Personal information charter

This Information Charter sets out the standards you can expect from the Northern Ireland Office when we request or hold information (“personal data”) about you.

The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates the management of personal information.

This Information Charter sets out the standards you can expect from the Northern Ireland Office when we request or hold information (“personal data”) about you. “Personal data” is information that relates to identifiable living individuals. It does not include information relating to dead people, groups of people, organisations or businesses. The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates the management of personal data.

We may need to handle personal information about you so that we can provide better services for you. This is how we look after that information.

When we ask you for personal information, we promise:

  • to make sure you know why we need it;
  • to ask only for what we need, and not to collect too much or irrelevant information;
  • to protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn’t;
  • to let you know if we share it with other organisations to give you better public services – and if you can say no;
  • to make sure we don’t keep it longer than necessary;
  • not to make your personal information available for commercial use without your permission.

In return, we ask you to:

  • give us accurate information;
  • tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes, such as a new address.

This helps us to keep your information reliable and up to date.

You can get more details on:

  • how to find out what information we hold about you and how to ask us to correct any mistakes;
  • agreements we have with other organisations for sharing information;
  • circumstances where we can pass on your personal information without telling you, for example, to prevent and detect crime or to produce anonymised statistics;
  • our instructions to staff on how to collect, use and delete your personal information;
  • how we check the information we hold is accurate and up to date;
  • how to make a complaint.

Please contact:

For more information, please contact FOI@nio.gov.uk by email or phone 028 90765431.

Complaints:

When NIO asks you for information, we will comply with the law. For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data-sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner at:

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Phone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45

Fax: 01625 524510