Wakefield Museums and Castles

Here at Wakefield Council (operators of museumsandcastles.wakefield.gov.uk), we take your privacy seriously and will only use your personal information for the purpose(s) listed in section 2 below.  This notice provides details of how the Council collects and uses information (data) about you. 

We will keep your information (data) secure at all times.

a)  The Controller for the information we hold is Wakefield Council. 

Contact details:

Telephone:  01924 306112

Email: dataprotection@wakefield.gov.uk

b)  The Council’s Data Protection Officer is the Corporate Information Governance Team Manager. 

Contact details:

Telephone: 01924 306112

Email:  dpo@wakefield.gov.uk

The Wakefield Museums and Castles and Digital Communications teams need to collect the following information about you:

-       IP address

2.1 The Wakefield Museums and Castles team may collect your IP address as you use this website, and only with your consent.

We may collect your name, email address, telephone number or postal address if you submit one of our enquiry forms. See our enquiry forms privacy notice. It will be made clear at the point of you filling out a form when this is happening.

2.2 Information about your interactions with our website

When you visit our website, we collect information about how you interact with our content and featured ads, including but not limited to, traffic data, location data, web logs and other communication data.

2.3  IP addresses and Cookies

2.3.a Cookies are small text files that are placed onto your device when a user visits a website using a browser. They are widely used to deliver a better and more personalised service. We use cookies on museumsandcastles.wakefield.gov.uk to identify how the website is being used and what improvements we can make to better suit our customer and tourism venues’ needs. We do this using Google Analytics cookies which collects information in a way that does not directly identify anyone. Information on safeguarding data through Google Analytics.

In accordance with Google’s EU User Consent Policy, we inform users that cookies and similar technologies may be used for both personalised and non-personalised advertising. We also share information about your use of our site with our advertising and analytics partners. Learn more about how Google uses your data. For details on other third-party partners and their data usage, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

2.3.b We may collect information about your device, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

2.3.c For the same reason, we may obtain information about your usage of our Website by using a cookie which is stored on the hard drive of your device. Cookies are used to make our Website work and to deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us:

• To estimate our audience size and usage pattern.

• To store information about your preferences, and so allow us to customise our website according to your individual interests.

• To speed up your searches.

• To recognise you when you return to our Website.

2.3.d For further information about the cookies used on our website please visit our separate Cookies Policy.

To enable us to provide our service to you we will share your information with Google.

3.1 We require the information detailed in section 2 to understand your needs and to provide you with a better service, in particular for the following reasons:

• To ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device

• To tailor advertising to you through Google Ads, sharing content which we think you may find interesting

• In order to improve our website we will analyse information about how you use it and the content and ads that you interact with

• To improve our products and services

• For market research purposes

• For Internal record keeping

3.2 In addition, your data may be accessed by Internal Audit and the Counter-Fraud Team as they are required to hold, or have access to, information from systems and processes across the Council so that we can:

• Fulfil legal (Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, and Local Government Act 1972) and mandatory professional requirements (Public Sector Internal Audit Standards) to provide an internal audit function.

• Investigate referrals made under the Council’s Counter-Fraud Framework, including the Whistleblowing Policy.

• Participate in national and local counter-fraud schemes, such as the National Fraud Initiative, to help protect the public purse.

• Maintain the central register of applications for RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000)

• Ensure the effectiveness of the Council’s governance, risk management, and control processes.  This forms part of the Head of Internal Audit Annual Assurance Opinion, which is incorporated into the Annual Governance Statement.

• Facilitate the prevention, deterrence and detection of bribery, corruption, fraud and money-laundering committed against the Council.

3.3 Should you decide not to provide any of the information we request from you, it may affect your experience using our website and digital marketing platforms.

The law says that we cannot process your personal data unless we comply with at least one condition in Article 6 of the UK GDPR.  The Article 6 lawful basis we rely upon for processing your information is:

Article 6 1 (a) Your consent. You are able to withdraw your consent at any time. You can do this by selecting ‘I do not accept cookies’ on the cookies panel (the triangle with a C in it at the bottom left-hand corner of the page).

We do not collect or process any Special Category Data through our website.

We will keep your personal information collected for the purpose(s) detailed in section 2 for:

-       Cookies – see the cookies policy for different retention periods

-       When submitting an enquiry form: up to 1 year after our last communication with you. See enquiry form privacy notice.

After which time it will be deleted from our systems. 

The reason for keeping information for this period of time is to provide you with an effective and streamlined website experience.

Under the GDPR you have the following rights:

Right of Access

You have a right of access to the personal information that the Council holds about you, and/or the right to be given a copy of the data undergoing processing.

Right to Rectification

You have the right to request that the Council corrects any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.

Right to Erasure

In certain circumstances, you may have the right to request your personal data is erased.

Right to Restriction of Processing

You have the right, where there is a dispute in relation to accuracy or lawfulness of processing of your personal data, to request that a restriction is placed on further processing.

Right to Portability

You have the right to request the Council provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller.  However, this only applies to data that you have provided to us and not to all the information that the Council holds about you.

Right of Complaint

You have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner, please find contact details below.

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number

To exercise any of your rights, you should contact the Data Controller’s representative as shown in section 1b.

7.1 As our website servers are located in the United Kingdom, the data that we collect from you is obtained, processed, stored and transmitted in compliance with data protection legislation. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

The following companies are acting as our data processors and the contracts we enter into with them require them to comply with UK data protection laws, to process only for the purposes we specify and to ensure they have the appropriate controls in place:

1. Google Analytics, which provides a service allowing us to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to various parts of the website. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. See our cookies policy.

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Notice, then we will provide you with a new Privacy Notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions.

We will review this notice regularly, and no later than every 2 years, to ensure it remains accurate and relevant, unless legislative changes require this sooner. 

(Last updated 29 September 2025)