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Emails

We treat incoming emails and forms in the same way as other communications we receive.

Email messages sent from users of Cheshire West and Chester Council's email systems have a legal disclaimer statement appended automatically.

Any opinions expressed in the email message you have received are those of the individual and not necessarily of Cheshire West and Chester Council or other organisations which are hosted on the Council's mail servers.

Unless encrypted, email messages passing over the internet are not secure and could be intercepted and read by someone else. Please bear this in mind when deciding what information to include in any email messages you intend to send to the Council.

Encrypted emails

We sometimes send emails that include personal and private information. The only person who should see an email like this is the person it’s meant for.

So we give the email an extra level of security. It’s called an ‘encrypted’ email.

To read an encrypted email from us, you first need to set up an account through ‘Egress’ – a specialist organisation used by lots of councils, government departments and private companies to keep information secure.

It only takes a few moments to get your free account. Once you have set up an account you will be able to read the email, and reply to it confidentially.

See how to set up your Egress account

You only need to set up an account once. You’ll be able to read and reply to encrypted emails in the future without doing it again.

Need help using Egress?

Confidentiality

Email messages and any file attachments sent by the Council may contain confidential or legally privileged information and are only intended for the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, any onward transmission of the email is strictly prohibited.

If you have received the email in error, you should delete the message and any attachments immediately, including any backups and temporary files and notify the Data Protection Officer at:

Monitoring

The Council automatically monitors both outgoing and incoming email communications. You should therefore be aware that if you send an email to a person within the Council it will be subject to monitoring for lawful business purposes and will be stored and disposed of in accordance with the Council's retention policy.

Security and Viruses

Although the Council virus-scans incoming and outgoing emails (including file attachments) it cannot guarantee that the content of an email communication or any file attachment is virus-free or has not been intercepted or amended as it passes over the internet. The onus is on the recipient to check the communication is virus-free. The Council accepts no responsibility for any damage caused by receiving emails from our email systems and/or hosted domains.

Access

As a public authority, the Council is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Under this legislation the Council may be required to disclose the content of an email (or a response to it) unless the information it contains is protected from disclosure under an exemption in the Act.​