Artificial Intelligence

To comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), where personal data relating to a data subject is collected, Lancashire County Council would like to provide you with the following details.

Identity and contact details of the data controller

  • Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Contact details of the data protection officer

  • Our Data Protection Officer is Joanne Winston. You can contact her at dpo@lancashire.gov.uk or Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Reasons for processing your personal data

Lancashire County Council utilises Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to improve and further develop our services for citizens, so we can continue to deliver them as effectively and efficiently as possible.

We remain committed to treating your information securely in line with data protection law, and where we are using new technologies. This privacy notice is designed to explain why we collect information about you, how we intend to use that information and if we share this information with any third parties.

Council services may use AI platforms and new technologies to perform administrative tasks to enable the delivery of more effective and efficient services to you. In doing so, it may be necessary to process your personal data.

Lancashire County Council uses Microsoft Copilot Web and Microsoft Copilot 365 to support the delivery of administrative tasks. The use of other technologies to process personal data will only be implemented where proposed usage has been robustly tested and a detailed impact assessment has been carried out, to satisfy the requirements of UK GDPR

Personal data processed within AI platforms will always remain secure, and Lancashire County Council will only ever process your personal data where it has a clear and lawful basis under UK GDPR for doing so.

LCC is committed to responsible use of AI tools. While these technologies may support service delivery, all decisions and outcomes based on AI-generated content are carefully reviewed by staff. AI outputs are always checked against existing data and used in line with established policies and procedures to ensure accuracy, fairness, and compliance with service standards.

We may use your information to:

  • Train, develop and test AI tools to improve the quality and efficiency of the services provided to you.
  • Provide our services to you using AI tools where appropriate, including as part of adult social care services, children's services, and wider council services
  • Improve internal Council processes and increase efficiencies of administrative tasks which are necessary for the day-to-day functioning of our organisation, such as the training of our employees and the auditing of systems and processes.
  • For internal research and analysis purposes to help improve our services, for the benefit of you and others.

Development and testing

The Council are developing and introducing AI tools and solutions that will ultimately improve the quality and efficiency of services delivered to the people of Lancashire and improve delivery of Council services.

Your personal information will only be processed where necessary to develop and successfully implement these AI solutions, including testing them to make sure they work appropriately. By introducing these technologies, it will allow our services to be delivered to you more efficiently, whilst remaining in compliance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act (2018).

This programme will also bring wider benefits for people across Lancashire. By helping our staff work more efficiently, it means we can respond to your needs and questions more quickly and effectively making it easier for you to get the support and information you need, when you need it.

Other indirect benefits include:

  • Automated Processes: AI can automate routine and repetitive tasks, allowing Council employees to focus on more complex and strategic activities, and undertaking more regular review and analysis than human capacity allows for.
  • Enhanced Decision-Making: AI can analyse large datasets quickly and provide valuable insights - this can empower decision-makers and citizens with accurate and timely information, leading to more informed and effective decision-making.
  • Skill Enhancement: Implementing AI allows our employees to develop new skills.
  • Innovation and Adaptability: Introducing AI encourages a culture of innovation within the Council - employees are able to explore creative solutions and embrace change, fostering adaptability, whilst maintaining compliance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act (2018).

Legal basis for processing personal data

The individual lawful basis that individual Lancashire County Council services rely on to process your personal data within the Microsoft Copilot Web platform will depend on each use case and the lawful basis underpinning the Lancashire County Council areas of activity.

Please consult wider service privacy notices which will define the lawful basis being relied on in a specific area of Lancashire County Council activity.

Any use of Microsoft Copilot Web to process personal data of any kind will be carried out in accordance with UK GDPR and have a clear lawful basis for processing.

Information we process about you

The personal data that Lancashire County Council processes within the AI platforms that we use may be any personal data that Lancashire County Council requires to deliver its functions and activities.

This will include but not be limited to the following:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • NI number
  • Date of birth
  • Religion
  • Occupation
  • Medical history
  • Ethnic origin
  • Criminal offence or criminal record data

Recipients of the personal data that we process about you

  • Microsoft – Provider of the Copilot Web functionality. No personal data inputted into the Lancashire County Council Copilot Web platform will be shared with anyone beyond Microsoft who provide the platform. Microsoft has no 'eyes-on' access to it.
  • Providers of wider AI tools that Lancashire County Council deploys

Any transfers to another country

  • Microsoft Copilot Web processes personal data within the United Kingdom. Lancashire County Council has a UK GDPR compliant contract in place with Microsoft, and Microsoft form part of the Data Privacy Framework.
  • Any wider AI tools that Lancashire County Council uses will process personal data in accordance with UK GDPR requirements for international data processing.

Retention periods

Lancashire County Council will only store your information for as long as is legally required or in situations where there is no legal retention period they will follow established best practice.

File type Description Security Retention period
Personal data inputted into the Microsoft Copilot Web platform Any form of personal, sensitive or confidential information that is populated into Lancashire County Council's instance of the Microsoft Copilot Web platform. All data populated into Microsoft Copilot Web is encrypted and is held in secure cloud-based servers with access controlled by Lancashire County Council Copilot chat history, including prompts and AI responses are retained for six years, in line with Lancashire County Council's corporate retention policies.
Responses and outputs from Microsoft Copilot Web Responses provided by Microsoft Copilot Web based on the personal data and questions provided to it by individual users of the platform and any exported or extracted data from the platform then held on Lancashire County Council's wider network. Held on Lancashire County Council's secure network. Utilised by individual Lancashire County Council services for operational purposes in line with Lancashire County Council's Information Governance Policies. Any extracted or exported data from Lancashire County Council's Microsoft Copilot Web platform is managed, retained and securely destroyed in accordance with Lancashire County Council's corporate retention policies.

Your rights

You have certain rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), these are those rights:

  • to be informed via Privacy Notices such as this.
  • to withdraw your consent. If we are relying on your consent to process your data, then you can remove this at any time.
  • of access to any personal information the council holds about yourself. To request a copy of this information you must make a subject access request in writing. You are entitled to receive a copy of your personal data within 1 calendar month of our receipt of your subject access request. If your request is complex then we can extend this period by a further two months, if we need to do this, we will contact you. You can request a subject access request by emailing dataprotection@lancashire.gov.uk or by sending a letter to the Information Governance Team at the address below.
  • of rectification, we must correct inaccurate or incomplete data within one month.
  • to erasure. You have the right to have your personal data erased and to prevent processing unless we have a legal obligation to process your personal information.
  • to restrict processing. You have the right to suppress processing. We can retain just enough information about you to ensure that the restriction is respected in future.
  • to data portability. We can provide you with your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable form when asked.
  • to object. You can object to your personal data being used for profiling, direct marketing or research purposes.
  • in relation to automated decision making and profiling, to reduce the risk that a potentially damaging decision is taken without human intervention.

Postal Address:

Information Governance Team
Lancashire County Council
PO Box 78
County Hall
Preston
PR1 8XJ 

To ensure that we can deal with your request as efficiently as possible you will need to include your current name and address, proof of identity (a copy of your driving licence, passport or two different utility bills that display your name and address), as much detail as possible regarding your request so that we can identify any information we may hold about you, this may include your previous name and address, date of birth and what council service you were involved with.

Further information

For more information about how we use personal information see Lancashire County Council's full privacy notice.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact the Information Governance team who will investigate the matter.

Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ or email: DPO@lancashire.gov.uk

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).