Privacy Notice – Electoral Registration Officer
This Privacy Notice explains how we use the information that we collect about you.
The Electoral Registration Officer uses the information provided by you within your application to vote and/or for an absent vote (if appropriate) to compile, publish and maintain the Electoral Registers and absent voting list as required by law to permit the Returning Officer to administer elections.
We have statutory functions to carry out administer elections in terms of the Representation of the People Acts 1983, 1985 and 2000 and associated legislation and regulations. We process these application forms in terms of the Representation of the People Acts 1983, 1985 and 2000 and associated legislation and regulations.
The personal information we gather and use includes name, address, national insurance number, date of birth and contact details.
We may also use your information to contact you by post, email or telephone to maintain our records.
To verify your identity, the data you provide will be processed by the Individual Electoral Registration Digital Service managed by the Cabinet Office. As part of this process your data will be shared with the Department of Work and Pensions and the Cabinet Office suppliers that are data processors for the Individual Electoral Registration Digital Service. You can find more information about this here:
https://www.registertovote.service.gov.uk/register-to-vote/privacy
Where necessary, we share your information with the Returning Officer for Fife, other Electoral Registration Officers, the Cabinet Office, the Scottish Prison Service and organisations who take part in the National Fraud initiative.
We also provide your information to organisations who process your personal data on our behalf, for example, our software suppliers, delivery organisations, mailing houses and contractors or consultants to enable us to deliver this service. These organisations are carefully selected and measures are put in place to protect your information.
In relation to the annual canvass, our software supplier provides an online response option for replying to the canvass. The Website URL for this service is currently www.registersecurely.com/Fife
We provide copies of the Electoral Register to those entitled to receive or purchase copies including elected representatives, political parties, national bodies for research purposes and credit reference agencies. We also supply Fife Council and Fife Cultural Trust with copies of the register for public display of the register.
We receive information about you from Household Enquiry Forms, applications to vote and applications for absent votes. We are also entitled to ask for information from third parties, such as Fife Council, other EROs, educational establishments and the Scottish Prison Service, to help identify potential electors with a view to sending Invitations to Register to vote.
In the event that we did not request and use this information then it would not be possible to carry out our statutory functions to determine applications to register to vote and supply the Returning Officer with the information necessary to deliver elections.
The ERO will not keep your information for longer than is necessary. In some instances, the law sets the length of time information has to be kept. The ERO has a retention schedule which sets out how long we hold different types of information. This can be found here - ERO Retention Schedule.
Further information on how your information is used and why can be found at fife.gov.uk/privacy. The Council's Data Protection Officer can be contacted at: dataprotection@fife.gov.uk.
Lindsay Thomson, Electoral Registration Officer
03451 555511 or voters.roll@fife.gov.uk
