Parks and open spaces privacy notice - Ground works

We are the Parks and Open Spaces team who manage the borough’s parks, open spaces and playgrounds.

We are working with Groundwork London, a social and economic regeneration charity, who are contracted to deliver the Volunteer Gardening programme on our behalf. You can find out more details about Groundwork London on their website.

By submitting your Volunteer Gardening registration form, you are consenting for Waltham Forest Council to be the ‘Controller’ of your data and Groundwork London to be the ‘Processor’.

As the Processor, Groundwork London will take instructions from Waltham Forest Council who designed and commissioned the Volunteer Gardening programme which Groundwork London are contracted to deliver. Waltham Forest Council determine the purposes and means of processing your personal data as stated below.

If you have questions regarding this service or our privacy practices, you can contact us by e-mail or in writing at the address below:

Parks and Open Spaces Team
London Borough of Waltham Forest
Low Hall Depot
Argall Avenue
Leyton
E10 7AS

Email: parks.development@walthamforest.gov.uk

Alternatively, you can contact Groundwork London Data Protection Officer at GWLondon.GDPR@groundwork.org.uk

We hold information on our:

• Volunteers
• Key members of Friends of Parks Groups
• Key members of park user groups e.g. bowling clubs

We collect the minimum personal data required to deliver our community engagement programmes and ensure quality provision:

• The first part of a postcode
• Gender
• Heath conditions (disability, long-term health problem, illness or impairment (physical or mental)) and details of medication taken, support workers or referral agencies
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Employment status
• Email address
• Publicity photos
• Declaration of an unspent criminal conviction for a violent or sexual offence
• Name and contact details of a person to contact in case of emergency.

The data that we process is required to administer our community engagement programmes.

We use the data to:

• Comply with the Council's Health and Safety and Safeguarding Procedures
• Improve our offers and improve our chances of ongoing funding
• Help you to access information relating to opportunities within the service
• Help you to use our facilities safely
• Inform future service delivery
• Inform you of any changes, or disruptions to our community engagement programmes
• Keep in contact with you and help you to make the most of our service offer by highlighting any training or work placements that become available
• Assess the impact that our community programmes have on delivering our service.

During a pandemic or disease outbreak, we may be legally required to process your personal data in the interests of public health to prevent the spread of the virus and safeguard vulnerable individuals. 

The lawful basis for the processing of your data is consent.

Consent may be withdrawn by you at any time by email or in writing, using the contact details provided above.  

We may also process data pertaining to your health during a viral pandemic or disease outbreak on the basis of vital interest and/or substantial public interest and/or public health. 

The information you provide will remain confidential.

We will only share your information with organisations/individuals contracted to deliver our community engagement programmes. Sharing will only be where strictly necessary.

Individuals delivering our community engagement programmes will be required to adhere to council data protection procedures. Organisations will be expected to follow their own data protection procedures; on which they will be assessed before being awarded a contract.

Amalgamated and anonymised (so you cannot be identified) data may also be shared. This will not be for any commercial reasons but will be to help further our service provision. For example, we might share how many volunteers we have of different ages, ethnicities etc, with other council teams or external funders.

We will keep your information only for as long as you continue to participate in our programmes. When you stop, your record will remain on our system for 12 months maximum, after which it will be securely destroyed. You can request that we remove your records at any time, including if you decide to no longer participate.

Groundwork London is required by Waltham Forest Council to keep Volunteer Gardening data for as long as is necessary to provide the Volunteer Gardening service to you. Should you no longer wish to volunteer for this programme, your identifiable data will be deleted. Groundwork London may retain some anonymised data for the purposes of contract monitoring and statistics.

On completion of the contract, all volunteer data (including personal and special category) and opportunity provider data will be passed from Groundwork London as the Processor onto Waltham Forest as Controller of the data.

Groundwork London will delete their records of the data within one month of the end of the contract.

If an accident has been reported by a volunteer, Groundwork London will keep this information for three years from the date when the report is made.

The GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 give you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us. Information about your individual data rights is listed in the Council’s Corporate Privacy Notice.

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we collect, store or use your personal information, please contact us in the first instance on 020 8496 3000.

For advice about data protection issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Notice at any time and will keep it under review. If we do make any changes, we will post the current version to our website at this address.

Our Data Protection Officer

Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes, you contact him by email at data.protectionofficer@walthamforest.gov.uk

Protecting your information

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Your information choice and rights

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Complaints and contact details

These are included in the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Information Commissioner’s Office

If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)