Member Bill Consultations - Privacy Notice

Published 18/07/2022   |   Last Updated 19/07/2022   |   Reading Time minutes

Published 18 July 2022

How your information will be used

The Senedd Commission and the Member in Charge of the Bill are joint controllers of the information you provide and will ensure it is protected and used in line with data protection legislation.

When responding to a consultation on the development of a particular Member Bill the name of the Member in Charge of the Bill will be clearly displayed.

This Privacy Notice relates to consultation exercises undertaken in relation to Member Bills by Members of the Senedd supported by a Bill Team comprised of Senedd Commission staff.

Our Contact Details

Any queries regarding the use of your information should be sent to the Data Protection Officer at: 

Address: Tŷ Hywel, Pierhead Street, Cardiff Bay, CF99 1SN

Email: data.protection@senedd.wales

Tel: 0300 200 6565

What information are we collecting?

We are carrying out a consultation on a proposal for a Member Bill. Information collected includes your views on the proposed Member Bill which may include the general principles of the Bill and/or your view on the effectiveness of particular proposed provisions within a Draft Bill.

Alongside your views, your name and contact information are also collected. For those responding on behalf of an organisation we also request the name of the organisation and your role within that organisation.

The specific questions are shown on each individual invitation to respond to a Member Bill Consultation. We will collect your information when you respond to the consultation which may be one of the following methods:

  • Our online platform, hosted on the Member Bills page, provides a link to the Consultation with a response form at the end of the Consultation document. Completed forms are collected via email by the Bill Team in the Member Bills mailbox (MemberBills@senedd.wales). Any responses returned as a physical copy will be scanned into a digital format.
  • Consultations are also operated using an Online Questionnaire hosted on Microsoft Forms. This questionnaire asks the same questions as the Consultation document, and responses are submitted directly to the Bill Team.

Before accepting submissions from those aged 12 and younger we require authorisation from the young person’s parent or guardian. This may be provided in the form of an email from the young person’s parent or guardian to the Member Bills mailbox – MemberBills@senedd.wales.

Why are we collecting it?

Your Consultation Response is being collected and used to allow the Member in Charge of the Bill to consider the views of respondents to inform the development of the Bill and build a bank of evidence to support the need for, and nature of, provisions within that Bill prior to its introduction in the Senedd. The Member in Charge is supported in this process by members of their Support Staff and staff of the Senedd Commission (the Bill Team).

Our legal bases for collecting, holding and using your personal information

Data Protection law sets out various legal bases which allow us to collect, hold and use your personal information. For the purpose of processing the personal data you provide, we rely on the following legal bases:

Article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR - The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. The task is to support a Member in the development of a Member Bill to the Welsh Parliament. This is a core task of the Senedd Commission, whichis treated as a government department for these purposes (in line with paragraph 8(d) of the Data Protection Act 2018). In terms of the Member in Charge, this activity supports and promotes democratic engagement (in line with paragraph 8(e) of the Data Protection Act 2018).

Special category personal data

We may also process special category personal data (or information about criminal offences or convictions) if you choose to provide any. Special category personal data is defined as including data revealing racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation and data about health.

Special category data will be processed on the basis that it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (as provided for by Article 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR and section 10(3) of, and paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to, the Data Protection Act 2018 - more specifically paragraph 6(2)(b) for the Senedd Commission and paragraph 6(2)(a) for the Member in Charge).

Any personal data about criminal offences or convictions will be processed on the basis is that it is authorised by law in accordance with Article 10 UK GDPR and section 10(5) of, and paragraph 36 of Schedule 1 to, the Data Protection Act 2018.

The adequate support of the Member Bill process and the ability to seek, use and store personal data including special category data and data about criminal offences or convictions is in the substantial public interest.

Who will have access to the information?

The Bill Team will make hard and electronic copies of the response you provide to a Member Bill consultation.

These copies will be used by the Member in charge of the Bill, Members’ Support Staff and the Bill Team to assist in the development of a Member Bill, promotion of the intended effect of the Bill, and subsequent scrutiny of the Bill.

Your contact information is held to ask questions relating to your submitted response and, should you choose, to invite you to make further comment during the development of the Bill and keep you informed on the progress of the proposed Bill through scrutiny in the Senedd.

We will not contact you about other Senedd Business beyond the development and scrutiny of the Member Bill your consultation response is about. For information about following and participating in other Senedd Business, please see our website: https://senedd.wales/business

Will the information be shared with any third parties, or publicised?
We will usually publish all valid consultation responses on the Senedd website, subject to the provisions that follow:

We may decide not to publish responses when we have received an extremely large quantity or where we receive multiple responses which say similar or the same things. In that case, we may publish only a list of the names of organisations which have sent in their views or the number of individuals supporting a particular view.

We are not obliged to accept any written evidence, nor to publish all or any part of it even if it has been accepted. We may ask you to edit your evidence or correspondence if it contains material considered to be offensive or inappropriate, or where a submission is very long.

We may publish parts of written evidence and correspondence on our website and on social media platforms. Once in the public domain, third parties, such as media or broadcast outlets, may reuse these published parts of submissions for their own purposes.

If a submission or part of a submission is published on our website, it will remain public indefinitely and will be available via internet search engines.
If you have responded in a personal capacity, your name will not normally be published along with your submission.

If you have responded in a professional capacity, the published version of your response will include your name, your stated job title/role/professional expertise. We may, in exceptional circumstances, agree to not publish the names of individuals who have contributed in a professional capacity. In these situations, the Member in Charge of the Bill, their Support Staff and the Bill Team may have access to the full content of your submission.

If you have responded on behalf of an organisation, the published version of your response will include the name of your organisation. Your name and role will not normally be included.

We will not share your contact details with any third party without first seeking your agreement.

Submissions that are not suitable for public disclosure

If you provide any information in your submission that you feel is not suitable for public disclosure, please indicate which parts should not be published and give your reasons for this. You can do this by email when you provide your submission. .

Individuals contributing in a personal or professional capacity may request that their entire submission or correspondence is treated confidentially and should not be published. We may ask you to provide reasons for your request. If you are not able to do so, we may not be able to accept your evidence. If the request is agreed, the submission will not be published and no part of it will be used in any other published documents.

Confidential submissions will be seen by the Member in Charge of the Bill as well as Members’ Support Staff and the Bill Team. Confidential submissions may be retained permanently with restricted access on our secure internal ICT network.

References to third parties

We may edit or ask you to change your submission to remove personal data from the text if we consider that it could be used to identify individuals who have not specifically given their agreement to have information about them made public.

We may also edit or ask you to change your submission to remove personal data from the text in response to a request by you.

If a submission cannot be edited to remove information relating to third parties, a redacted version of your response may be published. The Member in Charge of the Bill, Members’ Support Staff and the Bill Team may have access to the full content of your submission, even if it has not been published in full. We may decide that your submission, or part thereof, should not be published if the number of redactions required to the text is such that it is difficult to understand or read.

Where will the information be stored?

The information will be stored securely on the Senedd Commission’s ICT systems which includes third party cloud services provided by Microsoft. Any transfer of data by Microsoft outside of the UK and EEA is covered by contractual clauses under which Microsoft ensure that personal data is treated in line with domestic legislation. To find out more about how Microsoft will use your information, you can read their privacy statement here.

How long will the information be retained?

Published versions of your consultation response and any information derived from those published responses (e.g. quotes from your response used within the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill) will remain on the Senedd website permanently and are also routinely captured and stored by the National Library of Wales (as part of our archive of Senedd Business) and other third parties.

We will retain any unpublished information you provide as part of your consultation response, or in correspondence regarding your response, for the duration of the Sixth Senedd (which is due to come to an end in April 2026).

How will the information be disposed of?

Information that has not been published will be securely deleted/disposed as part of the routine data cleansing by Commission Staff at the end of the Sixth Senedd (which is due to come to an end in April 2026).

Published information can remain on our website permanently as a record of the development of a piece of legislation. Additionally others, including the National Library of Wales, may take a copy of our published information to store and publish independently.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. The rights which apply depend on the legal bases we are relying on to use your personal information. Those rights will not apply in all instances, and we will confirm whether or not that is the case when you make a request.

The rights include the right to request access to your own personal information, sometimes called a ‘subject access request’.

Additionally, you have the right to requests:

  • that any inaccurate information we hold about you is corrected (please note that you are required to keep us up to date with any changes to your personal information);
  • that information about you is deleted (in certain circumstances);
  • that we stop using your personal information for certain purposes or in certain circumstances; and
  • that your information is provided to you or a third party in a portable format (again, in certain circumstances).

If you would like to engage any of the rights that you have under data protection legislation, ask a question or make a complaint about how your information is used; please contact the Data Protection Officer in the first instance using one of the methods set out at the above.

Requests for information made to the Commission

In the event of a request for information being made under access to information legislation, it may be necessary to disclose all or part of the information that you provide. We will only do this if we are required to do so by law.

How to complain

You can complain to the Data Protection Officer if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. Contact details can be found above.

If, following a complaint, you remain dissatisfied with our response, you can also complain to the ICO. The ICO’s address is:

Information Commissioner’s Office 
Wycliffe House 
Water Lane 
Wilmslow 
Cheshire 
SK9 5AF 

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

View previous versions of this Notice:

Member Bill Privacy Notice (to July 2022)

Member Bill Privacy Notice (to March 2018)

Member Bill Privacy Notice (to February 2018)