Library Service privacy notice

This privacy notice provides information on how Norfolk Library and Information Service (the library service) provided by Norfolk County Council (the County Council) uses your personal information.  By 'use' we mean the various ways it may be processed including storing and sharing the information.

Further details

We also provide further details regarding: 

• Who we are
• How long we use your information for
• Your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) and
• How to exercise them 

You can see this information in Norfolk County Council's general privacy notice or you can ask us for a copy of this information.

What we use your information for

We use your personal information to primarily provide libraries and associated educational initiatives and programmes for adults and children.  

This includes:

• Joining and accessing library services by members of the public (adults and children including children looked after by the County Council). The service includes: 
  • Mobile libraries
  • Visits in the home to housebound individuals in partnership with the RVS
  • Public computing facilities, including internet access
  • Events booking including any updates regarding the events
  • Friends' and reading groups
• Participation in reading challenges and other educational programmes, for example,
  • Summer and winter reading challenges
  • Educational programmes to increase literacy
• Community engagement initiatives including partnerships 
• Receiving payments in relation to chargeable items and making refund payments and credits in relation to chargeable items 
• Protecting visitors and employees through use of CCTV, logging incidents and recording visitors in a log and providing a lost property service
• Hiring of rooms in libraries
• Providing a picture library (Picture Norfolk), receiving donations to the picture library and maintaining a record of donations by rights holders
• Providing work experience for young people 

We also use this information to assess the quality of our services and evaluate and improve our policies and procedures.  

We may also use information in other ways compatible with the above.  Primarily this will include supporting the work of other public bodies providing services to members of the public.  

The kind of information we collect and use about you

The information we collect and use includes your:

• Name, address and contact details
• Date of birth
• Personal history including any criminal convictions (see below)
• Family history and social relationships generally
• Financial details for payments made by you to the library service, debts owed by you to the library service
• Financial details for payments made by the library service to you, eg credits or refunds, and credits or refunds due from the library service to you
• Care status if you are a child looked after by the County Council

We may also collect information about: 

• Your health which is classed as "special category data" under the GDPR, and 
• Criminal convictions and offences.

The GDPR includes safeguards to protect the use of your special category data and criminal conviction data. Further details can be found in our 'Special category data and criminal offences data policy' which sets out our procedures for compliance with the principles of the GDPR and the retention and erasure of this information. 

Who provides this information

The information we hold includes information you have provided to us.  

We also receive information from other public bodies, and organisations providing services.  

How the law protects you and the legal basis for processing your information

We have legal grounds to process this information because it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest.  

This includes under the:

• Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964  
• Equalities Act 2010 

We have legal grounds to process (including share) special category data and criminal convictions data where it is in the exercise of a statutory function and it is in the necessary for reasons in the substantial public interest. The statutory functions are as set out above.

We may also seek specific consent to use your information in certain ways e.g. to maintain a record of friends groups and to publicise events/marketing purposes.  

Who we share your information with

We may also share your personal information with your family if you are a child or young person, and with the Royal Voluntary Service - for coordinating home library visits

We may also share your information across different departments of the County Council, where it is necessary for our public tasks or functions to do so. 

We will also share your information, subject to contractual and other legal safeguards, with organisations commissioned to provide services to you and others.  

How we keep your information

The information is stored electronically, on the library service's management systems, currently supplied and managed by Civica, Bibliotheca, Overdrive, Bolinda, Insight Media and D-Tech. 

Information is also securely stored in other mediums, including email accounts and in paper files.  

If we transfer your personal information to other countries

We do not process your information outside of the European Economic Area.

Automated decision making

We do not make automated decisions in respect of these services. 

Changes to this privacy notice

The County Council keeps this privacy notice under regular review and will provide you with a new privacy notice when any substantial updates are made.  The County Council may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information

Date of Notice

This page was updated on 6 March 2023