Privacy policy

At Citizens Advice Wandsworth 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 anyone

We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation. We’ll always explain how we use your information.

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 UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

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.

Contact us about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can call us on 0808 278 7833 (Monday to Friday, 10AM to 4PM). You can also write to or visit our main office in Battersea Library.

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 stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

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.

The national Citizens Advice charity and we as your local office 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.

You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.