Privacy
This page explains how the Cotswold District Council web site, which is managed by Cotswold District Council, uses any information you give to us, and the ways in which we protect your privacy.
The Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it. We recognise, however, that this medium can never be fully secure and you should be aware of this when you use the site. We may pass on your details to any third party or government department provided always that we act in a fair and lawful manner.
What information do we collect?
We collect three kinds of information from visitors to www.cotswold.gov.uk:
- feedback (through our comments and complaints forms),
- personal details collected via forms when you apply for services, and
- site usage information, from session cookies and log files.
1. Feedback
You can send us your feedback by using our Feedback / Report it! / Complaints forms, or by telephoning or writing to us using the contact details published in various parts of the site. In order to answer your question or deal with your complaint we may need to contact Gloucestershire County Council or other government departments. We will not share your personal details with any private company, unless it is contracted to provide the service which you are applying for or commenting on.
2. Applications for services
You can apply on-line for some services by filling in a form in our Forms section. Applications are not stored on our Internet server, but forwarded directly to the section responsible for processing applications. Applications processed by Cotswold District Council are only stored for as long as they are necessary in each case and in any event for no longer than twelve months.
3. Site usage information
- Session cookies
Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a website. Our site uses cookies to store your "preferences", such as your choice of language, while you move around the site. You can set your computer not to accept cookies. However, if you do this, you will not be able to use www.cotswold.gov.uk because we need to record your preferences in order to give you the information you need during your visit.
The cookies we use do not contain any personal information about you, and do not hold any information about which sites you visited before http://www.cotswold.gov.uk/.
- Log files
Log files allow us to record visitors' use of the site. We keep log file information collected from all our visitors, which we use to make changes to the layout of the site and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it.
Log files do not contain any personal information or information about which other sites you have visited.
What happens when I link to another site?
www.cotswold.gov.uk contains links to other websites, both those of government departments and of other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our site, so you should always be aware when you are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any site that collects personal information.
Changes to this privacy policy
If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we will share it with other parties.