The Home Office information charter

Information about how we'll protect your personal information, and how you can find out more about our data protection processes.

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 undertake:

• to make sure you know why we need it
• to only ask for what we need, and not to collect too much or irrelevant information
• to protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn’t
• to only share it with other organisations when the law allows
• to make sure we don’t keep it longer than necessary
• not to make your personal information available for commercial use without your
  permission

In return, we ask you to:

• give us accurate information
• tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes, such as a new address

This helps us to keep your information reliable and up to date.

You can get more details on:

• how to find out what information we hold about you and how to ask us to correct any mistakes
• agreements we have with other organisations for sharing information
• circumstances where we can pass on your personal information without telling you, for example, to prevent and detect crime or to produce anonymised statistics
• our instructions to staff on how to collect, use and delete your personal information
• how we check the information we hold is accurate and up to date
• how to make a complaint

Further information

For more information, please contact:

Information Rights Team
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF

Telephone: 020 7035 1029
Or email the information access team.

The Information Commissioner

When we ask you for information, we will keep to the law, including the Data Protection Act 1998. For independent advice about data protection, privacy and datasharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner at:

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45 Fax: 01625 524510
Or visit the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Information management policy

Our information management policy is designed to make sure the information that we hold about people is managed professionally, efficiently, and is used it to its full potential. It makes sure that we take the right steps to keep this information protected and secure. 

Our policy includes how we will: 

• provide appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information, when people request it 
• make information available to those who have a good reason to need to see it 
• take appropriate measures to protect information 
• ensure that information created, collected and stored is proportionate to the business need, and is retained only for as long as it is needed

Read our full information management policy.