Privacy Notice and Data Policies

Who are we

Cogito Consulting Ltd is a limited company providing professional town planning advice. We are based at 24 Woodham Road Woking Surrey GU21 4DP [tel no. 01483 760086].

We operate as Data Controller for the information you provide to us.

If you have any questions about the protection of your data, please email us on: steve@stplan.co.uk

We will endeavor to answer all your questions quickly and transparently, however if you are not satisfied you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) about our handling of your requests about the protection of your data. Follow the link below to report a concern to the ICO.

https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Taking your Data Protection seriously

We have reviewed and updated our responsibilities and procedures with respect to the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016 / 679 (“GDPR”) and have updated this Privacy Notice accordingly.

Purpose for processing

We are a town planning and land use consultancy. Our primary focus is on land and buildings. However planning legislation and our day to day work may require some personal information about you. This is normally related to name, address and contact details but in some cases we may need to know about land you own.

We only collect personal data required to fulfill our services with you. Your data is not used for any other purposes. We do not carry out marketing activity.

Source of your data

We receive information about you from you.

We do not receive or buy in lists of personal data from other sources.

Recipients of your data

We do not pass on your information to any other party unless required to do so by law. The most likely occurrence is in the submission of planning applications and similar consents where the legislation specifically requires personal details.

Automated decision making

We do not undertake any automated decision making using your data, nor do we use your data for profiling or any other investigative purposes.

Security of your data

We have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that we and our Data Processors [any other colleagues involved in the case work] adapt Industry standard security protection systems to ensure the security of your data.

Our data retention policy

We are working towards a paperless office, so we strive to ensure that all our records and data are in digital form in a secure system. We will be removing and deleting our case files from our system after they become 7 years old.

We do possess some paper information, but this is generally limited to documents like decision notices and plans. These are generally copies of documents held elsewhere in the public domain [eg LPA records as part of the planning history of a site or the Register relating to a site].

Your rights under GDPR

You are entitled to ask about the data that is held about you, subject to certain exceptions. This is called a Subject Access Request (SAR).

These should be made by email or in writing to the following addresses:

Email: steve@stplan.co.uk

Address: 24 Woodham Road, Woking, Surrey.

In addition, the GDPR provides the following rights for individuals: (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/)

· The right to be informed

· The right of access

· The right to rectification

· The right to erasure

· The right to restrict processing

· The right to data portability

· The right to object

· Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling