Privacy and Personal Information Policy
Under the General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR – we must comply with various duties in relation to any personal information that we hold about you.
The following is a short explanation of why we collect personal information from you, how we use it and the conditions under which we may disclose it to others. It should be read in conjunction with the more detailed Privacy and Personal Information Policy that is published on our website (www.pensions-ombudsman.org.uk).
Any queries concerning our Privacy and Personal Information Policy should be sent to our Data Protection Officer at enquiries@pensions-ombudsman.org.uk or by writing to 10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 4PU. Alternatively, you can telephone 0800 917 4487.
The information that you provide us will be used to help us reach a decision about your complaint. Incidental to that, other uses may include: publishing decisions; dealing with any appeals or other legal action concerning our decision; dealing with any service complaints; or carrying out customer satisfaction surveys.
It is likely that we will need to share the information you provide to us with, and receive information about you from, other individuals or organisations connected to the case.
By law, we also have the power to share information about a complaint with a small number of other organisations if we think it necessary in helping them carry out their own functions.
Please note that all calls we make and receive are recorded for security, reference and quality purposes.
Our legal basis for processing your personal information will usually be: our statutory function pursuant to Part X of the Pension Schemes Act 1993; our legal obligations and reasons of substantial public interest; and/or that we are acting in our judicial capacity. On those occasions where we are not relying on any of the above, we will ensure that a suitable alternative legal basis is used, which could include obtaining your explicit consent.
We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purpose of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
You may request access to, deletion of, correction of or transfer of your personal information. However, due to the nature of the work that we do, there are circumstances where we are permitted by law to decline such requests.
We aim to carry out our work openly and transparently and for this reason we usually publish Ombudsman determinations, as well as some opinions made by our adjudicators, on our website. While our published decisions will usually have identifying personal information removed, relevant information about you will remain to explain what decision has been reached and why.
If you have any issues or complaints about the way that we have handled your personal information, please let us know via enquiries@pensions-ombudsman.org.uk. You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk).
