Domestic homicide review process privacy notice

This privacy notice is designed to help you understand how and why North Yorkshire Council processes your personal data. This notice should be read in conjunction with our corporate privacy notice.

Who are we?

North Yorkshire Council is a ‘data controller’ as defined by Article 4(7) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

North Yorkshire Council is a member of the North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership (NYCSP) which is the statutory County Strategy Group that provides the strategic leadership for addressing community safety matters across North Yorkshire.

One of the North Yorkshire Council partnership’s responsibilities is to provide (on behalf of the Community Safety Partnerships) the governance for domestic homicide reviews as they are required in the county. Officers within North Yorkshire Council provide the management and administration.

This notice explains what information we collect, why we collect it and how we keep it secure. Should you wish to find out more about North Yorkshire Council's data protection policies please contact our Data Protection Officer.

The council has appointed Veritau to be its data protection officer. Their contact details are:

Information Governance Office
Veritau
West Offices
Station Rise
York
North Yorkshire
YO1 6GA

Email: infogov@northyorks.gov.uk

Tel: 01904 552848

What personal information do we collect?

In order to provide governance for these reviews, we are required by the Home Office to collect data as outlined in a nationally recognised data collection template. We will collect both personal and special category data, specifically:

Personal information:

• name
• relationship to deceased
• contact details
• minutes from meetings and interviews
• age
• gender

Special category data collected:

• racial or ethnic origin
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• health
• sex life and sexual orientation

We also collect the following criminal offence data:

• criminal record information supplied by crime prevention services such as the police or youth justice service

Why do we collect your personal information?

We are required to collect this data in order to meet legal responsibilities as prescribed by the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004).

Purpose of processing your data:

(a) establish what lessons can be learned from the domestic homicide/domestic abuse-related death regarding the way in which local professionals and organisations work individually and together to safeguard victims

(b) identify clearly what those lessons are both within and between agencies, how and within what timescales they will be acted on, and what is expected to change as a result

(c) apply these lessons to service responses including changes to inform national and local policies and procedures as appropriate

(d) prevent domestic abuse and homicide and improve service responses for all domestic violence and abuse victims and their children by developing a co-ordinated multi-agency approach to ensure that domestic abuse is identified and responded to effectively at the earliest opportunity

(e) contribute to a better understanding of the nature of domestic violence and abuse

(f) highlight good practice

We use your personal information to support the domestic homicide review process only and will remove from the published overview report any personal details such as:

• names
• identifying locations
• identifying dates
• ages and genders (children only)

This data is used locally and nationally to understand trends from demographic information relating to victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse. This pseudonymised data may be kept for statistical research/analysis across domestic homicide reviews to enhance the ability to achieve the aims (a) to (e) stated above.

Who do we obtain your information from?

Information that we collect from you will be obtained via face-to-face discussions and interviews, through email and telephone communications, via review of medical and social care records and via discussions with professionals who have been involved with the victims and their families.

We will also collect information relevant to the review from those organisations participating in the review process.

This may include but is not limited to, organisations such as:

• North Yorkshire Police
• IDAS
• North Yorkshire Horizons
• Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust
• South Tees NHS Trust
• York and Scarborough Hospital Trust
• Probation Service
• City of York Council
• Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust
• Changing Lives
• Housing organisations such as
  • Beyond Housing
  • Broadacres
  • Selby Housing
  • Yorkshire Housing

Who do we share this information with?

When the decision to initiate a domestic homicide review is taken an independent chair is appointed and a multi-agency review panel is convened. The review panel is made up of representatives from a range of organisations who are best placed to contribute to the review and take forward any recommendations that come out of the process.

We will securely share information relevant to the review with those organisations participating, as described above, in the review process as described within the statutory guidance for the conduct of domestic homicide reviews.

We may share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law or in connection with legal proceedings.

In the event of a dispute, complaint or claim, we will share personal information with our legal and professional advisers.

How long do we keep your information for?

We will hold your personal information for six years following the closure of the domestic homicide review and then we will securely destroy your information.

An exception to this is the recordings of meetings which will be deleted once minutes have been finalised.

What is our lawful basis for processing your information?

With regard to personal data:

• UK GDPR Article 6(1)(c) – processing is necessary to fulfil a statutory obligation
• UK GDPR Article 6(1)(e) – processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller

The legal principles are contained in the following framework or legislations: Common Law Duty of Confidentiality, Data Protection Act 1998, Access to Medical Reports Act 1988 and Access to Health Records Act 1990. These legislations protect Patient Identifiable Data 7 (PID).

With regard to special category data:  

• Article 9(2)(b) – processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject in the field of employment and social security and social protection law
• UK GDPR Article 9(2) g) - Reasons of substantial public interest, condition 6. Statutory and government purposes
• Statutory government purpose - statutory guidance under section 9(3) of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004)

With regard to criminal offence data:  

• Article 10 (1)(18) safeguarding children and adults at risk

The legislation underpinning these legal obligations and tasks includes:

• Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, section 9(3) of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004)
• Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (preventing crime and disorder, Section 17 – Duty to consider crime and disorder implications, Section 115 – Disclosure of information)
• Children Act 2004 (Section 10 – improve wellbeing of children, Section 11 – safeguard and promote the welfare of children)

For more information about how we use your data, including your privacy rights and the complaints process, please see our corporate privacy notice.