SEPA privacy notice - Floodline
Who we are
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (“SEPA”, “we”, “us” or “our”) was established by the Environment Act 1995 and has its principal place of business at Strathallan House, Castle Business Park, Stirling, FK9 4TZ
How we use your personal information
For more information on how SEPA handles personal information, please see also our General privacy notices.
This privacy notice explains how we collect and use personal information for the purposes of providing our flood warning service: Floodline.
The legal basis for processing this information is that we obtained your consent when you registered for Floodline. You can withdraw your consent at any time, please see Withdrawing consent to using your information below.
Floodline is provided to you in partnership with:
- Environment Agency – joint controller for Telephone calls to Floodline (0345 988 1198
- Teleperformance – data processor
- Gov.Notify – data processor
When registering for Floodline you can choose to receive the following services:
Flood Alerts (Flooding is possible – Be prepared)
Flood Alerts are an early indication of potential flooding from coasts, rivers or surface water. They cover large regions (usually council areas) and are usually issued between 08:00–18:00, however they may be issued outwith these hours in exceptional circumstances.
If your registered property is not within a Flood Warning Area you will be signed up for Flood Alerts only
Flood Warnings (Flooding is expected - Take action)
Flood Warnings are issued when flooding is expected for a defined local area. They will be issued at any time of the day or night.
By registering for Flood Warnings you will receive both Flood Warnings and Severe Flood Warnings. Flood Warnings and Severe Flood Warnings are only issued for areas where we have river and coastal monitoring and the capacity to forecast local conditions.
Severe Flood Warnings (Severe flooding – Danger to life)
Severe Flood Warnings will only be issued in exceptional circumstances where the impacts of flooding threaten life or where evacuation is required.
If it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency, we would share personal information with the relevant emergency service.
If you contact us through our Floodline number 0345 988 1188, please be aware that calls are recorded and monitored. This telephone service is a joint controlled service between SEPA and the Environment Agency. The information you provide is processed by our third party contractor, Teleperformance.
Telephone recordings can be accessed by our joint controller, the Environment Agency, for training and monitoring and complaint handling purposes.
Teleperformance, as data processor, has access to registering, amending or deleting your details from SEPA’s Floodline service.
You can register to Floodline using the following methods:
- By calling 0345 988 1188 (your call will be handled by our third party contractor, Teleperformance)
- Online at SEPA’s website
- By completing the form available on SEPA’s website or in hard copy and submitting it to us.
During the process of registering for Floodline, we or our third party contractor will ask you to provide the following personal information to allow us to provide the applicable flood warning services outlined above.
- Title
- First Name
- Surname
- Address including postcode
- Telephone contact details (land line and/or mobile)
- Email address (if you register online via the SEPA website, it will be mandatory to provide an email address. For all other methods provision of an email address is optional)
We will use your email address, where you have provided it, to create an online account to enable you to use Floodline to its full potential.
Your personal information will be stored securely by our contractor, HTK Limited, on SEPA’s behalf, so that SEPA can deliver the Floodline service. SEPA will use your email address (if provided) to advise:
- You are registered
- You have amended your account details
- If there are service changes
- To confirm the details we hold are correct
- Research purposes
SEPA use Gov.UK Notify to send emails and letters on its behalf. Such emails will show the sender as being from Floodlinescotland@notifications.service.gov.uk. In some circumstances emails may come from flooding@sepa.org.uk.
Gov.UK Notify will securely hold records of emails sent to you for 7 days. Gov.UK Notify’s privacy notice can be found here.
Your rights regarding your personal information held by SEPA
| Right | What it means |
|---|---|
| Information | You have the right to clear information about how we collect and use your personal information – this privacy notice is one example of how we do this |
| Access | To request a copy of your information, please complete the Data Subject Access Request Form or contact dataprotection@sepa.org.uk |
| Correction | You have the right to ask for any personal information that is inaccurate or incomplete to be corrected |
| In certain circumstances, you will have the following extra rights: | |
| Erasure | You have the right to ask for your personal data to be deleted under certain circumstance |
| Objection to processing | You have the right to object to our use or your personal information under certain circumstances |
| Restriction on processing | If you make an objection, our use of your personal information may be temporarily suspended whilst we deal with your request |
| Portability | You have the right to ask for a copy of your personal information in a machine readable format to pass to another organisation under certain circumstances |
We have a Data Protection Officer who makes sure we respect your rights and follow the law. If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, please contact SEPA’s Data Protection Officer, Alison M. Mackinnon at dataprotection@sepa.org.uk or by calling 03000 99 66 99 and ask to speak to the Data Protection Officer.
Correcting your information
- If you have an online account you can change your name, email address, password, telephone numbers and method of receiving messages.
- For changes to your property address, if your account is registered for more than one location or if you do not have an online account, please call Floodline – 0345 988 1188
Withdrawing consent to using your information – Where we use your personal information with your consent. You may withdraw that consent at any time and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given.
- You can de-register from Floodline using your online account or by calling 0345 988 1188.
- SEPA will cease sending you flood messages from the date you notify us that you wish to de-register. SEPA will endeavour to confirm your deregistration by email or letter within 14 days. All personal information will be removed from Floodline systems within six weeks.
Changes to our privacy notice
Changes to our privacy notice We keep this privacy notice under regular review and will place any updates on the SEPA website. Paper copies of the privacy notice may also be obtained by contacting flooding@sepa.org.uk
Complaints
We seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle personal information but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. They can be contacted through their website or by calling 0303 123 1113
This privacy notice was last updated on 19 May 2020