Policy paper

Data privacy notice

Updated 9 January 2023

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

How the ONS will use your information

If you want to volunteer to take part in a workshop for the front line review, you will need to complete a ‘screener’ (a questionnaire) first. This will cover some personal information, like your age and ethnic background. You will email it directly to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), an independent body carrying out this work on behalf of the Home Office. They will use your answers to make sure your workshop includes a variety of people from your region as a whole (for example, so that groups aren’t entirely very new to the police), and that the overall sample nationally is representative across a number of characteristics.

Anything you say in the workshops will be completely confidential. The research will be anonymous, with identifiable information taken out. The workshop discussions will be analysed and summarised for the front line review. Once the ONS have finished doing the work for the front line review, all your personal data will be safely deleted.

How this information is provided

The information is provided by you voluntarily, by filling in the ‘screener’. This information will only be sent to the ONS, and won’t be shared with anyone else (not the Home Office, nor your police force). When you are in the workshop, anything you say will also be completely confidential. The ONS will only use this data for research into the front line.

Why we are collecting this information

We are only going to use data from the screener to ensure each workshop includes a variety of people in the region. Your personal information (like your name, ethnic background, age, gender, whether you have a health condition or disability) will be stored and used completely confidentially and securely.

What happens to the information when we have finished

The ONS will only use your information for this research purpose. We are expecting this project to last until Spring 2019. When this has finished, and the ONS have written up the findings for the front line review, all your personal data and the views from the workshops will be deleted.

If you want to know more

The personal data from the screener, and the views you express in the workshops, are for research and statistical purposes only. By emailing the screener to the ONS, it is implicit that you are happy for your data to be used and processed as described above, and so your written consent is not necessary. The processing must have a lawful basis which, in this case, is that the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest to meet a function of the Crown, a minister of the Crown or a government department. You have the right to know how and for what purpose the data is being collected, held and used.

Your personal information will be held and processed by the ONS, based at 1 Drummond Gate, Pimlico, London, SW1V 2QQ. The Home Office is legally the controller of this information. This means that the Home Office has told the ONS the ultimate aims of the front line review, and that they are to collect, analyse and summarise the data independently. The ONS are the processors of this information. This means that they will be looking at the information, but within the limits set by the Home Office (that is, to look at the 4 pillars of the review).

You have the right to request more details on how your personal information is being used. You also have the right to obtain confirmation that your data is being processed, and to access your personal data.

Contact details for the data protection officer

Office of the DPO
Peel Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Email: dpo@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Telephone number: 020 7035 6999

If you are unhappy with any aspect of this privacy notice, or how your personal information is being processed, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).