Privacy policy - How we use your information
This privacy notice tells you what to expect when the Scottish Social Service Council (SSSC) collects personal information. Each of the various circumstances in which we collect information is explained below and includes information about the use of "cookies".
We also collect information about applicants and registrants. A separate notice explaining how we use their information can be found on our Data Protection Notice.
Access to personal information
Individuals can find out if we hold any personal information by making a 'subject access request' under the Data Protection Act 1998. If we do hold information about you we will:
- give you a description of it;
- tell you why we are holding it;
- tell you who it could be disclosed to; and
- let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.
To make a request to the SSSC for any personal information we may hold you need to put the request in writing, addressing it to our Communications Team at Scottish Social Services Council, Compass House, 11 Riverside Drive, Dundee, DD1 4NY.
Links to other websites
This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.
Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated in December 2011.
1. Visitors to our websites
a) Introduction
The SSSC has one main website and a number of linked sites. When someone visits our sites we collect standard internet log information such as the page they asked for, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of the request. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. We collect this information in a way that does not identify anyone. We do not attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. We will not associate any data gathered with any personally identifying information from any source. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be up front about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.
b) Use of cookies by the SSSC
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. The cookies currently used by the SSSC are listed at the end of this notice.
To find out more about cookies you can visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
c) YouTube cookies
We embed videos from our official YouTube channel using YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode. This mode may set cookies on your computer once you click on the YouTube video player, but YouTube will not store personally-identifiable cookie information for playbacks of embedded videos using the privacy-enhanced mode.
d) Search engine
The search engine on our website is provided by Funnelback.com. When searching our website, a record of your search term is logged and this information is used to help improve our website. Funnelback's web servers that continuously index the content on our site make the search possible.
2. People who make a complaint about a person who may be a social service worker
When we receive a complaint we make up a file that will contain the identity of the person making the complaint and any other individuals involved in the complaint.
We will only use the personal information about a complainant that we collect to process the complaint. We may compile and publish statistics showing information like the number of complaints we receive, but not in a way that identifies anyone.
We usually tell the person being complained about who the complainant is. If a complainant does not want to disclose his identity disclosed, we will try to respect that. However, it may not be possible to handle a complaint on an anonymous basis.
We will keep personal information contained in complaint files in line with our retention policy. Information is kept in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted.
When we take action in relation to a registrant, we may publish the identity of the registrant on our website or elsewhere. We do not routinely identify complainants.
3. People who make queries or complaints about the SSSC
Where we receive enquiries or complaints about our service we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the enquiry/complaint and any subsequent issues and to check on the level of service we provide.
4. People who use SSSC services
The SSSC offers various services to the public. For example, we send out publications and distribute an electronic newsletter. We sometimes use a third party to deal with some publication requests, but they only use the personal information that we provide to send out the publications.
We have to hold the details of the people who have requested a service in order to provide it. However, we only use these details to provide the service the person has requested and for other closely related purposes. For example, we might use information about people who have requested a publication to carry out a survey to find out if they are happy with the level of service they received. When people do subscribe to our services, they can cancel their subscription at any time.
Cookies used on SSSC websites
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | More information |
| SSSC Corproate website | |||
| Comments | jc_name jc_email |
These cookies remember your details if you comment on our website. They collect your name and email address and pre-populate our comment forms with this. | Work has been scheduled to remove this cookie |
| Google Analytics |
_utma |
These cookies collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where vistors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. | |
| Accessibility | fontSize | If you set a preference for our website font size, this cookie remembers it. | |
| Joomla visitor | mosvisitor | Tracks visits to our website. | We are investigation whether or not we can remove this cookie without breaking the website. |
| Style base | StyleBase | We are working to understand the use of this cookie. | If the cookie is not necessary we will have it removed. |
| Joomla session cookie | Unknown | Holds data regarding the PHP session. | We are considering removing for users who are not logged in. |
| Cody website | |||
| Accessibility | MySheet | If you set a preference for our website font size, this cookie remembers it. | |
| Workforce solutions | |||
| Session cookie | MoodleSession | Provides continuity and maintains login from page to page and only initiates when a user logs in. | |
| Moodle ID | MOODLEID | Remembers username within browser. The login form is populated with this next time the user visits the website. Initiated when a user logs in for the first time from that browser and computer. | |
| Online Bursary Application System | |||
| We have so far been unable to determine what cookies are being used on this portal. | |||
| Online Registration system | |||
| This will change to a new system in 2012 and we will update this section. | |||
To delete cookies or reject cookies
We recommend you allow the cookies set by our websites as they help us provide you with a better service.
If you do not want to receive cookies from this website, select cookie settings under the privacy settings in your browser options, then add our domain to the list of websites you do not want to accept cookies from. Under settings you can also delete individual cookies or any cookies that your browser has stored.
You can find more information on how to delete and control cookies at the About Cookies website - http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=2.
If you set your browser to refuse cookies, please be aware that there may be functionality on various websites that does not work.
