At Citizens Advice, 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 handle and store your personal information in line with data protection law.

When you use our website, we collect a type of data called cookies which tell us what you’re clicking on. 

Who’s responsible for keeping your personal information safe

The national Citizens Advice charity and local Citizens Advice are both responsible for keeping your personal information safe and making sure we follow data protection law. This means we’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information.

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity.

The local Citizens Advice will record your personal information on a national computer system. Staff from a different local Citizens Advice can only access your personal information if they have a good reason – for example if you go to them for advice or call our national phone line. We have rules and controls to stop people accessing or using your information when they shouldn’t.

Tell an adviser if you’re worried about your details being on a national system. We’ll work with you to take extra steps to protect your information – for example by recording your problem without using your name.

If you’ve used a local Citizens Advice

Our Citizens Advice privacy policy will tell you most of what you need to know about what happens to your personal information.

If you’ve given your personal information to a local Citizens Advice, you could check their privacy policy too as there might be some extra information around how your data is stored or shared. If you want to do this, you can contact them directly or check their website.

When we use your information without permission

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. We’ll only do this if there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

• to follow the law, called ‘legal obligation’ – for example, if a court orders us to share information

• to protect someone’s life, called ‘vital interests’ – for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office

• to carry out our aims and goals as an organisation, called ‘legitimate interests’ – for example, to create anonymous case studies and statistics for our national research

• for us to carry out a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law, called ‘public task’ – for example the Consumer Service

• to carry out a contract we have with you, called ‘contract’ – for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you

• to defend our legal rights – for example, to resolve a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

How we use cookies

Making our website work well

We add cookies to your device so you have a good experience when you use our website – for example:

• remembering your preferences

• stopping the cookie notice showing all the time

• making our online forms work

• helping you log in

Cookies other companies add to your device

If you use tools or services on our website that are delivered by other organisations, they might put cookies on your device when you use it.

The tools and services we have on our website from other organisations are:

• Google forms, maps and Youtube videos – read Google’s privacy policy 

• EventBrite events sign ups – read EventBrite’s privacy policy 

• embedded Twitter feeds – read Twitter’s cookies policy 

• videos through Vimeo – read Vimeo’s privacy policy 

• embedded maps and presentations provided by Esri – read Esri’s privacy policy 

• Enthuse – our national donation platform – read Enthuse’s privacy policy 

Finding out how you use our website

We use tools called Google Analytics  to help us understand how you’re using our website.

They collect information by putting cookies on your device. They share that data with us and we use it to improve our website – for example, making popular pages easier to find.

Google Analytics  collect information about:

• which links you click on

• where you move the mouse or cursor across the page

• how much you scroll up and down on the page

• your browser, device and operating system

• the language you’re using

• your screen’s resolution

• the length of time you’re on our website

• your ISP and approximate ISP Location (City, Region, Country)

• how you got to our website

The data collected through cookies is all anonymous – you can’t be identified by it.We store the information for 6 months and then delete it.

Read more about how Google Analytics uses cookies.