Guidance

Defra contact us form: privacy notice

Updated 30 October 2025

Applies to England and Wales

© Crown copyright 2025

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defra-contact-us-form-privacy-notice/defra-contact-us-form-privacy-notice

Who collects your personal data

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the controller for the personal data we collect.

If you need further information about how we use your personal data and your associated rights, you can contact the data protection manager at data.protection@defra.gov.uk.

The Defra data protection officer is responsible for checking that we comply with legislation. You can contact them at defragroupdataprotectionofficer@defra.gov.uk.

What personal data we collect and how it is used

We collect your:

  • name
  • contact details
  • details of your enquiry

We collect your personal data in order to identify you, manage your enquiry and contact you in relation to your enquiry.

Lawful basis for processing your personal data

The lawful basis for processing your personal data is consent.

The processing of your personal data is based on consent. You can withdraw consent at any time by emailing enquiry-form-feedback@defra.gov.uk.

Who we share your personal data with

Your information may be shared with other public bodies or the devolved administrations, where it is necessary and in order to provide a full answer to you.

Your information may be shared with other public bodies or the devolved administrations, where it is necessary to transfer correspondence to a more appropriate organisation for an answer.

Your information may be shared with your MP, where they are writing on your behalf.

We respect your personal privacy when responding to access to information requests. We only share information when necessary to meet the statutory requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

How long we hold personal data

In most cases, we will keep your personal data for 3 years.

Once we have triaged your enquiry, Defra may hold your personal data for longer depending on the issue.

What happens if you do not provide the personal data

If you do not provide your personal data, we may not be able to manage your enquiry.

Use of automated decision-making or profiling

The personal data you provide is not used for:

  • automated decision making (making a decision by automated means without any human involvement)
  • profiling (automated processing of personal data to evaluate certain things about an individual)

Transfer of your personal data outside of the UK

We will only transfer your personal data to another country that is deemed adequate for data protection purposes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) 

To improve the department’s effectiveness in responding to correspondence, we are trialling the use of AI with human oversight on a limited number of government responses. The first step of this process will be to fully anonymise correspondence used for this purpose.

Your rights

Based on the lawful processing above, your individual rights are:

More information about your individual rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018).

Complaints

You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office at any time.

Personal information charter

Our personal information charter explains more about your rights over your personal data.

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