Personal information charter
How we treat your personal information and how to check what details we hold about you at HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
HMCTS privacy policy
What you can expect from the Ministry of Justice and HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) when we hold or request personal information (personal data) about you; how you can get access to a copy of your personal data and what you can do if you think we’ve done something wrong.
HMCTS collects and processes personal data for the performance of its public functions. These include:
- the administration of justice
- criminal and civil enforcement including the collection of fines
- research for the development of justice policies and statistics
- for improvements to the services we provide
HMCTS operates a network of Courts and Tribunals Service Centres (CTSCs) that deal with many aspects of court and tribunal cases in several jurisdictions. This includes dealing with information from our users including telephone, email and webchat. We may contact you via email, letter, telephone, webchat or text message.
When you contact the CTSC we may also record telephone calls as well as keep a record of the text of webchats, emails and webforms.
Privacy notice for family forms
Family proceedings are cases where the court is asked to resolve an issue in relation to children. It also includes disputes between parties, such as divorce and financial remedies. This policy sets out how we use the information you provide on our forms when making or responding to an application in the family court or Family Division of the High Court.
Privacy policy for family forms
Privacy policy for civil forms
This policy sets out the standards that you can expect when we process personal data about you included in our forms for civil court proceedings such as money claims, housing possession and insolvency matters. It includes how you can get access to a copy of your personal data and what you can do if you think the standards are not being met.
Privacy notice for civil court forms
Privacy policy for our tribunals forms
This policy sets out how we use your data included on forms for cases heard in our tribunals.
Privacy notice for tribunal forms
Privacy policy for criminal proceedings
Details about data collection in criminal proceedings is available within the Criminal Procedure Rules.
Privacy policy for the Court of Protection forms
This policy sets out how we use your data included on forms for cases heard in the Court of Protection.
Privacy notice for Court of Protection forms
Privacy policy for Help with Fees form EX160
This policy is for the EX160 form, used when applying for help with court and tribunal fee.
Privacy policy for user surveys
This notice provides details about completing HMCTS user surveys.
Privacy notice for HMCTS user surveys
Online services
If using our online services, the privacy notice and terms and conditions are stated within the online service.
If you choose to access our services online you will need to provide personal information.
We use cookies to collect data that tells us about how you’re using these services, including:
- if you open an email from us or click on a link in an email
- your computer, phone or tablet’s IP address
- the region or town where you are using your computer, phone or tablet
- the web browser you use
Requests for personal information
As an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice, the MOJ personal information charter also explains how we deal with requests for personal information.