Personal information charter

How the Insolvency Service treats your personal information and how to check what details they have for you.

The Insolvency Service is committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what we hold. We collect personal information about the following:

  1. People connected to an insolvency case such as current and former directors, partners, members, creditors and employees; people who have applied for of been declared bankrupt or who have applied for or are subject to a Debt Relief Order (DRO) or who are connected to a bankruptcy or DRO such as creditors.
  2. People connected to one of our investigations, for example into live companies (a company that is not dissolved or in formal insolvency) (including people who complain to us about the conduct of a live company), Bankruptcy Restrictions Orders (BROs), Debt Relief Restrictions Orders or company director disqualifications.
  3. People subject to an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA).
  4. People subject to a Breathing Space.
  5. People who use our Redundancy Payments Service.
  6. People connected to a criminal investigation carried out by our Criminal Enforcement Team.
  7. People with whom we have a business relationship such as subscribers to email alerts; suppliers, contractors and Insolvency Practitioners.
  8. Recorded calls to our Insolvency Enquiry Line or Redundancy Payments Service telephone lines.

This page provides you with a general overview as to how we use your personal information. View our full Personal Information Charter (ODT, 36.7 KB).

If you are a member of Insolvency Service staff, details of how we treat your personal information can be found on our intranet.

Information we collect

We process personal information necessary for the performance of tasks we carry out in our functions as an executive agency of the Department for Business and Trade.

All telephone calls to our contact centre are recorded for training, complaint investigation and quality purposes. Some outgoing calls are recorded. We’ll always tell you if a call we make to you is being recorded.

The personal information we collect in call recordings is for tasks we carry out in the public interest. Where we process your data you have the right to:

  • object
  • access the data we hold on you
  • have your data corrected
  • stop us from processing your data

If you want to use any of these rights, email the FOI team.

How we use your information

In general our Official Receivers, Adjudicator and other parts of the Insolvency Service will process your information to:

  • fulfil our public function
  • regulate the insolvency profession as part of our statutory oversight
  • make payments to you and to support service delivery activities

Your information may also be used for:

  • updating the public register regarding bankruptcies, DROs and IVAs
  • sending you email alerts that you have subscribed to
  • research, statistical, and business planning purposes
  • recovering any costs awarded to us
  • developing, maintaining and testing our systems

We will not hold your personal information for any longer than necessary.

Information we might give to others

Where necessary and if the law allows we may give information about you to third parties. You can find out who we may share your personal information with in our Personal Information Charter (ODT, 36.7 KB). If you would like any more detailed information please contact foi@insolvency.gov.uk.

How to request information that we hold about you

The Insolvency Service will be as open as it can be in terms of giving you access to your personal information where this is allowed for in law. You can find out whether we hold any of your personal information by making a subject access request to foi@insolvency.gov.uk. If we do hold information about you we will (subject to any legal exemptions that apply):

  • let you have a copy of it
  • tell you why we are holding it
  • tell you who it could be disclosed to
  • tell you how long we expect to keep it (if this is possible)
  • let you know what rights you have in respect of the personal data
  • let you know where the data came from, if we have not collected it from you

Our Data Protection Officer

The Data Protection Officer for the Insolvency Service can be contacted at the below address; however the Insolvency Service (at foi@insolvency.gov.uk) can often help to resolve any issues and help you to exercise your data protection rights more quickly in the first instance:

Data Protection Officer
Department for Business and Trade
Old Admiralty Building
London
SW1A 2DY

Email: dataprotection@trade.gov.uk

The Data Protection Officer for the Official Receivers and Adjudicator can be contacted at:

Data Protection Officer
Cannon House
18 Priory Queensway
Birmingham
B4 6FD

Email: foi@insolvency.gov.uk

Putting things right

Our Personal Information Charter (ODT, 36.7 KB) was drafted with brevity and clarity in mind. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of our collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to foi@insolvency.gov.uk.

If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, you can contact us at foi@insolvency.gov.uk.

You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner if you are not satisfied with the way in which we have handled your personal information. The Information Commissioner’s contact details can be found here - https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.

Documents

Personal Information Charter (ODT, 36.7 KB)

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