Privacy Policy

This page explains what kind of personal information we hold about you and why, how it's protected and how you can find out about it.

We hold the following information about you:

• Your personal details, e.g. your name, postal address, email address and telephone number.
• The land you occupy within the drainage districts we administer (indicative location, areas and annual values).
• Your drainage rating account, any compensation you may have received for work we’ve done and your payment history.
• Your bank account details, if you’ve elected to pay us by direct debit.
• Questions, queries or feedback you raise with/leave us, including your email address.
• Your contact preferences.
• Your Internet Protocol (IP) address and details of which web browser you use.
• Information on how you use the site, using cookies and page tagging techniques.

We only use your information to:

• Fulfil our legal obligations set out in the Land Drainage Act 1991 and any other Act, which is defined as such in Article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
• Fulfil the statutory functions of the Internal Drainage Boards we administer.
• Improve DRS Online by monitoring how you use it.
• Gather feedback from you to improve our services.
• Respond to any feedback you send us, if you’ve asked us to.
• Allow you to access your account(s) online and make transactions.
• Provide you with information about our other services, if you want it.

The WMA and its constituent Member Boards fully comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR 2018.

We will:

• Tell you why the information is needed, e.g. to assess, levy and collect drainage rates on land you occupy within the drainage districts we administer, to make a change to your drainage rating assessment, to administer IDB Elections, to comply with our other statutory obligations or capture your preference for paper or electronic notifications, reminders and associated letters.
• Only ask for what's needed.
• Make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn't.
• Unless you expressly state otherwise, exclude your name and address from:
1. The Register of Drainage Hereditaments which is open to public inspection that we are required to maintain, in accordance with section 52 of the Land Drainage Act 1991.
2. The Electoral Register which is open to public inspection that we are required to prepare tri-annually, in accordance with the Land Drainage (Election of Drainage Boards) Regulations 1938 (as amended).
3. The Board’s published minutes and report extracts (assuming you are not a Board member, in which case the full nature and extent of your interests will need to be disclosed and made public in the published minutes etc.):
1. Should you choose to appeal your determination/redetermination of annual value or drainage rates, in accordance with sections 44 and 51 of the Land Drainage Act 1991.
2. should you withhold payment of your drainage rates and the Board instigates court collection procedures, in accordance with section 54 of the Land Drainage Act 1991.
3. Should we choose to re-determine your annual value or correct any erroneous insertions, omissions or any misdescriptions associated with your drainage rates, in accordance with sections 43(1) and 50 of the Land Drainage Act 1991.
4. Should we choose to refund your drainage rates for the current or previous year (in full or in part), in accordance with section 50(1) of the Land Drainage Act 1991.
5. Should we choose to write-off your drainage rates (in full or in part), in accordance with section 54(6) of the Land Drainage Act 1991.
6. Should you choose to complain about the flood risk/land drainage/water level management service we provide, or the actions of others who you believe may have caused/be causing you a drainage problem.
7. Should you apply for consent to do anything, as set out in the Land Drainage Act 1991 or the Board’s Byelaws.
8. Should anyone make a complaint about you or should the Board ever need to consider using its enforcement powers to remedy something you’ve done or not done.
9. Should we ever need to discuss your drainage rates account for any other reason.
• Only keep the information for as long as it's needed.
• Not make it available for commercial use.

You must:

• Give us accurate information.
• Tell us about any changes, e.g. to any land you may have sold, given up or taken on, or to your registered address and contact details that we hold to send you your Rate Demands, Notices of Entry, Notices of Determination, Voting Papers, and other notifications, reminders and associated correspondence.
• Keep your User IDs and Passwords for DRS Online secure and not share this information with anyone else.

Your personal information will not be shared with other organisations, unless we have a legal obligation to do so, or if we have to enforce or apply our terms and conditions of use.

There are some cases when your information may need to be shared with other statutory bodies for other reasons, e.g. to prevent crime.

We won’t share your information with any other organisations for marketing, market research or commercial purposes, and we don’t pass on your personal details to other websites other than to Stripe and PayPal when you make payments by debit/credit card.

Your information will only be viewed by authorised WMA staff and supplier organisations. Our staff and approved suppliers are trained in handling personal information and understand how important it is to protect personal and other sensitive information.

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you. To help locate the information you want and deal with your request more quickly, you should make your data subject access request to dsarequest@wlma.org.uk. You should address your request to the 'Data Protection Officer'.

There is no charge and we will provide you with the information you’ve asked for within the statutory time period.

Sometimes we can withhold information if it is legally privileged, e.g. to protect national security.

If you’ve signed up for email, telephone, postal or SMS alerts, you can unsubscribe or change your settings at any time by selecting/de-selecting the ‘can contact’ check boxes in your DRS Online profile.

If you're unhappy with the way we have handled your personal information, you can write to:

The Member Board's 'Data Protection Officer' at our office address shown on our website.

You'll get a confirmation from us that we’ve received your complaint within 5 working days and a full answer within 15 working days, in accordance with our Complaints Procedure. We will tell you if there is going to be a delay.

If you're unhappy with the answer or need any advice, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The ICO can investigate your complaint and take action against anyone or any organisation who has misused your personal data.

DATA PROTECTION OFFICER