Privacy Policy

At Citizens Advice Staffordshire South West (CASSW) we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.  

We only ever ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and always treat it as confidential.  

When we record and use your personal information we: 

  • Only access it when we have a good reason 
  • Only share what is necessary and relevant 
  • Do not sell it to commercial organisations 

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always ensure there is a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have had to use or share your information: 

  • To comply with the law – for example, if a court has ordered us to share information with them (this is known as ‘legal obligation’) 
  • To protect someone’s life – for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was taken unwell at one of our offices (this is known as ‘vital interests’) 
  • To carry out our legitimate goals and aims as a charity – for example, to create statistics for our national research (this is called ‘legitimate interests’) 
  • For us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest – for example, delivering a government or local authority service (this is known as a ‘public task’) 
  • To carry out a contract we have with you – for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you (this is called a ‘contract’) 
  • To defend our legal rights – for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice 

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law – including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 1998. 

You can check out our main Citizens Advice privacy policy for how we handle most of your personal information.