Guidance

Privacy Notice for Cabinet Office Consultations

Published 9 January 2023

© Crown copyright 2023

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/privacy-notice-for-cabinet-office-consultations/privacy-notice-for-cabinet-office-consultations

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 about departmental policies, proposals, or generally to obtain public opinion data on an issue of public interest.

We will use your data to ascertain your views about government policies and/or issues of public interest. 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.

We might use your data where provided 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 opted out of this use.

The 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 only process your IP address if it is necessary for the technical running of the consultation.

We will also process additional biographical information about respondents or third parties where it is volunteered, and this may also include sensitive data. The sensitive personal data that we might process includes: racial or ethnic origin; religious or philosophical beliefs; health; data concerning a person’s sex life; and data concerning a person’s sexual orientation.

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.

Sensitive personal data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.

The legal basis for processing your sensitive personal data, or data about criminal convictions (where it is volunteered), 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 consulting on policies or proposals, or obtaining opinion data, in order to develop good effective policies.

Recipients

Where individuals submit responses, we may publish those responses anonymously.

Where appropriate, responses submitted by organisations or representatives of organisations will be published in full.

The data may be shared with officials within other public bodies in order to help develop policy.

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

Where we are using a third party as a data processor to help us process consultation responses, your data will be shared with them. All data processors are bound by contracts and can only process data under our instructions.

We may share your personal data where required to be law, for example in relation to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. But we will only do this where it would not breach your rights under data protection law.

Retention

Published information will generally be retained indefinitely on the basis that the information is of historic value. This would include, for example, personal data about representatives of organisations.

Responses from individuals will be retained in identifiable form for 3 calendar years after the consultation has concluded.

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.

For more details about your information rights, please see the Information Commissioner’s Office website www.ico.org.uk Your Data Matters.

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.

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 Contact the Cabinet Office .

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.

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.

Back to top