This notice provides details of how Torbay Council collects and uses information about births.
Personal information about births in the county of Devon is supplied to local authorities by NHS Digital and contains data provided at the time of registration of birth along with additional geographic information.
Torbay Council has a Data Access Agreement with NHS Digital and data are supplied in accordance with section 42(4) of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 as amended by section 287 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and Regulation 3 of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002.
Information held includes date of birth, sex of child, birth weight, a birth in marriage indicator, country of birth of parents, occupation and socio-economic status of parents, address and postcode of mother, place of birth, a stillbirth indicator and age of mother.
Torbay Council acts as a "data controller" for any personal data that you provide to us. As such, we will ensure that the data you give us is processed in line with our organisation's Data Protection Policies and in line with your rights under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation.
Should you wish to find out more about Torbay Council’s data protection policies please visit our Data Protection page.
Torbay Council has a statutory duty under the Health Protection Regulations 2010 to monitor public health needs and to reduce the transmission of infectious diseases. To carry out this function it may be necessary for the Council to process personal data provided to us during the process of registering a birth.
This information is used to ensure that health, social care and public health services address local health needs and are focused on reducing health inequalities (differences in health status in relation to birth rates, low birth weights and stillbirth between groups and areas).
This information is used for the purposes of statistical analysis, monitoring population health, and to inform the planning and commissioning of health services.
This information is used specifically to identify patterns and trends in birth rate.
The term person identifiable data relates to any data that could potentially identify a specific individual. The following fields in the Birth Record are classified as person identifiable: address, place of birth, postcode of usual residence of mother/postcode of place of birth of child, NHS number of child, date of birth of child.
No personal-identifiable information is published, and numbers and rates in published reports based on counts fewer than five are removed to further protect confidentiality and anonymity.
Torbay Council will not share personal data provided during the course of registering a birth with anyone outside of the Council without a lawful reason for doing so.
Torbay Council will retain your personal data for only as long as is necessary, and in line with our organisation’s record retention schedules.
Information is held in a secure database which is only accessible to analytical staff within Torbay Council's Public Health Knowledge and Intelligence Team. The database is on an accredited secure internal network protected by AES 256 encryption and can only be accessed within this network.
Data will be held be for deaths registered from 1995 onwards consistent with the data access agreement between NHS Digital, the Office for National Statistics and Torbay Council.
Under the Data Protection Act 2017 and the EU General Data Protection Regulations you have the following rights;
Should you wish to exercise any of your rights, you should contact the Data Protection Officer.
In the event that you wish to complain about the way that your personal data has been handled by Torbay Council, you should write to the Data Protection Officer and clearly outline your case. Your complaint will then be investigated in accordance with the Council’s procedure. Further information is on the Council's rights and complaints page.