PN106 - Cemeteries Privacy Notice

Torfaen County Borough Council is committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. This Privacy Notice is designed to give you information about the data we hold about you, how we use it, your rights in relation to it and the safeguards in place to protect it.

TCBC Service Area: Neighbourhoods, Planning and Public Protection
Work area: Cemeteries
Contact Details: Rebecca Davies
Privacy Notice Name: Cemeteries

Data Controller: Torfaen County Borough Council, c/o Civic Centre, Pontypool, NP4 6YB

If you wish to raise a concern about the handling of your personal data, please contact the Data Protection Officer on 01495 762200 or email dpa@torfaen.gov.uk

This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information when you make contact with or use our Cemeteries service.

Who provides your data to the Council?

The personal information we process is provided to us directly by you in order to arrange for a burial to take place or via CCTV if you visit Llwyncelyn cemetery.

We also receive personal information indirectly from other organisations, such as Funeral Directors, who will have collected it from you when arranging a burial on your behalf.

How does the Council collect this information?

Application Forms
From other organisations e.g. Funeral Directors
On CCTV installed at Llwyncelyn Cemetery

What information does the Council collect about you?

The Council collects;

Burial Applicant: Name, address, telephone, email, relationship to deceased
Grave Owner: Name, address, telephone, email
Deceased: Name, address, place, date and time of death, any relevant notifiable disease, age, type of burial
Video footage of visitors to the Llwyncelyn Cemetery

Why does the Council process your personal data?

Under Article 6 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information is:

(e) We need it to perform a public task.

Special categories of personal data:

We collect the following special category data;

data concerning health - we may hold records of Identifiable Diseases which the deceased suffered from

Video footage from CCTV may also collect the following special category data;

personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin
personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs
data concerning health
data concerning a person’s sexual orientation

We collect this under Article 9 of the UK GDPR.

We do not ask you to provide any criminal data directly however it may be captured in CCTV footage. We process this under Article 10 of the UK GDPR.

Who has access to your data?

Your data is shared internally only with the appropriate staff where it is necessary for the performance of their roles. We do not share burial information with external organisations.

CCTV footage identifying criminal behaviour may be shared with the Police.

Apart from where previously stated, we do not pass your details to third parties unless we are lawfully required do so.

Is the Data transferred out of the UK?

How does the Council keep your data secure?

The Council has internal policies in place to ensure the data it processes is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed. Access to this data is restricted in accordance with the Council’s internal policies and in compliance with the UK GDPR.

Data will be stored securely in;

a secure network database
a secure filing location for paper copies
Video footage is stored securely in electronic form

Where the Council engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions. These third parties are also under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate measures to ensure the security of data.

How long does the Council keep your data?

The Council will hold your personal data only for the period that is necessary and will follow organisational and Local Authority standards in this area. At the end of the retention period the Council will securely destroy or dispose of the data in line with retention schedules.

Applications for burial are retained for 7 years, and burial records are permanently kept.
CCTV footage is overwritten on a continuous basis. If there is a need to retain footage for longer than this it is transferred to a different storage format and treated in accordance with the Council’s data storage and retention procedures.

Are we making automated decisions/profiling with your data?

Your rights

You have a number of Rights you can exercise:

Access - to obtain a copy of your data on request
Rectification – to require the Council to change incorrect or incomplete data
Object, Restrict or Delete - under certain circumstances you can require the Council to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
Data portability – to receive and/or transmit data provided to the Council to other organisations (this applies in limited circumstances)
Withdraw your consent at any time (where consent has been given)
To know the consequences of failing to provide data to the Council
To know the existence of any Automated Decision-making, including profiling, and the consequences of this for you.
To lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (Information Commissioners Office)

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact Rebecca Davies at Rebecca.davies@torfaen.gov.uk, 01495 766339

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (Wales), 2nd Floor, Churchill House, Churchill Way, Cardiff, CF10 2HH. Telephone 0330 414 6421 or e-mail Wales@ico.org.uk

Last Modified: 17/07/2023 Back to top