Sending us an email

Our Privacy Policy

How we collect your data

If we offer an email as a contact we collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation. We’ll always explain how we use your information.

What information we ask for

Where we offer an email as a contact we’ll collect your name, email address and any email address you send the email to through the to: and cc: facility.

Sometimes we may request a telephone contact and other information relevant to your original email or reason for contacting us.

We will also collect the date and time the email was sent.

We’ll only ask for information that is relevant to your correspondence, query, feedback, complaint or request for help.

We collect these details so we are able to respond to you by email or contact you via another method.

‘To find out more about what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy’ or view our other local projects privacy policies,

How we use your information

The main reason we ask for your information is to help solve your problem.

We only access your information for other reasons if we really need to – for example:

for training and quality purposes
to investigate complaints
to get feedback from you about our services
to help us improve our services

All advisers and staff accessing data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.

If we need to send any personal or confidential information relating to advice, service, complaint or ongoing casework we will send this securely using password protected easily readable electronic document or via a secure email method ‘Wix’.

Working on your behalf

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a debt collection agency, we’ll need to share information with that third party.

‘To find out who we share your information with, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy’

How we store your information

We store your information on our secure local exchange server or in secure cloud based servers and IT systems.

If we are providing advice or information over email we will securely store this information on our secure case management systems. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation.

We keep your information for 6 years. If your case has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute we keep the data for 16 years.

If your email relates to our advice projects once the email has been processed and recorded securely in our case management systems it will then be deleted from our local exchange or cloud based servers.

For our local outreach inbox outreach@citizensadvicecd.org.uk we only retain emails until we have been able to contact the client and up to 7 days once actioned.

If you correspond with our DurhamWorks team by email, emails are deleted 30 days after support had ended on the project or until 31^st December 2033 if the data is identified as required for audit purposes.

If you have contacted us with feedback or a complaint, once we have processed the matter in full we will store it on our secure IT systems, it will then be deleted from our local exchange or cloud based servers.

If you tell us sensitive details about yourself, we’ll ask for your permission to use and store them. This includes your:

health conditions
ethnic origin
religion
trade union membership
sexual orientation

If you don’t give your consent, for example do not provide consent within the original email or over the phone, we’ll securely delete this information after 3 months. We can store this information under the Data Protection Act 2018 because we use it to give you counselling, advice and support.