COVID-19 Test and Trace Payment Support Scheme Privacy Notice

Cheshire West and Chester Council is working with Public Health England, other Local Authorities and third party organisations to deliver the test and trace payment support scheme.

On 28 September 2020, the Government passed into law a national Test and Trace Support scheme. From 12 October, a one-off payment of £500 will be available for eligible individuals if they:

Have been told to stay at home and self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace, either because they have tested positive for coronavirus or have recently been in close contact with someone who has tested positive
Are employed or self-employed
Are unable to work from home and will lose income as a result
Are currently receiving a qualifying benefit such as Universal Credit, Working Tax Credit, income-based Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit and/or Pension Credit.

If you are not in receipt of a listed qualifying benefit, but meet the following criteria :

Have been told to stay at home and self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace or a Council Public Health Officer, either because they have tested positive for coronavirus or have recently been in close contact with someone who has tested positive
Are employed or self-employed
Are unable to work from home and will lose income as a result
Are on a low income and will face financial hardship as a result of not being able to work whilst you are self-isolating

then you may be eligible for assistance for a one off payment of £500 through the Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Discretionary scheme.

If you apply, we will need to process your personal data to assess whether you are eligible to receive financial support, and if so, to provide a payment to you. This Privacy Notice sets out what personal data we will use, how we will use it, and why we need to, when an applicant applies for this support.

Please note that as part of the checks to verify your application’s eligibility, we will receive information from the Department of Health and Social Care regarding your vaccination status.

Who is the Data Controller for this processing?

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has commissioned NHS Test and Trace on behalf of the government and is the data controller for the purposes of providing Test and Trace data to Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Cheshire West and Chester Council is the data controller for the purposes of assessing eligibility administering and making payments under the Test and Trace Support scheme.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with fraud prevention agencies who will use it to prevent fraud and money-laundering and to verify your identity. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services, finance, or employment.

New packages to support self-isolation

If you have been told by the NHS to self-isolate, either because you have tested positive for COVID-19 or you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive, you may be entitled to some financial support during your self-isolation period.

What are Self-Isolation Payments?

People who are eligible will receive a £500 one-off payment from the Test and Trace Support scheme or from the discretionary scheme to remain at home to help stop the spread of the virus.

What personal information do we hold?

The service will collect the following personal data:

Full name
Full residential address
Email address
Mobile telephone number
Home telephone number (if applicable)
Proxy applicant details (as above where you may nominate someone else to complete this application on your behalf);
Employer name and address
NHS notification number (the unique reference you will be given by NHS Test and Trace Service to self-isolate);
Bank account details;
Your National Insurance Number;
A recent bank statement
Proof of self-employment e.g. recent business bank statement (within the last two months), most recent set of accounts or evidence of self-assessment.
Start and end date of your isolation period
National Insurance number

We will obtain data from the NHS Test and Trace Service to confirm that your Test and Trace account ID is valid to establish that you have either tested positive for COVID-19 or you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. As this data is related to your health it is referred to as 'special category data'.

You or your nominated representative will also provide us with additional personal data in relation to your application for a Self-Isolation Payment.

How do we use your personal information?

We use your information for one or more of the following reasons:

To assess whether you are eligible to receive a one-off payment of £500
To potentially carry out checks with your employer to validate your application
To supply data to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), for income tax purposes as the payment is taxable
To carry out checks with NHS Test and Trace for verification purposes
To send information relating to your application to the DHSC to help understand public health implications, allow us to carry out anti-fraud checks and determine how well the scheme is performing.
To provide you with a one-off payment of £500
To plan and improve the services we offer
To detect and prevent crime or fraud
For research, however this would be in anonymised form unless we ask for your consent to use your personal information for this purpose
To evidence positive outcomes to central government funding agencies

Who else might we share your personal information with?

We will only do so where it is necessary or required by law. We will only share the minimum information for each circumstance.

We will need to share your information with:

NHS Test and Trace Service
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
Public Health England
Local Government
Police (only if fraudulent activity is identified)

What is the legal basis for our use of your personal information?

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for using your personal information are:

We need it to perform a public task (GDPR Article 6 (e)

When we collect data about your health, we also rely on the following lawful basis:

We need to collect it for public health (GDPR Article 9 (2) (i)

The legislation we rely on when using your personal information to meet our legal obligations or public tasks includes but is not limited to:

National Health Service Act 2003
Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002, Regulation 3

Where will we store your information?

Your information will be securely stored on our network.

How long will we keep your personal information?

We will only keep your personal data for as long as it is needed for the purposes of COVID-19 emergency, and for audit and payment purposes.

If we need to use your information for research or reports, your information will be anonymised and any information taken from notes (hand written or typed) during any consultation sessions will be securely destroyed. The information will continue to be used in a summarised and anonymised form in any research reports or papers that are published. The anonymised information in the papers may be of historic interest and may be held in public archives indefinitely

Your rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

To make a request follow the instructions on the Data Protection for you page below.

Data protection for you

How to complain if you are unhappy about how your data is used

You can complain directly to the Council You can complain directly to the Council's Data Protection team by email or post.

Online: Contact the DPO
By post: Data Protection Officer, 4 Civic Way, Ellesmere Port, CH65 0BE

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office using the following details:

Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website
By post: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Will my personal information be accessible outside the UK?

Your information is stored within the UK.