Last updated: 9 May 2023
Next review: 28 December 2023
Who we are and what we do
Children in out-of-home or alternative care face a major problem in having access to life moments, memories, photos and videos, reports, awards, and identity documents. Carers often take a lot of photos of significant moments of the child or young person’s life (e.g. birthday parties, a trip to the zoo, holidays, sporting achievements, family gatherings, or any of the usual family moments). These moments are priceless and form part of the child’s identity and life story. There are also documents such as birth certificates that are critical for the child, and which are often hard to access.
The Council’s Family service are working with CaringLife, an award-winning platform and app that has been created to solve this problem, giving children and young people digital access to all their life memories and documents in a very private and secure way. Find out more about Caring Life’s privacy practices on their website.
Council social workers can see and moderate all the content and can also add memories and other important documents.
Information we hold about you
The Council will not hold the data directly. All data is held on the CaringLife app platform, which is hosted on AWS cloud servers.
The following personal data will be uploaded to the platform:
- Name and surname
- DOB
- Photos
- Journal notes
- Achievements/milestones.
As a consequence of taking photos of you, we may be processing data relating to your race or ethnic origin, religion, health/disabilities or sexual orientation. The GDPR defines these as special category data.
Why we need your information and how we use it?
Data uploaded to CaringLife is for your benefit. You will have access to your access to life moments, memories, photos and videos, reports, awards, and identity documents.
The lawful basis for the processing
The processing of your data is based on your consent. You will be asked to complete a consent form prior to any data being uploaded to the platform.
You are able to withdraw your consent for the processing of your data by either notifying the Council or CaringLife.
Who your information will be shared with (if applicable)
Your data will be shared with CaringLife, who are a global service. Therefore, CaringLife processes and stores the information gathered on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud servers located in the UK.
How long we will keep your information
CaringLife will retain your data for as long as the CaringLife Account is active, or as long as needed to provide the service to you.
If the Council terminates the account (for whatever reason), the Personal Information associated with the account will no longer be accessible to the Council. Any Content or Personal Information which Council staff have posted to the CaringLife Account may still be available to you.
There may continue to be residual copies of such Content and Personal Information due to ongoing data back-up, archiving and to comply with our legal obligations.
Our Data Protection Officer
Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes. You can contact him by emailing Data.protectionofficer@walthamforest.gov.uk
Protecting your information
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
Your information choice and rights
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
Complaints and contact details
These are included in the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
Information Commissioner’s Office
If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).