Community centres – privacy notice

Housing, Neighbourhood and Buildings - Community, Youth and Play Services

Portsmouth City Council is a registered Data Controller (Registration Number Z5578313) Portsmouth City Council tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information in accordance with data protection law.  This privacy notice tells you about how Portsmouth City Council collects and uses personal information.

What information do we collect?

Portsmouth City Council collects the names, addresses and contact information in the form of telephone numbers and email addresses for you as a customer of the community centre.  We may also collect your company/charity registration number.  If appropriate in line with our terms and condition of hire, we will collect insurance details, qualification information and affiliation to registered bodies.

If your booking requires you to have a DBS (in line with our safeguarding policy) we will require to have sight of a current DBS however we do not take copies of these.

Why do we collect your information?

Portsmouth City Council uses personal information to:

• Deliver services
• Facilitate activities in the community

How do we use your information?

Portsmouth City Council uses personal information to:

• Ensure we can contact you when we need to
• To create an account for you on Portsmouth City Council’s payment system
• To be compliant with our terms and conditions of hire.

How do we keep personal information secure?

Portsmouth City Council ensures that your personal data is kept secure through the use of technical security measures for all our IT systems.  We ensure that only employees who should have access to personal data can do so and this is managed through comprehensive training, regular checks and validation. Anyone that processes personal data on our behalf, are governed by specific contracts to ensure that they do so securely and only for the purposes set out by Portsmouth City Council.

How long do we keep hold of personal information

Records will not be kept for longer than necessary. Full information regarding retention periods for the different types of data can be found on our website. The booking forms are updated on an annual basis. Once you cease being a customer of the community centres and all payment of invoices are cleared, we will dispose of your personal information.

Please note this privacy notice is applied to Charles Dickens Activity Centre, Somerstown Community Centre, Cosham Community Centre, Paulsgrove Community Centre and John Pounds Centre. It also applies to any bookings we process on behalf of Portsmouth City Council’s play and youth sites.

Access to personal information

You have the right to know if Portsmouth City Council holds any personal information relating to you. You can do this by making a ‘Subject Access Request’ using the information in the ‘How to contact us’ section or by going to the Freedom of Information page.

You will usually be entitled to see all of the data held about you but may not be entitled to see confidential information about other people.

Access to CCTV images

CCTV images that are stored and catalogued may be accessed by individuals by following the procedure above to make a ‘Subject Access Request’. Portsmouth City Council may not record CCTV at all locations with CCTV signage and not all CCTV cameras will be operational at all hours of the week. Individuals may not be able to see visual images that contain other identifiable individuals or are considered confidential under law e.g. if they are required for the prevention or identification of a crime. Sites are unable to download copies or show CCTV to customers.

Sharing or disclosing personal information

There may be times when we need to share your information with other people.  We will only do this if you have given your consent or where the law allows or requires us to.  This could be in an emergency where there is a safeguarding concern or life threating situation or for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime or fraud or apprehending and prosecuting offenders where we have a statutory duty to do so.

If you have a complaint or query about how we collect and use personal information, if you would like a change to be made to your record or want to object to processing of your information, please contact us using the information in the ‘How to contact us’ section below. 

If you would like to make a complaint or are not satisfied with the responses you have received from us after making a request, please contact: 

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (if you prefer to use a national rate number).

Changes to this privacy notice

This privacy notice was last reviewed on 1^st April 2025.

How to contact us

If you want to request details of our Corporate Privacy Policy please visit our Portsmouth City Council Website. If you require further information about how we and how we collect and use personal information, you can contact:

Data Protection Officer,

Customer, Community & Democratic Service, Portsmouth City Council

Civic offices, Portsmouth, PO1 2AL

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 023 9268 8482