Personal information charter

Personal information about you

Privacy and data protection statement

Your rights relating to use of your personal data changed in May 2018, with the ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ or GDPR, and the Data Protection Act 2018, coming into force.

This Privacy Statement explains in plain English how and why the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) processes your personal data under these new laws.

If you have a query about this Privacy Statement please contact the Data Protection Officer at the contact details below.

How we use your personal data

The Central Arbitration Committee collects personal data about you to fulfil the legal functions it is charged to deliver under Schedule A1 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, inserted by the Employment Relations Act 1999 and amended by the Employment Relations Act 2004, the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004, section 183 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 in relation to Disclosure of Information complaints and Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 1999 and other European jurisdictions listed on our website.

What we collect about you and how we do this depends on what CAC services you might use, and how much personal data about you we need to provide these services. These are explained below.

Applications for trade union recognition/de-recognition

If a trade union applies to the CAC for trade union recognition with an Employer, the details of the application form/response form/e-mail are kept on the case file (both electronically and manually) and retained by the CAC. We retain the information to allow for any appeals in a higher court and in accordance with our retention policy. The CAC asks the parties for personal information such as contact name, e-mail address, postal address, postcode, job title, telephone numbers and any information required to progress the cases. You may also voluntarily provide us with personal information about any special needs you may have so that we can try to ensure our services meet your requirements. In addition, parties will send information upon request to the CAC as part of the statutory process and this is shared between parties, the panel allocated to the case and the case manager.

As part of the application process, the trade union may be asked to provide membership and support information (petitions) and the Employer will be asked to provide a list of workers in the proposed bargaining unit. This is treated as confidential by the CAC and not shared with the other party or the panel dealing with the case. The information is for the case manager to undertake a membership and support check. The information is destroyed once the case is completed. All lists of workers provided by the Employer during a case are confidential and only shared with the CAC, suitable independent person or qualified independent person if a ballot takes place.

The same process applies to applications for de-recognition brought by a trade union or group of workers.

Disclosure of Information

If a trade union complains to the CAC under the disclosure of information legislation against an Employer, the details of the application form/response form/e-mail are kept on the case file (both electronically and manually) and retained by the CAC. We retain the information to allow for any appeals in a higher court and in accordance with our retention policy. The CAC asks the parties for personal information such as contact name, e-mail address, postal address, postcode, job title, telephone numbers and any information required to progress the cases. You may also voluntarily provide us with personal information about any special needs you may have so that we can try to ensure our services meet your requirements. In addition, parties will send information upon request to the CAC as part of the statutory process and this is shared between parties, the panel allocated to the case and the case manager.

Information and Consultation

If a relevant applicant applies to the CAC under the Information and Consultation regulations with a complaint, the details of the application form/response form/e-mail are kept on the case file (both electronically and manually) and retained by the CAC. We retain the information to allow for any appeals in a higher court and in accordance with our retention policy. The CAC asks the parties for personal information such as contact name, e-mail address, postal address, postcode, job title, telephone numbers and any information required to progress the cases. You may also voluntarily provide us with personal information about any special needs you may have so that we can try to ensure our services meet your requirements. In addition, parties will send information upon request to the CAC as part of the statutory process and this is shared between parties, the panel allocated to the case and the case manager.

Transnational Information and Consultation Employees Regulations

If a relevant applicant applies to the CAC under the Transnational Information and Consultation Employee regulations with a complaint, the details of the application form/response form/e-mail are kept on the case file (both electronically and manually) and retained by the CAC. We retain the information to allow for any appeals in a higher court and in accordance with our retention policy. The CAC asks the parties for personal information such as contact name, e-mail address, postal address, postcode, job title, telephone numbers and any information required to progress the cases. You may also voluntarily provide us with personal information about any special needs you may have so that we can try to ensure our services meet your requirements. In addition, parties will send information upon request to the CAC as part of the statutory process and this is shared between parties, the panel allocated to the case and the case manager.

General Enquiries

If you make an enquiry about any aspect of the work of the Central Arbitration Committee, the details that you provide, including your e-mail address if the enquiry is made via e-mail, is retained for one year.

Making a Freedom of Information (FOI) or Subject Access Request

If you wish to make an FOI or Subject Access Request, your contact details and case history will be collected to process your request and will be kept for two years.

If you wish to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regarding a decision on a FOI or Subject Access Request, the CAC is legally obliged to share your case records, which includes personal data, with the ICO in order to progress your complaint. You may withdraw your complaint at any time.

You can:

Sensitive Personal Information

Some of the information you provide to us may be sensitive personal data, such as medical history, criminal convictions, trade union membership or racial/ethnic origin.

We will only ever use sensitive personal data where this is essential to provide advice or to provide one of our statutory services such as trade union recognition. We may also use medical information you provide to make reasonable adjustments to help you access our services, or to ensure dietary requirements can be met where needed.

Confidentiality, storage and security of personal data

The Central Arbitration Committee views the confidentiality and privacy of those using its services as paramount. Any personal information you provide will be held securely, and your personal information will not be sold or traded to another organisation or company.

In order to carry out our functions and respond to enquiries effectively, we may sometimes need to share information with Government Departments and public authorities (such as the Administrative Court or the Employment Appeal Tribunal). However, we will only do this where it is permitted by law.

Where the CAC might share personal data with an external company or service that we employ as part of our work (such as a suitable independent person or qualified independent person), we ensure that personal data that we may pass on to them will be held securely, and used by them only to provide the services or information that you have requested.

We manage risks around use of personal data using the ’10 Steps to Cyber Security’ framework, managed by The National Cyber Security Centre (a part of the Government). Security of our Information Technology (IT) systems are evaluated using His Majesty’s Government (HMG) Security Policy Framework.

Customer, claimant and respondent data is held in a Government secure data centre in the UK. Back-up services are also provided in a separate Government secure data centre in the UK.

Our website

Our website is hosted by the Government Digital Service and is covered by the Gov.uk Privacy Policy

Lawful basis for processing

Under data protection law, the Central Arbitration Committee must have a ‘lawful basis’ to justify our collection, storage and use of your personal data. Where sensitive personal data is used, we also need to have a second lawful basis to justify our use of your sensitive data.

The purpose of most activities where the CAC processes personal data, relates to our legal duties under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidated) Act 1992 and the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004.

Our lawful basis for processing of personal data is therefore that it is necessary:

“for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller” (Article 6(1)(e) of the GDPR).

Where we process sensitive personal data, our additional lawful basis to do this is:

“processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or where courts are acting in their judicial capacity” (Article 9(2)(f) of the GDPR).

Your rights under data protection law

You have a right to request a copy of the information that the Central Arbitration Committee holds about you. You have the right to have any inaccuracies corrected.

You may also have the right to have your personal information erased; to restrict our use of your personal data; to object to our processing of your personal data; and to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services (‘data portability’).

You may also have rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

You have the right to complain to the national authority on the use of information, which in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Please address requests (with a return e-mail address where possible) to:

Data Protection Officer
CAC
PO Box 78137
London
SW1P 9XE

Telephone: 0330 109 3610

E Mail: enquiries@cac.gov.uk

If you leave the CAC website

The CAC website contains links to other websites. These links are mainly to other government departments, but also to third parties. These websites are not covered by this privacy notice and CAC is not responsible for how they manage privacy.

Data transfers

Territories outside the European Economic Area (EEA) may not have laws which provide the same level of protection for personal information as those inside the EEA. However, if we process your personal information on servers or use third party service providers based in such territories, we will endeavour to ensure that your personal information is afforded the same level of protection as in the EEA.

Changes to this Privacy statement

If this privacy statement changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this web page. If you do not agree with the changes we make please do not continue to use the website. Regularly reviewing this webpage ensure you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.

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