General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) What's it all about?

I'm sure that you are all aware that GDPR comes into force on May 25th 2018.

GDPR replaces the existing law on data protection (the Data Protection Act 1998) and gives individuals more rights and protection regarding how their personal data is used by councils. Local councils and parish meetings must comply with its requirements.

The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) has published a comprehensive toolkit to support local councils. If you don't have a login to NALC's website please ask your local association for details. This toolkit provides a number of practical tools to assist local councils with GDPR compliance including an action plan, checklist and a data audit questionnaire. Templates for privacy notices and consent forms are also included.

You can be assured that UKLC gives you all the necessary tools to ensure that your council's website and email accounts comply with the regulation. We will be updating the generic privacy policy but you may need to consider more specific text at the point of data collection. An example can be seen here.

We have prepared a GDPR information bulletin that has been sent to all UKLC site editors. Please contact us if you haven't received yours yet.