Privacy Policy
At South Tyneside Citizens Advice 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 ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and 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
- don’t sell it to commercial organisations
At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:
- to comply with the law – for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’
- to protect someone’s life – for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’
- to carry out our legitimate aims and goals 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 called ‘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 ‘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.
You can check the main Citizens Advice policy for how we handle most of your personal information.
This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.
We will use the information collected online to help us understand more about how our site is used by visitors, and to develop and enhance our services to you.
Information Security and External Websites
When you provide South Tyneside Citizens Advice with any personal information, for example, when using any contact or application forms, we take steps to ensure that your information is treated securely.
South Tyneside Citizens Advice makes every effort to ensure the security and integrity of emails on our systems. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information after we’ve received it, Citizens Advice cannot ensure or guarantee the security of information when it is being transmitted.
Note: This privacy policy only covers this website www.ntcab.org.uk; any other websites linked from this website are not covered by this policy. Once you have accessed another website via one of our links you will be subject to the security and privacy policy of that site.
Contact South Tyneside Citizens Advice about your information
If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office:
South Tyneside Citizens Advice, Edinburgh Buildings, 2 Station Approach, South Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE33 1HR
You can contact us to:
- find out what personal information we hold about you
- correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete
- request we delete your information
- ask us to limit what we do with your data – for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already
- ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service
- ask us to stop using your information
Who’s responsible for looking after your information
The national Citizens Advice charity and South Tyneside Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system.
Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.
You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.
Cookies
We use cookies* to:
- track aspects of user visits, including the length of a user’s visit, their browser, geographic location and the use of the search facility on this website
- remember users selected contrast and/or text resizing style preferences for this website
- record a user’s video preferences for our YouTube videos viewed on this website.
First party cookies
| Cookie name | About this cookie (where known) | Expires |
| __utma | This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. This cookie lasts for 2 years by default and distinguishes between users and sessions. It it used to calculate new and returning visitor statistics. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.† | 2 years from set/update |
| __utmb | This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. This cookie determines new sessions and visits and expires after 30 minutes. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.† | 30 minutes from set/update |
| __utmc | This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. It is set to enable interoperability with the older version of Google Analytics code known as Urchin. In this older versions this was used in combination with the __utmb cookie to identify new sessions/ visits for returning visitors. When used by Google Analytics this is always a Session cookie which is destroyed when the user closes their browser. | |
| __utmz | This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour measure of site performance. This cookie identifies the source of traffic to the site – so Google Analytics can tell site owners where visitors came from when arriving on the site. The cookie has a life span of 6 months and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.† | 6 months from set/update |
| __utmv | This is an optional additional cookie set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. This cookie is used when site owners create custom visitor-level variables for customising what can be measured. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. | 0 days |
| testSessionCookie | ||
| AGLogon | Stores login details if the “Remember me” option has been selected. | 90 days |
| ANONID | Anonymous session cookie. Used where information you have entered needs to be used over several pages. For example the contact form and letter generators. | When the user exits the browser |
| eprivacy | Stops the banner message about cookies showing on every page. It is only shown on the first three pages visited, or until it is closed. | 1 year |
| extent | Used to remember which part are of the UK you prefer to view information in. This allows you to skip the splash screen. | 1 month |
| _lgn_cscv2 | ||
| t | ||
| REQURL | Allows a user to be sent to the correct page following a login. | At end of session |
| SESSION | Required so users can log in. | At end of session |
Third party cookies from .twitter.com, twitter.com
Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies.
| Cookie name | Expires |
| _twitter_sess | 0 days |
| k | 7 days |
| guest_id | 331 days |
| remember_checked | 3254 days |
| remember_checked_on | 3254 days |
| secure_session | 6906 days |
| twll | 3254 days |
| auth_token | 6906 days |
| pid | 547 days |
| lang | 0 days |
Third party cookies from .google.com, .youtube.com
| Cookie name | About this cookie (where known) | Expires |
| SID | This cookie is used by Google in combination with HSID to verify a Google user account and most recent login time. | 3646 days |
| NID | 183 days | |
| PREF | This is a common Google cookie, used across several of their services. Stores user preference and can be used to personalise ads on google searches. | 730 days |
| APSID | 331 days | |
| HSID | Used by Google in combination with SID to verify Google user account and most recent login time. | 331 days |
| SAPISID | 331 days | |
| SSID | 331 days | |
| LOGIN_INFO | 3650 days | |
| lwb | 7 days | |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | This cookie is used as a unique identifier to track viewing of videos. | 241 days |
Third party cookies from plusone.google.com, apis.google.com, plus.google.com
| Cookie name | Expires |
| BEAT | 1 day |
| ULS | 0 days |
| OTZ | 30 days |
Third party cookies from accounts.google.com
| Cookie name | Expires |
| GAPS | 730 days |
Third party cookies from .facebook.com
| Cookie name | Expires |
| wd | 0 days |
| datr | 331 days |
| lu | 331 days |
*cookie – a bit of information kept on a user’s computer.
† For more information on Google Analytics tracking: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/concepts/gaConceptsCookies.html
How you can manage or delete cookies
If you don’t want to receive cookies, you can change settings in your web browser so that your browser tells you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set.
If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies, the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, these sites can provide more information on how to do this:
