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The Data Protection Act allows us to hold and process personal data. No personal data is obtained from this site without your knowledge or permission.

The Council will use any information you provide to us for it's intended purpose. No personal information you have given us will be passed on to third parties for commercial purposes. The Council's policy is that all information will be shared among officers across departments and other agencies where the legal framework allows it, if this will help to improve the service you receive and to develop other services.

This authority is required by law to protect the public funds it administers. It may share information provided to it with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.

The Audit Commission appoints the auditor to audit the accounts of this authority. It is also responsible for carrying out data matching exercises.

Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body to see how far they match. This is usually personal information. Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is found it indicates that there is an inconsistency that requires further investigation.
No assumption can be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out.

The Audit Commission currently requires us to participate in a data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We are required to provide particular sets of data to the Audit Commission for matching for each exercise, and these are set out in the Audit Commission’s guidance, which can be found at www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi.

The use of data by the Audit Commission in a data matching exercise is carried out with statutory authority under its powers in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998. It does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Data matching by the Audit Commission is subject to a Code of Practice. This may be found at www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi/codeofdmp.asp.

For further information on the Audit Commission’s legal powers and the reasons why it matches particular information, see the Audit Commission website.

Credit Reference Agency data matches in housing/council tax benefit

Housing Benefit/Council Tax benefit data may be supplied to a Credit Reference Agency, and Housing Benefit fraud investigations could possibly include checks on undeclared cohabiters.

Google Analytics

Watford Borough Council uses Google Analytics to assist us in monitoring and improving our website www.watford.gov.uk, by compiling a wide variety of statistical information. For example, by identifying popular pages, and conversely pages that may be inaccessible, duration of visits etc. etc. The aim is to improve our service delivery and usefulness of the site by analysing the statistics made available to us by this service.

In order for all this to work, Google Analytics uses a mechanism called ‘cookies’.

What are cookies?

When a website is visited, that site may write a cookie (a very small computer file) to the computer that is visiting the site. Depending on the individual website, the cookie may store an array of information about the actions performed during the site visit – in much the same way as for example, CCTV can monitor us in streets and shops, and banks and retailers hold information about our purchases, debts etc. One of the ideas behind the use of cookies is to enhance the visitor’s experience next time they visit – for example, you may not have to enter a user name, address etc. etc. on subseuent visits made from the same computer. In this way, the website being visited may also be able to determine when the site was last visited, for how long, etc.

Cookies can be accepted or declined, and there are several fairly easy ways to make adjustments by changing settings in the web browser. For example, in Internet Explorer (IE), clicking on ‘Tools’ on the main toolbar, then ‘Options’ and selecting the Privacy tab displays the various options. Similarly, cookies previously written to the computer may be deleted. If you are using a different browser, or having any other issues in IE, clicking on help and searching for ‘cookies’ etc. should provide further useful information.

Privacy of personal information

Watford Borough Council will only be using the information from Google Analytics to analyse general usage of the Council's website, as opposed to monitoring personal usage. Nothing will be done to collect personal / identifiable information, and the data will only be analysed by the Council internally. The Council will not pass information to third parties.

Information about how you use the website and your IP address* is transmitted to Google, but Google will not link your IP address with any other information held by Google. Similarly, the Council will not try to link an IP address with the identity of a visitor.

*What's an IP Address?

An IP address acts as a locator for one computer to ‘talk’ to another. Put simply, a customer using a computer to connect to a website requires IP addresses to maintain contact for the duration of the visit. An IP address is not intended to act as an identifier that always uniquely identifies a particular device.