EU Settlement Scheme: how we use your personal information
How the Home Office will use your personal information to decide whether to grant your application to the EU Settlement Scheme.
In addition to an identity check, the 3 main ways in which your personal information will be processed are:
- criminality and security checks
- if you have provided your National Insurance number, real time checks with the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs to consider evidence of your residence in the UK (for example, tax or benefit records)
- on a case-by-case basis, sharing information with other organisations to verify evidence you have provided within your application to protect against fraud and the use of counterfeit documents (for example, verifying with a university that the university certificate you have provided is genuine)
This data sharing is designed to help applicants evidence their status in a quick and straightforward way by using data already held by other government departments.
The Home Office may also, on a case-by-case basis, process your information in other ways in order to fulfil its legal and official functions. This could include, for example:
- if, in the future, you apply for UK citizenship
- if we find evidence a significant crime has been committed
- if we discover an immigration offence (like a sham marriage) is being committed
- to allow the Home Office to carry out its safeguarding duties
This is set out in more detail in the Borders, Immigration and Citizenship System (BICS) privacy information notice. The BICS privacy information notice also sets out how you can request a copy of your personal information, and how you can complain. You should be aware that the information set out in this note is intended to supplement the BICS privacy information notice, not to replace it.
Updates to this page
Last updated 11 April 2019 + show all updates
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Translated information added.
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First published.