LDA Data Protection Statement

The Data Protection Act 1998

For explanation of some important terms used in the Data Protection Act (DPA), identified in this statement by asterisks (*), see the Explanation of asterisked terms at the end of this statement.

The explanations are not intended as legal advice. For further information you should consult the DPA itself; it is available, for example, on the website of the Office for Public Sector Information – www.opsi.gov.uk  – or via the website of the Information Commissioner - www.ico.gov.uk , which provides additional information.

Statement

The London Development Agency (LDA)  is part of the Greater London Authority Group (the GLA Group), the other members of which are the Greater London Authority (comprising the Mayor of London and the Greater London Assembly), Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police Authority, and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.

The members of the GLA Group co-operate and to the extent permissible share data including *Personal Data and *Sensitive Personal Data. In principle, subject to the requirements of Data Protection law, and the conditions below, data provided to the LDA may be shared with other members of the GLA Group.

The London Development Agency, its associated and subsidiary agencies and subsidiary companies (together "the LDA", "we", "us") may collect *Personal Data from you when you communicate with us for any purpose by any medium - through the LDA website, by post, by email, by telephone, face to face, or through any other medium.

We may also collect *Personal Data which relate to you from third parties lawfully in possession of those data, and verify with third parties information given to the LDA by you.

We may *Process your *Personal Data for the following purposes, some of which may overlap:

• any purposes stated to you at the time of collection of the data, and related and similar purposes;
• the pursuit of legitimate interests of the LDA (such as administering and monitoring LDA grants, and service provision);
• ensuring that the data is accurate;
• statutory and regulatory compliance;
• dealing with any application, enquiries and communications from you;
• transfers of data to other Governmental agencies, the LDA's associated agencies and other entities (such as, but not only, other members of the GLA Group, the LDA's subsidiary and associated companies, and the Government Office for London);
• contacting you by email about the activities of the LDA, and those of its associated agencies and other entities;
• transfers of data to service suppliers, professional advisers and managing agents who undertake processing or other work on our behalf and at our direction;
• other purposes permitted by the DPA (for example to comply with legal obligations)

Any *Personal Data you send to us will be treated confidentially and will only be *Processed in accordance with the purposes set out above.

If you have consented to the LDA *Processing your *Personal Data, you may withdraw that consent by writing to the postal or email address below, and the LDA will cease to *Process your *Personal Data on the basis of your consent.

You may withdraw consent wholly or for specific uses, e.g. marketing. Note that withdrawal of your consent will not prevent the LDA *Processing your *Personal Data for a purpose permitted by a statutory condition other than your consent.

Sometimes (usually to assist with diversity monitoring), the LDA seeks, and/or acquires, *Sensitive Personal Data relating to you. We only *Process *Sensitive Personal Data as permitted by the DPA.

In some circumstances the LDA may be permitted or even required by law to share *Sensitive Personal Data about you with a third party. If there are no statutory permissions we will only undertake *Processing of your *Sensitive Personal Data with your explicit consent.

Transfers outside the European Economic Area

Please note that *Personal Data sent to the LDA may sometimes, in order to achieve the LDA's objectives, be transferred to LDA offices outside the European Economic Area ("EEA") and in jurisdictions where data protection laws differ from those within the EEA.

The LDA will observe the DPA in relation to such transferred data subject only to overriding local laws. If you have any concerns in relation to such transfers, you should not use the Internet as a means of communication with the LDA and you should notify the LDA in writing that you do not want your *Personal Data sent outside the EEA.

Please note that if you do notify us that you do not want your *Personal Data transferred outside the EEA it is possible that you will not be able to receive electronic (or other) communications from the LDA.

Monitoring of telephone calls and e-mails

Your telephone and email communications with us for business or personal reasons, including communications with individual members of staff at the LDA, may be recorded and monitored for quality control and other lawful purposes.

Discussion forums

Where users of our website are offered the opportunity to participate in discussion forums and to post news, comments and other content on our message boards, the discussion forums and message boards are not private forms of communication. The general public may access any information that is posted on them.

Cookies

The LDA website uses cookies to identify you when you visit the website. Our use of cookies allows registered users to be presented with a personalised version of the site, to carry out transactions and to have access to information about their account. The only personal information a cookie can obtain is the information that you supply.

You do not need to have cookies turned on successfully to use our service. You can refuse cookies by turning them off on your web browser, or delete them after a visit. If you want to know how to do this please look at the help menu on your browser. However, switching off or deleting cookies may impair your use of our website.

Website Usage Data

With or without cookies, our website keeps track of usage data such as the source address of a page request (i.e. your IP address and domain name), the date and time of the page request, the referring website (if any) and other parameters in the URL (e.g. search criteria).

We use these data to better understand the use of our website by visitors and to identify user preferences. This information is stored in log files and is used for aggregated and statistical reporting, but is not attributed to you as an individual.

Use of Web Beacons

The LDA web pages may contain electronic images known as web beacons which allow the LDA to count the number of users who have visited those pages and to deliver co-branded services. Web beacons are not used to access your personally identifiable information on the LDA site.

They are used to compile aggregated statistics about LDA website usage. Web beacons collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, the time and date of a page view and a description of the page on which the web beacon resides.

Security

We recognise industry standards and employ security safeguards to protect information from unauthorised access and misuse. We use the most accurate and current information you provide in order to process your request.

User Submissions

Any material, information or other communication that you transmit or post to our website (other than your personal information) will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary, unless we are advised to the contrary. You are accordingly requested not to post confidential or proprietary information to our website.

The LDA and its nominees (including the local enterprise companies) will be free to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate and otherwise use the communications in all data, images, sound, text and other things embodied therein for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Users of our website are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from this site any material which is offensive, threatening, defamatory, obscene, or would contravene any law.

Other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites which are outside our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect information from you which will be used by them in accordance with their privacy policy, which may differ from ours.

Contact us

If you have any queries relating to this Statement, wish to  request a copy of the *Personal Data about you held by us in our records (for which we may charge a small fee), correct such data, or wish to withdraw consent to our *Processing of your *Personal Data, please contact the LDA Public Liaison Unit:

by email:info@lda.gov.uk ; or by post at the following address:

London Development Agency
Palestra
197 Blackfriars Road
London
SE1 8AA

If you wish to contact us by email, please note:

Possible Disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

All written material, including emails held by us, may be considered for release by us, as a public authority, to an applicant under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, unless the material falls within a statutory exemption.

Security and Emails

Both inbound and outbound communication by email are not secure as messages can be intercepted.

Explanation of asterisked terms

*Personal Data
Personal Data are any data which relate to a living individual who can be identified from those data, either on their own or with other information possessed by the "data controller".

The term includes information such as a person's name, address, email address, telephone number, images on film (e.g. CCTV images), photographs, telephone voice recordings, and opinions  about and indications of intentions in  respect of a person. The data controller here is the LDA.

*Processing (*Process, *Processed)
In the DPA "processing" means doing a wide variety of things with information or data - obtaining, recording, or holding information or data or carrying out any operation or set of operations on information or data, including organisation, retrieval, disclosure and erasure.

*Sensitive Personal Data
Certain personal information is categorised by the DPA as Sensitive Personal Data. This is information as to: your racial or ethnic origin; your religion or a belief of a similar nature; your political opinions; your trade union membership; your physical or mental health or condition; your sexual life; or any proceedings for any offence you have committed or are alleged to have committed, the outcome of such proceedings or any sentence of any court.

This Statement was introduced on 25 June 2007 and may be updated by the LDA at any time. Should a substantial change be made it will be communicated to you by the LDA by placing a notice on our Website or by another means considered appropriate by the LDA.