Responding to a public consultation
Purpose and lawful basis for processing
Wherever possible, SEPA is committed to public involvement in policy making. Through our Consultation Hub, we conduct consultations to gather opinion, and to provide you with the opportunity to feed into our policy making process. Consultation responses will be used to support the development of policy and sector plans.
The lawful basis we rely on for processing your personal data is your consent under article 6(1)(a) of the UK GDPR.
What we need
Many of our consultations are designed to be conducted anonymously. However, during the process of submitting responses to a consultation we may ask you to, optionally, provide the following information:
- Name
- Email address
- Organisation (if applicable)
- Interest in the consultation
Why we need it
We need your email address so that we can contact you, if have indicated that you are happy for us to do so. We may contact you:
- to provide you with updates
- if you have requested contact from us
- in the event that further clarification is required on information supplied by you
- for engagement opportunities related to the specific consultation you have responded to
What we do with it
We will only use you personal data for the purposes stated above.
How long we keep it
Data may be retained on SEPA systems in line with SEPA’s retention policy. Data will be deleted from our consultation platform 6 months after the Consultation is closed.
What are your rights?
Where we use your personal information with your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time, and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given. You can request that we remove your information by contacting communication@sepa.org.uk
Do we use data processors?
We use the Citizen Space platform to conduct consultations, which is provided to us by Delib. Information on how they process your data can be found in their Privacy Policy. The personal data you provide will be securely stored within the platform by Citizen Space, on SEPA’s behalf, solely for the purpose of conducting consultations.
When we use data processors who are third parties to provide elements of services for us, we have contracts in place with our data processors. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do so. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us, and they will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.
Do we share your information?
Any personal information that is collected by SEPA through consultation responses will not be supplied to third parties.
SEPA may publish an anonymised digest of consultation responses. This will contain a summary of response types to help us target future consultations. Any personal information will be removed prior to publication. Any personal information inadvertently supplied as part of any free text boxes will also be redacted prior to publishing a digest.
This privacy notice is under development and will be expanded as new content is added to our website. Further information can be found at our existing website privacy policy page.