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Donors and depositors privacy notice

This notice applies to your involvement in the provision of archives, books, photographs, artworks and artefacts to us. It supplements information about depositing your records with us.

Who controls your data

The data controller is Derbyshire County Council. We run all these services:

  • Derbyshire Libraries, including the Derbyshire Local Studies Library collection
  • Derbyshire Record Office, including the Picture the Past photographic archive
  • Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Information we collect and why

We start collecting information about people who wish to let us have their archives, books, photographs, artworks or artefacts from the moment we hear about a potential new acquisition. These historically important items are of more use to present and future generations of researchers if their custodians have clear evidence of how they were created, when, and by whom. That's why we try to find out what is known about the history of these items before they came into our custody.

We also need to keep an adequate record of:

  • how items came into our custody, to defend our legal right to continue holding them
  • any occasions on which they have been published or displayed, so we respect intellectual property rights and capture the history of our collections
  • any occasions on which items have left our custody (for example, if loaned to a museum) to defend the security and integrity of our collections
  • research conducted on an item, when this activity is significant enough to become part of the history of its care and use (for example, carbon dating on a museum artefact)

The record could be as simple as your name and contact details, and the identities of previous owners. It could also contain more than that, such as biographical details of the creator of a diary or work of art. Where the records include personal data, we'll only use it for the purposes of managing our collections, not for marketing purposes.

Legal basis for processing your data

It is our public task to process the data. The specific obligations come from Section 12 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 and Section 224 of the Local Government Act 1972.

How long we keep your information

We'll keep this information for at least as long as we retain custody of the items in question, because the need to be able to demonstrate their provenance never goes away. Even if the items themselves leave our custody for good, we may continue to hold this contextual information so that our actions remain accountable.

Sharing your information

Unless we have an agreement with you to name you publicly as the source of the acquisition, we do not ordinarily share your information unless the law says we must. For instance, if the police ask for your information while they are investigating a crime.

We can also make an exception in our legitimate interests. For instance, if someone ever made a claim of ownership over the item, we'd give our legal services department access to all relevant records.

Keeping your information safe

We are committed to protecting personal data and have data policies and procedures in place to ensure that it is safeguarded.

Your rights and who to contact about them

You can find out more about your rights as a data subject but here are the main things you need to know:

  • if you want a copy of your own information, please ask us
  • if you want to complain about how we handle your personal data you can contact the data protection officer:
  • you have the right to contact the Information Commissioner

Find out other ways of getting in touch with us.