This Privacy Notice tells you how the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (the Office) uses your personal information.
This document provides in summary form a description of the types of personal information held by the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, where we obtained this information, why we need to hold it and what we do with it. It also sets out in summary form the rights of those people (the data subjects) whose personal information we hold.
The purposes and lawful basis of any processing of personal information
The Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland was established by Part VII of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998. The Ombudsman must exercise her powers so as to secure an efficient, effective and independent police complaints system, and to do so in the way she thinks is best calculated to secure the confidence of the public and of the police in that system.
When the Police Ombudsman’s Office receives, assesses, investigates and reports on a complaint or referral about the conduct of a police officer it does so for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of the Ombudsman’s authority, including that which is necessary for administration of justice. This includes processing for law enforcement.
Law enforcement processing is for the purpose of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security.
The Police Ombudsman’s Office also processes personal information for other purposes such as staff administration and the provision of support services to the Office. It is further obliged to process information on foot of requirement of legal obligations including enactments, court orders, common law reasons and for research and statistical purposes.
Where the Police Ombudsman’s Office has a legal basis to process information consent will not be sought and will not be the basis relied upon for processing. On the infrequent occasions where the Police Ombudsman’s Office relies solely on consent to process personal information this can be withdrawn by the data subject at any time.
Processing of personal information in the United Kingdom is governed by the Data Protection Act 2018 which enacts the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) in UK law. The GDPR covers processing of personal information by the Police Ombudsman for all non-law enforcement purposes.
As a ‘competent authority’ the Police Ombudsman must also comply with Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 which relates to processing of personal data for law enforcement purposes. The Police Ombudsman is registered with the Information Commissioner as a ‘Data Controller’ for the purposes of this legislation.
The types of personal information we hold and who provided it to us
The personal information we hold includes material received from and relates to:
- People who seek to make or have made a complaint about the conduct of a police officer and others exercising policing powers in Northern Ireland
- People who call our complaints line
- People who visit our Office
- People who visit our website
- People who make a complaint about the service we provide
- People who may pose a risk to themselves or others
- People who are or were our employees or have applied to join our Office or provide us with a service
- People whose personal information we require to facilitate the handling of complaints made to the Office.
What we do with that personal information
All personal information held by the Police Ombudsman’s Office is held for the purposes of fulfilling its statutory functions of providing an independent, impartial system for the handling of complaints and other matters about the conduct of police officers and others exercising police powers in Northern Ireland. We also process personal information for the purposes of human resources, finance and corporate services functions.
For each of the categories of people mentioned above, we may have to use your personal information in a particular way:
-
People who seek to make or have made a complaint about the conduct of a police officer and others exercising powers in Northern Ireland
If you have made a complaint to us, we will need to collect some personal information about you if we are to progress your concerns: this will include your name, your contact details and the relevant things you have told us about yourself in relation to your complaint This may include personal information contained in emails you have sent to us and any personal information contained in social media contact you have made with us.
During the investigation of your complaint, there may be occasions when we have to share some or all of the personal information you have provided to us in the following ways:
- we may need to discuss some of the things you have told us with the police in general or certain police officers in particular;
- we may need to share some of your personal information with other agencies or experts as part of our investigation;
- if we believe a police officer may have committed a crime, we may need to share some of the personal information you have given us with the Public Prosecution Service (PPS); and
- if we believe a police officer may have committed an offence we may need to share the details you have given us with the Police’s Professional Standards Department.
- When we have finished dealing with your complaint, we will tell you the outcome and share that information with the relevant police authority and the officer(s) you have complained about.
-
People who telephone us
From 1 November 2024, we no longer record and hold the recordings of telephone calls made to any of our phone lines. Calls which may have been recorded prior to 1 November 2024 will be held in line with the retention periods which are contained in the Office’s Retention and Disposal Schedule.
-
People who visit our Office
When you come to our Office, your details may be added to our visitor’s book, depending on the purpose of your visit. You may also be captured on one of our CCTV cameras outside and within the building. We collect this information for security purposes and also for health and safety reasons and hold it for no longer than necessary.
-
People who visit our website
When someone visits www.policeombudsman.org we use a third party service to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. This information is processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website, nor do we allow others to do so. We have a separate Privacy Notice relating to information connected to our website.
-
People who make complaints about the service we provide
If you have made a complaint to us about the services we have provided, we will need to retain that any personal information obtained while we deal with your concerns. If you are not satisfied with the way in which the Office has dealt with the matter, as per our Customer Complaints Policy, we will need to share some of your personal information with the external Independent Assessor.
-
People who may pose a risk to themselves or others
If we believe that a person presents a risk to themselves or others, we may have to report our fears to the relevant body and provide it with personal information about that person. In such instances we tell the person in question what we are doing.
-
People who are or were our employees, and those who have applied to joinour Office or have provided us with a service
If you have applied for a job in the Police Ombudsman Office we will have asked for a range of personal information about you. We receive this information from you as part of your application or from your referees as required. This personal information will only be used for the purposes of progressing your application or for any other related requirements.
All roles within the Police Ombudsman’s Office require a level of security vetting. Prior to the final offer of employment, you must successfully complete the vetting process. Vetting is completed by UK Security Vetting (UKSV) who provide a recommendation in relation to your vetting clearance to us. Your application and all supporting information is provided to our Departmental Security Officer (Director of Corporate Services) who reviews the application and makes the final decision, in line with UKSV guidance. UKSV retains your personal information for a maximum of 15 years after expiration of the vetting clearance. You can read their Privacy Notice on their website for more information. We retain your vetting application information until a final decision is made, then the information is securely destroyed. You can view our Retention and Disposal Schedule on our website for more detailed information.
If you have been or become an employee of the Office we may share some of your personal information with other agencies for purposes such as providing pensions, occupational health or security vetting. We have contracts in place with such agencies to ensure that they hold the material in a secure manner for as long as is necessary and do not share it with others.
If you have been contracted to supply us with a service we may hold some personal information about the people who help draw up that contract and the people who actually deliver the service.
-
How we may further use your personal information
We only share personal information when it is fair, lawful and appropriate to do so. This includes instances when it is necessary:
- for the performance of our statutory duties as prescribed by the Police (NI) Act 1998 (the 1998 Act) and associated legislation to secure the efficiency, effectiveness and independence of the police complaints system;
- for us to comply with our legal obligations as set out in Part VII of the 1998 Act when investigating complaints, and referrals (as well as own motion investigations) about the conduct of police officers;
- to provide information to the Department of Justice or Secretary of State in compliance with Section 63 (1)(b) of the 1998 Act;
- to provide information for the purposes of any criminal, civil or disciplinary proceedings in compliance with Section 63 (1)(d) of the 1998 Act;
- to provide information in the form of a summary or other general statement made by the Ombudsman in compliance with Section 63 (1)(e) of the 1998 Act;
- to provide information to the Coroner’s Service NI in compliance with Section 17A of the Coroners (Northern Ireland) 1959 Act;
- to provide information in order to fulfil our statutory obligations under Freedom of Information and Data Protection legislation;
- to protect your ‘vital interests’ or in exceptional circumstances that of another person;
- to comply with statutory obligations relating to employment or other legislation;
- to comply with our statutory obligations pursuant to section 5(1) of the Criminal Law Act (NI) 1967 and section 17 of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001;
- to provide information to the Criminal Case Review Commission in compliance with Section 17 of the Criminal Appeals Act 1995; and
- to provide information to the Police Ombudsman Independent Assessor of Complaints when you wish to complain to her at the conclusion of the internal complaints process.
Once your investigation and any related proceedings have been completed, we retain your personal information in line with our Retention and Disposal Schedule. There may be occasions when we are required to share this information prior to its disposal.
-
How we protect your personal information
In handling your personal information we:
- take all steps we can to safeguard it
- make sure only those staff who are required to see certain information as part of their job have access to it
- make sure those staff are trained and managed to ensure the safety of your personal information
- regard any failure by a member of staff to adhere to the principles of data protection as a possible disciplinary or criminal matter
- will report any significant loss of personal information to the Information Commissioner’s Office and
- we will take all the steps we can to ensure that personal information is not held for longer than is necessary.
We require our staff to:
- protect the personal information we hold
- not use this information in any way outside their professional role
- comply with the Office’s Data Protection and Information Security policies which include measures to ensure information is kept in a secure environment and that personal information held electronically is protected by secure passwords and is not compromised
- comply with the Office’s Retention and Disposal Schedule.
-
How long do we keep your information?
The Office retains information in accordance with the retention periods set out in our Retention and Disposal Schedule. Some personal information may be archived in a secure storage facility prior to being destroyed. It will be retained in a secure and controlled environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.
Your right to access the information we hold about you
Under the Data Protection Act 2018 which enacts the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) into UK law, you have rights as an individual in relation to the information we hold about you. Please note that there are exemptions and restrictions to these rights. Your information rights will be dependent on the reasons why information was collected and why it is being used.
- Right to be informed: This places an obligation upon the Police Ombudsman’s Office to tell you how we obtain your personal information and describe how we will use, retain or store it and who we may share it with. We have produced this Privacy Notice to explain how we will use your personal information and tell you what your rights are under the legislation.
- Right of Access: This is commonly known as ‘subject access’. Individuals can request a copy of their personal information and other supplementary information. We must provide the information to you within one month of receipt of request unless an exemption applies.
- Right to Rectification: Individuals are entitled to have personal information rectified if it is factually inaccurate or incomplete.
- Right to Erasure: You have the right to have your personal information destroyed and/or deleted and to prevent processing in specific circumstances including where the personal information was processed unlawfully or where processing is no longer necessary for the purpose it was originally collected.
- Right to Restrict Processing: In certain circumstances individuals have the right to suppress processing of personal information such as where they dispute the accuracy of their information or the processing is no longer needed.
- Right to Data Portability: This allows individuals to obtain and reuse their personal information for their own purposes across different services. This right only applies to personal information provided by an individual where the processing is based on their consent or for the performance of a contract and when that processing is carried out by automated means.
- Right to Object: This provides individuals with the right to object to processing personal information based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority, direct marketing and processing for purposes for scientific/historical research and statistics.
- Rights in relation to Automated Decision Making and Profiling: You have the right not to be subject to a decision when it is based on solely automated processing, including profiling and which produces a legal effect or similar significant effect on you. The Police Ombudsman’s Office is unlikely to carry out automated decision making because our processes involve some type of human interaction and decision making.
Further details on all Data Protection rights in legislation can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website at www.ico.org.uk.
Contact us
Should you have any concerns about how the Police Ombudsman has handled your information or if you wish to exercise any of the rights outlined above you can contact;
Address: Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, New Cathedral Buildings, 11 Church Street, Belfast, BT1 1PG
Email: [email protected]
The Police Ombudsman’s Office has a designated Data Protection Officer (DPO) who acts as an independent advisor and is responsible for ensuring that the office is processing personal information in line with legislation.
The DPO can be contacted at the above address.
Should you remain dissatisfied with how your personal information has been handled you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office. The Information Commissioner is the independent authority responsible for ensuring that we comply with data protection legislation. Our local Information Commissioner’s Office can be contacted as follows:
Address: Information Commissioner’s Office, 10th Floor Causeway Tower, 9 James Street South, Belfast, BT2 8DN.
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 0303 123 1114
Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated 3 December 2024.