Closed consultation

Privacy Notice for Veterans Consultation

Updated 5 January 2024

This notice sets out how we will use your personal data, and your rights. It is made under Articles 13 and/or 14 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). 

Your data

Purpose

The purpose for which we are processing your personal data is to obtain the opinions of members of the public, parliamentarians and representatives of organisations and companies to gather evidence to develop policy that will improve support for veterans and their families.

We are consulting on a wide range of veteran issues. This is why the consultation involves not only veterans and their families, but organisations, businesses, charities, local authorities, competent authorities and individuals

We will use the information you provide to ascertain your views about veteran issues. Your data will also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the consultation process, by considering the sector, individual and organisational response by volume, area and perspective.

Data Provided by Individuals

We will not ask you to openly identify yourself as part of the consultation process. 

We also ask that you do not openly identify other individuals in your answers. 

If you decide to reply to this consultation by post or as an email response, this may identify you.  If this is the case, we will immediately remove the information that identifies you and delete it from our records. 

Data Provided on behalf of Organisations

As part of your responses, we do ask you to provide some personal information about yourself and the organisation you represent. 

If you provide this information, we may use your data to contact you to:

Discuss your response;

Invite you to focus groups or sector discussions;

Make you aware if the consultation has to be reissued

Make you aware when the response has been published

Your data might be used to identify you and/or your organisation in publicly available documents, unless you have not provided consent for this use.

We would also like to add your contact details to a contact list for similar issues that your organisation may be interested in responding to. We will also ask your consent to add you to our list.  

The data

We will process the following personal data: 

We will process the following personal data (where given): name, address, email address, job title, employer, organisation name, sector, as well as opinions. 

We will also process additional information about respondents or third parties where it is provided, this may also include sensitive data. The sensitive personal data, also known as special category personal data, will include: racial or ethnic origin; religious or philosophical beliefs; health; data concerning a person’s sex life; and data concerning a person’s sexual orientation.

This level of information is necessary to enable us to understand the many different issues that can affect veterans and their families.

Legal basis of processing 

The legal basis for processing your personal data is:

Article 6 

Consultation Questions

The legal basis for processing your personal data is that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. In this case that is consulting on policies or proposals, or obtaining opinion data, in order to develop good effective policies.

Organisation only contact list and publishing identifiable information with responses

The legal basis for processing the data for this purpose is the data subject has given Consent.

Article 9

Sensitive personal data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. 

The legal basis for processing your sensitive personal data is: 

The legal basis for processing your sensitive personal data, is that it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department. The function is obtaining opinion and relevant data, in order to develop good effective policies.

Recipients

Where individuals have submitted responses, we may publish extracts of those responses anonymously.

Where appropriate, responses submitted by organisations or representatives of organisations will be published in full. Including organisational and respondent personal information is Consent is provided. 

All of the response data will be shared with the Ministry of Defence. 

The Ministry of Defence has responsibility for a variety of veteran policies and delivery of services to veterans.

These interests include transition arrangements and include policy areas such as housing, employment, health, finance and welfare, veteran identity and governance & advocacy. This is not an exhaustive list.

The Ministry of Defence will use the data from this consultation survey to inform their Department’s policy development, to assist with evaluation and to improve their service delivery functions. 

The Ministry of Defence will not use the shared information to try and identify any individuals from their responses. 

Statistical data from this consultation may be shared with officials within other public bodies in order to help develop policy.

This statistical data will also be made public in Government and Department reports.

No statistical data will be able to identify any individual. 

We are using a third party as a data processor to help us process consultation responses, your data will be shared with them.

.As your personal data will be stored on our IT infrastructure it will be  processed by our data processors who provide email, and document management and storage services. 

All data processors are bound by contracts and can only process data under our instructions

Retention 

Your personal data will be kept by us for 12 months after the close of the consultation. 

Your rights

You have the right to request information about how your personal data are processed, and to request a copy of that personal data. 

You have the right to request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay. 

You have the right to request that any incomplete personal data are completed, including by means of a supplementary statement. 

You have the right to request that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed. 

You have the right in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested) to request that the processing of your personal data is restricted. 

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes. 

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data.

You have the right to withdraw consent to the processing of your personal data at any time.

You have the right to request a copy of any personal data you have provided, and for this to be provided in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. 

Please note however, that as the responses provided by individuals (non-organisational representatives) are processed anonymously, we would not be able to identify a specific individual response. 

Even where the response is provided via email or post it will be anonymised once received. Therefore due to these circumstances, the above rights could not be applied. 

International transfers

As your personal data is stored on our IT infrastructure, and is processed by our data processors, it may be transferred and stored securely outside the UK. Where that is the case it will be subject to equivalent legal protection through an adequacy decision, or the use of Standard Contractual Clauses or an International Data Transfer Agreement.

Complaints

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator.  The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: 

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

or 0303 123 1113,

or icocasework@ico.org.uk. 

Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts. 

Contact details 

The data controller for your personal data is the Cabinet Office. The contact details for the data controller are:

Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS

or 0207 276 1234,

or you can use this webform. 

The contact details for the data controller’s Data Protection Officer are: dpo@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. 

The Data Protection Officer provides independent advice and monitoring of Cabinet Office’s use of personal information.