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Privacy Notice – managing communications through social media via a central platform

At South Oxfordshire district council, we understand the importance of ensuring that personal data is always treated lawfully and appropriately and that the rights of individuals are upheld.

You have a right to be informed about how and why your personal information is being processed. This document fulfils that obligation and provides information on how we collect, why we collect, and who we share the data collected with and for what purpose.

This notice applies to those who choose to engage with the councils through our social media platforms which we are managing through a software platform named ‘Orlo’.

About us

South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils operate as a shared service and each council is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, who are the supervisory body for data protection under the following registration numbers:

South Oxfordshire District Council – Z6629204

South Oxfordshire District Council Electoral Registration Officer – Z6605488

Vale of White Horse District Council – Z6666984

Vale of White Horse District Council Electoral Registration Officer – Z2612241

Purpose for processing your data

Our communications team is responsible for the promotion of services, campaigns and events to provide information, encourage take up, change behaviours and enhance the reputation of the council. We use social media as part of this role through corporate social media accounts as stated on the websites for South and Vale. In addition, individual council service areas also have social media accounts specific to their service area.

The councils use social media accounts to:

  • Communicate with you on social media in line with the terms and conditions of the social media sites
  • Communicate with you about matters of public interest affecting the council
  • Monitor and manage compliance with our social media rules as stated on our websites for South and Vale.

We oversee these individual social media accounts using a social media management platform provided by our service provider, ‘Orlo’.

Types of personal data we hold about you

We hold information that you provide when engaging with the council through social media. We do not have control over what personal data you provide us and we mainly anticipate this will include

  • Names
  • Social media username
  • opinions
  • email address
  • contact information
  • customer account references

Whilst we do not ask for and encourage you not to disclose in the public domain any sensitive special category’ personal data, such as health conditions or allegations of wrongdoing, we recognise that you may choose to share this type of information. We will ensure we keep this information safe and only use what is necessary.

Source of your personal data

We collect your information directly from you when you engage with the council through social media.

Lawful basis for processing your personal data

In accordance with data protection laws, we need a ‘lawful basis; for collecting and using information that relates to you and there are different lawful bases available.

The majority of your communications with the council will be in relation to our statutory services. Whilst we cannot force you to engage through social media, so in that respect we need your consent, we are collecting your data in order to perform a statutory duty hence we are relying on the lawful basis of ‘public task’ under Article 6(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UKGDPR).

For the any special category personal data you may want to provide, the lawful basis for processing will be as set out in the privacy notices for the council team your query relates to, see below for how to find service area specific privacy information

Sharing your personal data

We will not share any personal data that you supply to us privately. We may share posts you have already made public. 

If your query is forwarded to another council department to follow up a service request, complaint or enquiry, you should refer to the privacy notice for that service. These are available on the web sites for South and Vale.

We will not share your information with third parties or use it for another purpose unless we are required to do so by law, for example by court order or to prevent fraud or other crime.

We do not transfer your personal data outside of the UK.

Data retention

Your data will be stored securely within the UK based database provided by Orlo and managed by South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District councils. It will be deleted once it is no longer needed.

Please note, we may not have control over posts you submit to social media platforms, but if you are commenting through our corporate accounts, we are able to hide or delete your posts or block your access to our accounts if it is necessary.

Your rights over your personal data

The rights you have under data protections laws depend on the lawful basis we rely on for using your personal data. As the lawful basis is that of public task, you have the following rights

  • To be informed, which is the purpose of this privacy notice.
  • To request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check it is correct and we are lawfully processing it.
  • To request correction of the personal information that we hold about you if it is incomplete or inaccurate.
  • You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing, such as for something about your particular situation which makes you want to object, and we have determined your request outweighs our need for processing.
  • To request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

You also have rights related to automated decision making or profiling, and to object to using your data for marketing purposes. However, we are not using these for processing your personal data in relation to this consultation.

If you wish to exercise any of the above rights over your personal data, or to raise concerns regarding this privacy notice or believe we have not handled your personal data as we have described here please email us on data.protection@southandvale.gov.uk. Your concerns will be fully investigated and after we have investigated your concerns, if you are not satisfied with our conclusion, you have the right to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Contact details for the ICO are:

website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complaints/ .

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Version V1.0 last updated 3 June 2025

We reserve the right to update or revise this privacy notice at any time.