Privacy Notices - Swap to Stop Scheme Privacy Notice

The Swap to Stop scheme is a national, harm-reduction initiative aimed at transitioning smokers of tobacco to the significantly less harmful alternative of vaping. Please refer to this press release from the government for further information: Smokers urged to swap cigarettes for vapes in world first scheme - GOV.UK

A Privacy Notice is a statement issued by an organisation which explains how personal and confidential data about individuals is collected, used and shared.

This privacy notice covers what data we collect for entrants to the Swap to Stop scheme, why we use and how we manage this data. 

Swindon Borough Council is the data controller. This means it decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. The processing of data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR”).

If you access and register for Swap to Stop through Swindon Borough Council or through a partner organisation supporting the scheme, personal information will be held about you. We collect a range of personal data about when you apply for a free vape kit.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• your name, address, contact details and smoking status
• date of birth
• ethnicity
• sexuality
• employment type
• household details
• smoking behaviours

To understand if the vape kits are helping people to stop smoking, we will contact you up to 4 times to find out how your quit attempt is going. During these calls we may also collect information on your experience, health, progress and make notes on additional support you.

We ask everyone who signs up to Swap to Stop – our ‘service users’ – for this information.

We comply with our obligations under the GDPR by keeping personal data up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data.

We collect service user information in several ways: by phone, email and/or via text message. Where we collect personal data, we will always make it clear why we need it and how we intend to use it. We will only ask for information that is relevant to the Swap to Stop programme.

We need your personal data in order to:

• understand if the Swap to Stop offer is helping people quit smoking
• show the outcomes of our scheme to the government/NHS
• understand who is taking part
• make sure that applicants are eligible

In some cases, we need to process personal data to ensure that we are complying with our legal obligations.

We have a legitimate interest in processing personal data for Swap to Stop to ensure we are providing free vape kits to those of legal age and only to smokers.

We may process special categories of data, such as equality data (for example race, disability, sexual orientation, gender religion, marital status) to assess how different groups are accessing the scheme.

We are required to record details of your involvement in Swap to Stop on a system called PharmOutcomes which we can then use to report anonymised data to NHS Digital. This data will be grouped together so no individual person can be identified. We will also share anonymised reports with Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW) Integrated Care Board organisations to show how the programme is going.

We take the security of your personal data seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your personal data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees in the proper performance of their duties.

Service user information will be held for two years. This is to ensure that if the scheme is extended we can compare uptake of the project and track service users accessing the scheme across years. 

You have a number of rights.

You can:

• access and obtain a copy of your data on request (Subject Access Request)
• require the Council to change incorrect or incomplete data
• require the Council to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
• object to the processing of your data where the Council is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer, Civic Offices, Euclid Street, Swindon SN1 2JH or e-mail DataProtection@swindon.gov.uk.

If you believe that the Council has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

You are under no statutory obligation to provide your personal data to Swindon Borough Council for participation in the Swap to Stop scheme . However, unfortunately, if you choose not to, you will not be able to access a free vape kit and behavioural support to stop smoking.

A yearly audit will take place on personal data to ensure that we remain legally compliant in accordance with current data protection legislation.

You are viewing the Privacy Notice for the Swap to Stop Scheme.

Read the main Privacy Notice