Social Media Policy

Posted on 4 Oct 2023

Social Media

We want to hear from you and value your comments, feedback and opinions and social media is a great way for you to keep in touch and stay updated on all council events, activities by contacting on our main social media platforms:

By providing these platforms, the council will, to the extent where we can take actions to ensure that the relevant platform providers also comply with data protection rules. Although the platform provider in this respect primarily determines how your information is handled which we can influence only to a limited extent.

Any information you provide directly onto our social media pages such as comments, videos, pictures, likes, tweets, etc will be published by the particular social media platform, and processed by us for the purposes of:

promotion of council public relations
customer engagement and communications
provision of service updates and important information regarding the local area and community.

And we may:

communicate with you via the social media platform
share your content on any of our social media platforms as well as on our website; and/or allow you to participate in surveys, contests, and/or raffles

We will not use your information for any other purposes. To the extent that the platform provider enables us to set parameters regarding the processing of your information, we’ll design our social media pages to be as compliant as possible with applicable data protection rules.

We therefore do not use demographic, interest-based, behaviour-based or location-based target group classifications for the purposes of advertising, notwithstanding that such services may (by default) be provided to us by the social media platform providers.

With regard to the receipt of statistics provided by the platform provider, this may only be influenced by us to a limited extent and we do not possess the means to deactivate them completely. However, we’ll ensure where possible that no additional optional statistics are made available to us.

If you wish to object to the handling of your information online, please contact Customer Services via email at csc@stevenage.gov.uk and we’ll determine whether we are able to respond to your request. If we are unable to fulfil your request using our own means, we will forward it on to the appropriate service provider.

If you send us an enquiry through the social media platform, we may also, depending on your request, use other secure communication channels that guarantee confidentiality.

Information processed by platform providers

Providers of our main social media platforms can use web tracking methods. Web tracking may also take place independently regardless of whether or not you are logged in or registered on the social media platform. Unfortunately, we cannot influence or restrict the web tracking methods of the social media platform.

Please be aware that the platform provider may use your profile and behavioural data to evaluate, among other things, your habits, personal relationships and preferences. We have no influence on the processing of your data by the platform provider.

Further information on the data processing conducted by the main platform providers, can be found at:

Your rights as a user

In light of the processing of your personal data online, as a user of social media pages you have the rights to access, rectify, erase, restrict and object to the processing of your information online and in certain situations, you have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, common and machine-readable format.

For any queries or concerns regarding the use of your information you can contact our data protection officer at dpa@stevenage.gov.uk.

Community rules

To provide a safe environment for all group members using our social media sites, we reserve the right to remove any comments without prior notification, which are deemed offensive, harassing, defamatory, threatening or abusive.

We want to hear from you and value your comments, feedback and opinions. To ensure everyone has a positive experience engaging with us online, we ask all group members:

do not put or share personal information online
do not share confidential or sensitive information e.g. medical or financial details
do not post content copied from other sources, without permission from the author
do not post or write anything that may harm the reputation of any person or organisation e.g. allegations or speculation