Introduction

We designed this ShareSF guide to help you think through how you provide notice of privacy practices to people using services and programs in the City and County of San Francisco.

What is a privacy notice?

It is a notice you provide to people when you collect information about them that describes your organization's privacy practices.

What is the purpose of this guide?

This guide helps you collect and use personal information fairly and transparently and give people appropriate control and choice over their information, including in a digital context. It focuses on drafting and communicating clear privacy notices.

Why does a privacy notice matter?

Privacy notices ensure that people know how information about them will be used and that they understand the impact it will have on them.

How can I use this guide?

You can use this guide as a method or checklist to create a new privacy notice or to update an existing privacy notice.

Who should use this guide?

Anyone affected by or responsible for collecting information about people. This would include activities such as:

• asking people to fill in their names, addresses, date of birth, ID #, etc. on an official form, either online or in paper form;

• recording and retaining the calls customers make to a call center; or

• using a person's location data on their smart phone to inform them of events going on in their area.

What background do I need for this guide?

We designed this guide for a large span of backgrounds. For some of you, this information will be brand new. Others may already be experts and can skip any familiar sections. Part of our goal is to develop a shared set of practices and approaches regardless of background.

This work is adapted from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, Privacy Notices Code of Practice, licensed under the Open Government Licence.