Information charter

This information charter sets out the standards that you can expect from the OFT when we request or hold personal information about you, how you can get access to your personal data, and what you can do if you think standards are not being met.

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What is personal information? 

Personal 'data' is information that relates to living individuals. It does not include information relating to dead people, groups or communities of people, organisations or businesses.

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How we manage personal information

The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates the management of personal information. We need to handle personal information about you so that we can provide services for you. This is how we look after that information.

When we ask you for personal information we promise to:

• make sure you know why we need it, ask only for what we need and not collect too much or irrelevant information
• protect it and make sure no unauthorised person has access to it
• let you know if we share it with other organisations to give you better public services and whether you can say no
• make sure we don't keep it for longer than is necessary
• not to make your personal information available for commercial use without your consent, and 
• consider your request to stop processing data about you.

In return we ask you to:

• give us accurate information, and 
• tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes to your personal circumstances such as your address. This helps us to keep your information reliable and up-to-date.

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Find out what personal information we hold about you

You can find out what information we hold about you by making a Subject Access Request in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. If we do hold information about you we will, subject to certain exemptions contained in the Act and other relevant legislation: 

• give you a description of it
• tell you why we are holding it
• tell you who it could be disclosed to
• let you have a copy of the information, and 
• correct any errors or mistakes you may find.

To help us give you the information you want, we need you to tell us which part of the OFT you have been dealing with and why you think we hold that information.

Under the Data Protection Act we are allowed to charge a fee for responding to a subject access request. However, it is not currently the policy of OFT to charge for subject access requests.

If you wish to make a subject access request please write to:

Data Protection Co-ordinator
Office of Fair Trading
Information Access Team
Ground South
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX

Alternatively, you can email informationaccessteam@oft.gsi.gov.uk. Please include in the subject line 'subject access request'.

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Further information

By writing to the Data Protection Coordinator you can get more details on:

• agreements we have with other organisations for information sharing
• circumstances where we can pass on personal information without telling you, for example to help with the prevention or detection of a crime or to produce anonymised statistics. In all cases – whether data is shared internally or externally – the OFT will act in accordance with the DPA and other relevant legislation
• our instructions to staff on how to collect, use or delete your personal records, and 
• our Data Protection policy statement.

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How to make a complaint

When we ask you for personal information we will handle it in accordance with the law. If you consider that your information has been handled incorrectly you can contact the Information Commissioner for independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues. You can contact the Information Commissioner at:

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 745
Fax: 01625 524 510

Website: www.ico.gov.uk

Back to: Data Protection Act