Privacy Notice

This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information.

The Data Controller is the police force that operates within the city or county of the postal address you have registered with on OWL. In some cases, if you have a local Neighbourhood Watch association, they may be a joint Data Controller.  So that OWL can store and process your information, Direct Path Solutions (the company that maintains and provides OWL to the Data Controllers) has been made a Data Processor.

What information we collect, use, and why

We collect or use the following information for the creation and operation of members' accounts:

• Names and contact details
•  Addresses 
• IP addresses

We collect or use the following information for sending you alerts, updates or other important information from your local police force, your local authority, their partner agencies, or your local Neighbourhood Watch (if you chose to join Neighbourhood Watch):

• Names and contact details
• Addresses
• IP addresses
• Website and app user journey and "email open" information

We collect or use the following information if you request for us to contact you in response to an enquiry you may have:

• Names and contact details
• Addresses

Lawful basis

Our lawful basis for collecting or using personal information for the operation of members' accounts and sending of alerts and other messages are:

• Consent

Our lawful basis for collecting of using your personal information to contact you to manage an enquiry is:

• Legitimate Interests

Where we get personal information from

• Directly from you when you register on the OWL website or send us your information so that we can contact you, or fill in an official registration form provided by the police, local authority, or Neighbourhood Watch.

How long we keep information 

If you register with us, personal information is kept for as long as at least one of your contact details is working, plus an additional 12 months to allow yourself or an administrator to update any outdated information.

If you send us your information in a request for us to contact you and to deal with an enquiry, we will retain your information for up to 6 months following us contacting you before it will be deleted.

Who we share information with

Others we may share personal information with

• Organisations we need to share information with for safeguarding reasons. (We act only on requests made in writing to ensure there's an audit trail.)
• Emergency services (only where necessary)

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal data, although you can access this yourself by logging in to your account.

Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal data you think is inaccurate, although you can do this yourself by logging in to your account.

Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data in certain circumstances. (You can also reply to the sender of any OWL message to ask for your data to be deleted, but please include your full name, registered email address, and postal address so that we can find your record.)

Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we provide you with certain personal information that we may hold about you as a digital file so you can give it to another organisation.

Your right to withdraw consent - When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent.

You don't usually need to pay a fee to exercise your rights. If you make a request, we have one calendar month to respond to you.

To make a data protection rights request, contact us using the details below.

Contact details

To contact the Data Controller please log into OWL using the account that was created when you registered and go to the Local Info page. A name and email address is provided for your contact as the Watch Liaison Officer. A more general way to contact the Data Controller (your police force) is to call 101.

To contact the Data Processor (Direct Path Solutions), use the online contact form. Where it asks for the type of enquiry, please select “Info about OWL”. We usually reply within 2 business days. Alternatively, email us.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, you should firstly make a complaint to us using the contact details above. If you remain unhappy with how we've used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

Last updated: 12 July 2024