge). Automated systems use scoring matrices to determine eligibility. These can be overridden if necessary. No profiling is carried out.
You have rights regarding your personal data, including withdrawing consent, accessing your data, and requesting corrections.
For full details, see our privacy notice.