Privacy Policy

At Citizens Advice Guernsey we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems. We also use it, in anonymised form, to improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.

This Privacy Policy explains how we use your information and what your rights are. We handle and store your personal information in line with data protection law and our Confidentiality Policy. The following pages tell you more about how we use your information in more detail.

Our network

Citizens Advice is a membership organisation made up of the National Citizens Advice charity and many local offices across England and Wales, including Citizens Advice Guernsey. Citizens Advice Guernsey is an independent charity and a member of the National Citizens Advice charity.

All members of the Citizens Advice network are responsible for keeping your personal information safe and making sure data protection law is followed.

Members of the network also run some jointly designed services and use some of the same systems to process your personal data. In these instances, we are joint data controllers for these activities.

Jointly controlled data

All offices in the Citizens Advice network use some joint systems to carry out our activities. These include joint case management systems, telephony platforms and more.

Staff from a different local Citizens Advice can only access your personal information in a joint system if they have a good reason. For example, when:

• You go to a different office to seek
• More than one office is working together in
• They need to investigate a complaint or

We have rules and controls in place to stop people accessing or using your information when they shouldn’t.

Tell an adviser if you’re worried about your details being on a national system. We’ll work with you to take extra steps to protect your information – for example by recording your problem without using your name.

National Citizens Advice has a privacy notice available on their website that covers general advice and nationally managed systems, including our case management systems. This policy covers the processing we carry out in our office.

How we use your data for advice

 This section covers how we use your data to provide you with advice.

For general advice and nationally funded advice programs please see the National Citizens Advice privacy notice.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information, we:

• Only access it when we have a good
• Only share what is necessary and
• Do not sell it to

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law – including the  Data Protection (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law 2017 and consider the Prevention of Discrimination (Guernsey) Ordinance 2022.

Who is responsible for keeping your information safe?

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity and a member of the National Citizens Advice charity.

Our confidentiality policy

At Citizens Advice we have a Confidentiality Policy which states that anything you tell us as part of advice will not be shared outside of the Citizens Advice network unless you provide your permission for us to do so.

There are some exceptions to this such as needing to share:

• To prevent an immediate risk of harm to an
• In select circumstances if it is in the best interests of the
• Where we are compelled to do so by law (e.g. a court order or meeting statutory disclosures).
• Where there is an overriding public interest such as to prevent harm against someone or to investigate a crime.
• To defend against a complaint or legal
• To protect our name and reputation, for example to provide our side of a story reported in the press.

Citizens Advice Guernsey is the data controller responsible for keeping your information safe and complying with data protection law.

How Citizens Advice Guernsey collect your data

When you get advice from an adviser

We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation.

We’ll always explain how we use your information.

Permission for feedback

If you give permission to be contacted for feedback, your email will be recorded separately from the case record.

What information Citizens Advice Guernsey collects

To support your enquiry, we collect information about you and your circumstances. You can choose which information you give us, but not providing certain information may limit the advice we can give you. This may include:

• Your name – you can ask to anonymous, but unless you remember your reference number, this may limit your ability for us to look back at your records at a later date.
• Contact details – so we can keep in touch with you about your
• Profile information such as your date of birth and whether you have any accessibility requirements.

We will also collect any information about your issue which could help us provide you with advice which can include:

• Personal information – for example about family, work, or financial circumstances, or if you are vulnerable or at risk of harm.
• Details about the products or services you are having issues
• Details of your housing such as your rent, mortgage and housing
• Information about your health or
• Details of any discrimination you
• Information such as your gender, ethnicity or sexual

If seeking Money Advice assistance, we may ask for data:

•  About your household, partner, personal history and any relevant medical

We will always seek your specific approval if we need to share any such personal data.

We occasionally ask for details about someone else like a neighbour or your partner so we can deal with an enquiry. There will be times when we may need to hold the data of another person on a client’s record. For example:

• Names, addresses of a client’s creditors.
• A dispute between neighbours, where one neighbour approaches us for advice and we record some personal data on the other party in the dispute.
• Where a client is being threatened by someone, where we record personal data regarding allegations of these threats.
• A benefit claim and details of all the household need to be

We will only ever record data relating to a third party where it is relevant to the case and even then, it will be kept to a minimum. Similarly, we will try not to use direct identifiers for third party individuals unless it is necessary to do so.

How we use your information

 We collect and use your information primarily to help solve your problems. We also use it to improve our services and to tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.

We only access your information for other reasons if we really need to – for example:

• For training and quality
• To investigate
• To get feedback from you about our
• To help us improve our

All advisers and staff accessing data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.

Understanding people’s problems

 We use some information to create statistics about who we are helping and what problems are the most common. This information is always anonymised – you cannot be identified. We share these with funders, government departments, reports, social media and press releases.

Statistics also inform our policy research, campaigns, and media work.

How Citizens Advice Guernsey shares your information to work on your behalf

When we share your information with other organisations

With your permission, we might share your information with other organisations so we can:

• Help solve your problem – for example, if you ask us to contact your creditors, we might need to share your name, address and financial details with them.
• Refer you quickly to another organisation for more advice, if

Organisations we share your data with must store and use your data in line with data protection law.

Working on your behalf

 When you give us authority to act on your behalf, we will need to share information with that third party. For example, a local Advocate.

Your personal information is only ever shared with your explicit permission. You will usually be asked to sign a separate ‘release of information’ form, although on occasion verbal permission may be adequate for an urgent situation when contact with you has only been by phone.

If we are concerned about yours or someone else’s safety

 If something you have told us makes us think you or someone you know might be at serious risk of harm, we could tell the police or social services – for example if we think you might harm yourself or someone else.

How Citizens Advice Guernsey stores your information

 Storing your information – if you contact us by email, by phone or face to face

Whether you get advice face to face, over the phone, or by email, our adviser will log all your information, correspondence, and notes about your problem into our secure case management system, called Casebook. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation.

Some of your information might also be kept within our secure email and IT systems.

We keep your information for six years after your enquiry has been concluded. If your case has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute we keep the data for 16 years after your enquiry has been concluded. Emails are on the cloud and cached locally.

Personal information would only be shared with your explicit permission if you ask us to: negotiate with your creditors, make a referral for pro-bono legal advice or contact a government department or other organisation on your behalf.

Anonymised data may be used in our work to improve public policies.

Your Data Protection Rights

 You have rights in relation to your personal data that we hold about you. Your rights include being able to request:

• Access to copies of your
• Corrections are made to inaccurate
• Deletion of your personal
• Object to how we use your personal

These rights are not absolute and may not apply in every circumstance. For more information about your rights, visit the local Office of the Data Protection Authority Individuals Rights ODPA

To make a data protection rights request you can do so by emailing admin@citizensadvice.org.gg

Raising a concern about how we use your information

If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us at admin@citizensadvice.org.gg or at our office:

Citizens Advice Guernsey GROW Hub

Les Petits Quartier Vinery Coutanchez

St Sampsons, Guernsey GY2 4GE

Telephone: 01481 242734

You can also contact the national charity if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal data or wish to raise a concern about how a local office has handled your personal data. To do so, you can email DPO@citizensadvice.org.uk

Contacting the Local Office of the Data Protection Authority

You can also raise your concern with the Office of the Data Protection Authority which regulates data protection law in Guernsey, if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information. They will normally expect you to have made a complaint to us directly, in the first instance.

Visit Home ODPA

Address: Block A, Lefebvre Court, Lefebvre Street, St Peter Port, GY1 2JP Telephone: 742074

Email: info@odpa.gg

If you want to make a complaint

 If you are not happy with how we have handled your data, you can request a copy of the complaints leaflet to be posted to you.

Updated: May 2026