Guidance

Nutrient mitigation scheme privacy notice

Updated 9 January 2025

Applies to England

Who collects your personal data

The data controller is Natural England at:

Foss House
Kings Pool
1-2 Peasholme Green
York
Y01 7PX

Send questions about how Natural England uses your personal data and your associated rights to the Natural England Data Protection Manager at foi@naturalengland.org.uk or at:

Natural England
Foss House
Kings Pool
1-2 Peasholme Green
York
Y01 7PX

The Data Protection Officer for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) group is responsible for checking that Natural England complies with legislation. You can contact them at DefraGroupDataProtectionOfficer@defra.gov.uk or at:

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
SW Quarter
2nd floor
Seacole Block
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

What personal data is collected and how it is used

Natural England collects:

• names
• contact details
• email addresses
• phone numbers
• nationality
• bank details
• date of birth
• National Insurance number
• site address
• agent contact details

The data will be used for assessing applications, contacting applicants and/or their agents, and setting up the agreement and payments under Natural England’s Nutrient Mitigation Scheme, until such point that a nutrient mitigation agreement is signed.  If a nutrient mitigation legal agreement is signed (a Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) section 7 agreement or conservation covenant), the legal agreements contain their own clauses regarding data and intellectual property.

Natural England or its appointed agents may use the name, address and other details on your application form, and additional information received via email as part of your application, to contact you regarding other schemes for which your land may be eligible, should this be the case within the time frame your data is stored.

As participation in this scheme involves expenditure of public money and there is public interest in the working and financing of this scheme, Natural England makes information about agreements and payments publicly available. For example, on the Multi-Agency Geographic Information for the Countryside (MAGIC) website. Details disclosed include, but are not limited to, your name, the name and address of your farm or business, postal town or parish, first part of your post code, grid references, the total area under agreement, the payments you receive, and other information about the agreement.

This information will be used to broker credits between housing companies who need to purchase credits, and landowners who will create and sell mitigation credits. Therefore, we need to capture details of who requires credits, and who owns or can create credits.

It will also be used to undertake customer due diligence checks before your application is accepted.

We may also share your contact details with our third-party suppliers, in order to seek your voluntary sign up to undertaking user research.

The legal basis for processing your personal data

Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, which is laid down by law. That is, sections 1 and 2 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, which sets out Natural England’s general purposes. Natural England has the power under section 6 of the NERC Act 2006 to give financial assistance, including by way of grants.

Consent to process your personal data

You can withdraw your consent before any funding is issued.

Once the funding has been awarded, processing your data is no longer based on consent. You cannot withdraw it.

Who Natural England shares your personal data with

Your personal information will be shared with organisations or individuals acting on Natural England’s behalf in order to assess sites, undertake customer due diligence checks, specialist site assessment and monitoring.

Natural England may also share your contact details under this privacy notice with relevant local authorities if you consent to being contacted regarding other schemes.

If during checks it is identified that a crime has been committed, then data will be shared with the relevant competent body.

Natural England respects 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
• the Freedom of Information Act 2000

How long Natural England holds personal data

For successful applicants, Natural England will retain personal data for 10 years for reporting and financial monitoring. After this time, we will remove personal data from our database but retain a record of the development.

For applications that are rejected, Natural England will retain personal data for 3 years, to enable reapplication and monitoring.

What happens if you do not provide the data requested

If you do not provide the data,  you will unable to apply for the scheme.

Use of automated decision-making or profiling

The information 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 data outside the UK

During the customer due diligence check stage, your personal data will be processed in India by our third-party processor using their system hosted in the United States of America.

Your rights

Find out about your individual rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Complaints

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

Natural England’s personal information charter

Natural England’s personal information charter explains more about your rights over your personal data.