Birth records privacy notice

This notice provides details of how Leeds City Council collects and uses information about births.

Who is the data controller for the information we collect

This Privacy Notice is provided to meet the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) to explain how we process your personal data in our use of birth records.

Leeds City Council is the data controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and other regulations, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation, which means it determines what your data is used for and why it is collected. Our contact details are Leeds City Council, Merrion House, 110 Merrion Way, Leeds, LS2 8BB.

The data we will collect

We collect the following information about you:

  • date of birth of child
  • sex of child
  • birth weight
  • NHS number of child
  • a birth in marriage indicator
  • postcode of place of birth of child
  • country of birth of parents
  • age of mother
  • occupation and socio-economic status of parents
  • address and postcode of mother
  • usual residence of mother
  • a stillbirth indicator 

We also collect Special Category data about you, such as:

  • data relating to health

How do we collect information about you

Personal information about births in the City of Leeds is primarily supplied to us (for use by the Leeds City Council Public Health Intelligence Team) by NHS England and contains data provided at the time of registration of birth along with additional geographic information. Leeds City Council has a Data Access Agreement with NHS England, and data are supplied in accordance with section 42(4) of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 as amended by section 287 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and Regulation 3 of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002.

We may also receive data from the following sources:

  • your family members, carers or other persons acting on your behalf
  • internal council departments
  • other public authorities

Why we process your data

This information is used for the purposes of statistical analysis, the monitoring of population health and demographic change in the county, and to inform the planning and commissioning (buying) of health services.

This information is used specifically to identify patterns and trends in birth rates, low birth weight, and stillbirths, highlighting differences between geographic areas, age, sex, and other characteristics. It is also used to identify differences between areas and inform the planning and targeting of health care and public health services.

This information is used in the Annual Public Health Report, Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (which in turn informs the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy and local commissioning plans), and health needs assessments. Other uses include the monthly monitoring of trends in birth rates, analysis of the distribution and relationship between place of residence and place of birth, the monitoring of stillbirth rates, health and wellbeing and public health outcomes reports, community profiles, and population projections.

All the data collected will be treated in strict confidence and in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

Pseudonymisation is a process through which identifiable fields within a data record are replaced by artificial identifiers, or pseudonyms which means that individuals are no longer identifiable.

No personal-identifiable information is published, and numbers and rates in published reports based on counts fewer than five are removed to further protect confidentiality and anonymity.

Lawful basis for processing

We will process your data in accordance with UK GDPR Article 6(1)(c), which allows us to process your data for compliance with a legal obligation to enable us to comply with the following legislation:

We are permitted to process your data in accordance with Regulation 3 of the Control of Patient Information Regulations 2002. This processing is set out in the Data Sharing Agreement between Leeds City Council and NHS England. The information is used to ensure that health, social care, and public health services address local health needs and are focused on reducing health inequalities (differences in health status in relation to birth rates, low birth weights, and stillbirth between groups and areas) as well as for work on planning fertility and maternity services.

We will process your special category data in accordance with UK GDPR Article 9(2). The processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that the following applies:

Article 9(2)(i) - Public health as laid out in law. This provision is supported by the following condition(s) in Schedule 1 Part 1 Condition 3:

  • by, or under the responsibility of, a health professional; or
  • by someone else who, in the circumstances, owes a legal duty of confidentiality.

And which apply where the processing is necessary for:

  • public health monitoring and statistics
  • NHS resource planning
  • public vaccination programmes
  • responding to new threats to public health (e.g. epidemics, pandemics or new research findings);
  • clinical trials of drugs or medical devices
  • regulatory approval of drugs or medical devices or
  • reviewing standards of clinical practice

Data retention, storage and destruction

Our data retention policies and procedures are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention. This means that your information will be kept for the duration of the Data Sharing Agreement with NHS England (expiry date 31st May 2027). This Agreement may be replaced with a new Data Sharing Agreement.

Who can we share your data with

Your information will not be disclosed to anyone outside of Public Health Intelligence Team unless it is necessary to do so. We have a legal reason to do so; for example, disclosure is necessary to protect a person from suffering significant harm or is necessary for crime prevention or detection purposes.

Information is held in a secure database, which is only accessible to named analysts within the Leeds Public Health Intelligence Team.

The data is on a secure database server with user-based access, which may only be accessed via the Council’s internal network, which is protected by AES 256 encryption.

Automated decision making

Your data will not be used for any automated decision making, including profiling.

Your rights

The following rights under data protection law are available under the UK GDPR:

  • the right to access – you can ask for copies of your personal data
  • the right to rectification – you can ask us to rectify inaccurate personal data and to complete incomplete personal data the
  • the right to erasure - where you can ask us to erase your personal data
  • the right to restrict processing – you can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data
  • the right to data portability (where you can ask that we transfer your personal data to another organisation or to you
  • the right to object to processing (where you can object to the processing of your personal data) and
  • the right to complain to a supervisory authority – you can complain about our processing of your personal data the right to
  • withdraw consent (to the extent that the legal basis of our processing of your personal data is consent, you can withdraw that consent).

Where we process your information under legal obligation, certain rights do not apply, such as erasure, data portability, objection to processing, and the right to withdraw consent.

These rights are subject to certain limitations and exceptions. You can learn more about your rights through the ‘Your individual rights and how to exercise them’ and the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

You may exercise any of the above rights in relation to your personal data by writing to us, using the contact details provided below.

When your data gets sent to other countries

The information you provide will not be transferred to another country outside of the UK.

Contact us

Any queries in relation to this Privacy Notice should be forwarded to:

Email: PHI.Requests@leeds.gov.uk

or by post to:

The Public Health Intelligence Team
Adults and Health Directorate
NHS Leeds CCG
Suites 2-4, Wira House
West Park Ring Road
Leeds, LS16 6EB

Data Protection Officer

Aaron Linden
Head of Information Management and Governance - Data Protection Officer
Leeds City Council
Merrion House
110 Merrion Way
Leeds
LS2 8BB

Email: DPO@leeds.gov.uk

The Council privacy notice is available to view here.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with the way in which your information has been handled, you should speak with the specific service in the first instance.

Any data protection complaints about how the council has processed your personal data will be handled in accordance with the council’s Complaints Policy. You can find out how to submit a complaint by visiting this link.

If we cannot resolve your complaint, you can refer to the Information Commissioner if you consider that there has been an infringement of data protection legislation. Further details can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website.

Changes to this notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. We will notify you of significant changes to this notice by email or other means as appropriate. This privacy notice was last updated March 2025.