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The General Data Protection Regulations allows you to find out what information we may hold about you on computer and paper records.

How to request your personal data under the General Data Protection Regulations

The General Data Protection Regulations allows you to find out what information we may hold about you on computer and paper records. This is known as the ‘right of subject access’, and a request for your personal information is called a ‘subject access request’, or SAR. Under the right of subject access, an individual is entitled only to their own personal data, and not to information relating to other people (unless they are acting on behalf of that person). Neither are they entitled to information simply because they may be interested in it.

For a subject access request to be valid it should be made in writing. So we can answer your subject access request you must therefore first send us 3 things:

  1. a description of where your personal data may be held.
  2. the fee; this is £10 and any cheques or postal orders should be made payable to ‘Government Legal Department’
  3. Valid identification, such as a photocopy of your passport or driving licence, or a recent household bill. If we do hold information about you we will:
  • give you a description of it
  • tell you why we have it
  • tell you who it could be given to
  • let you have a copy of the information in a readable form

We will aim to respond to your SAR within 40 calendar days of receipt.

How and where to send your request

You will need to send the above information to us by post to the following address:

Correspondence Unit
Attorney General’s Office
102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9EA
United Kingdom

General queries about SARs should be addressed to correspondence@attorneygeneral.gov.uk