Our commitment to privacy

We (North Lanarkshire Council) are committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of any personal information that we hold.

In the delivery of the East Airdrie Link Road (EALR) project, we may process your personal data for the purposes set out in this privacy notice. This privacy notice will explain how we look after your personal information and tells you about your rights in relation to the project. We keep our Privacy Notice under regular review. This version was last updated on 24 September 2025. 

How we protect your information

We will ensure that your personal information is kept secure, in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, and we will only collect the minimum information necessary to fulfil a particular purpose. When we don't have a need to keep information about you, it will be disposed of in a secure manner.

Controller

We are the controller and responsible for your personal information.

Data Protection Officer

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about our Privacy Notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by email: dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk or by post to North Lanarkshire Council, Civic Centre, Windmillhill Street, Motherwell, ML1 1AB.

The personal information we hold about you

We may collect, store, and use the following kinds of personal information about you:

• Information about who you are e.g., your name, trading name, address, alternative postal address, and other contact details e.g. email address, telephone number
• Information connected to your interest in land e.g. nature of your interest  
• Information about your contact with us e.g. phone calls, emails, and letters
• Information provided by you about other people e.g. your Land Agent’s name and contact information or someone who may gain an interest in land
• Any other personal data collected during our engagement with you including disclosed by means of a questionnaire
• Information if you visit one of our offices or attend consultation meetings e.g., visual images collected via closed circuit television (CCTV)
• Information automatically collected via cookies and other similar technologies when you visit our websites e.g. internet protocol (IP) address, browser type, and version. To understand how these work, read our Cookies Policy here.

If you have provided anyone else's details, please ensure that you have told them that you have given their information to the Council and that they may be contacted about the project.

Keeping your information up to date

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during the project.

How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information using different methods; either directly from you, or a third party on your behalf, or from various other sources, including but not limited to:

• Information requests and requests for assistance - when you interact with us or consultants acting on our behalf, e.g. corresponding by letter, phone, or email
• Information gathering exercises e.g. by completing questionnaires or other information gathering forms.
• Online forms and consultations which give you the opportunity to engage and provide your comments, feedback, or request assistance
• Attendance at consultation and other engagement events
• Technical data by our use of cookies and other similar technologies
• Our online services such as website and social media  

We may collect personal information about you from third parties and publicly available sources, such as the Land Register of Scotland, Companies House, and the Electoral Register e.g. to confirm landownership or to obtain updated contact information.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We collect and use your personal data to support the effective engagement with landowners and affected persons in relation to the EALR project and to keep you informed about it.  We use your information to contact you by post, email, or telephone regarding the project. Your personal data will also be used to:

• Confirm land holdings and identify any additional impacts.
• Support legal and procedural requirements for land acquisition, as well as any adjustments to road alignment and design changes.
• Facilitate communication with individuals (or their land agents) regarding any forthcoming acquisition, Accommodation Works and (if necessary) commencement of any Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) process.
• Clarify queries and keep individuals informed throughout all project stages
• To help us improve our services.

Basis of processing

We will use your personal data as part of our statutory function as your local authority. Processing your personal information is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest by the Council or in the exercise of official authority vested in us.

Sharing your personal information

We may have to share your personal information with the following parties for the purposes set out above:

• Consultants engaged by us to provide consultancy support to the project e.g., supporting engagement with landowners and other affected persons 
• Professional advisors, e.g. lawyers, accounting services and the District Valuer.
• Law enforcement and other appointed agencies e.g., Police, Fraud Prevention Agencies in the prevention and detection of crime
• Regulators and government bodies; e.g. The Scottish Information Commissioner, the Information Commissioner’s Office
• Third parties or individuals supporting our efforts to confirm your interest in land
• HM Revenue & Customs for preventing or investigating tax avoidance
• Third parties authorised to act on your behalf, where necessary
• Service providers who provide IT and system administration and support service
• Your information is also analysed internally to help us improve our services.

Whenever we share your personal information, we will do so in line with our obligations to keep your information safe and secure.

Where we process your information

Your information will normally be stored and processed on servers based within the UK and/or the European Economic Area. In the event it is necessary to transfer personal information overseas, we will take additional steps to ensure your information is protected to an equivalent level as would be applied by UK data protection legislation.

How long will we hold your information?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The Council has a Records Retention Schedule which sets out how long we keep records and the reason.

Your Legal Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal information. You have the right to:

Request access to your personal information (known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information that we hold about you.

Object to processing of your personal information in certain circumstances e.g., where the Council rely on the ‘public task’ lawful basis. In this instance, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which overrides your rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Request restriction of processing of your personal information.  This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal information for certain reasons.  We are still permitted to keep your information – but only to ensure that we don’t use it in the future for those reasons you have restricted

Not be subject to a decision based on solely automated processing if that produces a legal effect concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.

Whilst a right to erasure and data portability exists, as we process your information as part of our public task, these rights do not apply.

Complaints

We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. If your complaint is about how we have handled your personal information, you can contact the Council's Data Protection Officer by email: dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk or by writing to the Council’s Data Protection Officer, Civic Centre, Windmillhill Street, Motherwell, ML1 1AB.

If you are still unhappy with how the council has handled your complaint, you may contact UK Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF Tel: 0303 123 1113 | Website: www.ico.gov.uk.