Updated 23 July 2021
Who are we?
The Senedd Commission is the data controller of the information you provide and will ensure it is protected and used in line with data protection legislation.
Data Protection Officer
If you have any questions about the way in which we process your personal data, or how to exercise your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer at:
Tŷ Hywel,
Pierhead Street,
Cardiff Bay
CF99 1SN
0300 200 6494
What are Senedd committees?
Committees in the Senedd carry out many functions, including scrutinising the expenditure and policies of the Welsh Government, holding Ministers to account, and examining proposed legislation. This privacy notice relates to the use of any information you provide in relation to the work of Senedd committees.
What will we do with your information?
Your information will be processed by staff working for the Senedd Commission. When collecting contributions to the work of Senedd committees, we will adhere to the provisions of this privacy notice. Further, we will apply these principles:
- We will always tell you how the information you give us is going to be used;
- We will never share your contact details with a third party without first seeking your agreement, unless we are required to by law;
- If we are using a third-party platform to collect information, for example, a survey, we will always tell you in advance.
Specific details about how we use your information are set out below.
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 processing being necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. The task is to facilitate the work of a parliamentary committee to undertake its democratic function of scrutinising the Welsh Government and representing the people of Wales, and ensure that the committee can carry out its function in line with the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people.
It will also be necessary for the Commission to communicate and promote the work of the Senedd and engage with the people of Wales to enable the Senedd to carry out its work as effectively as possible. Communicating and engaging with the people of Wales enables the Senedd to consider the views of the people it represents when making decisions. It also serves the wider purpose of facilitating activities that support or promote democratic engagement.
We may process personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences if you choose to provide any, for example as part of evidence submitted in response to a committee’s call for evidence. This will be processed on the basis that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, read in conjunction with section 10 of, and paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to, the Data Protection Act 2018.
Special category personal data
We may process special category personal data if you choose to provide any. Special category personal data is defined as including data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, trade union membership, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, and data about health.
Special category data will usually 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, read in conjunction with paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 2018).
Archiving
The content of your contribution will become a public record and may be transferred to the National Library of Wales for archiving. Our legal basis for archiving is that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. Whenever we archive any special category personal data, it will be processed on the basis that it is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, in accordance with Article 9(2)(j) of the UK GDPR and read in conjunction with paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 2018.
Written evidence and correspondence
Contributions will be stored securely on our ICT systems which includes third party cloud services provided by Microsoft. Any transfer of data by Microsoft outside of the EEA is covered by contractual clauses under which Microsoft ensure that personal data is treated in line with relevant legislation. To find out more about how Microsoft will use your information, you can read their privacy statement here.
Apart from the published digital version, any other physical and digital copies of your contribution will not be retained beyond the end of the current Senedd. In the case of a contribution that has been redacted, the unredacted version considered by the committee will be retained indefinitely but will not be published. (see below for more information about our approach to redacting contributions).
We may use Microsoft Forms to collect written evidence. To find out more about how Microsoft will use your information, you can read their privacy statement here.
Publication of written evidence and correspondence
We will usually publish correspondence or written evidence on our 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 people who have sent in their views, subject to the provisions that follow in relation to the publication of individuals’ names.
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 are not obliged to publish all or any part of correspondence on our website. We may ask you to edit your evidence or correspondence if it contains material that is offensive or inappropriate.
Any correspondence or material shared with a committee chair, in their role as chair, will be considered to be correspondence with a committee and may be published, and shared with other committee members and relevant officials.
We may process special category personal data if you choose to provide any and publish it subject to the provisions in this privacy notice.
We may include parts of written evidence and correspondence in briefings, reports, or other documents used or produced by the committee in the course of its work. We may publish parts of written evidence and correspondence on our website and on social media platforms used by Senedd committees. Once in the public domain, third parties, such as media or broadcast outlets, may reuse these published parts of contributions for their own purposes.
If a contribution or part of a contribution 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 be published along with your contribution, unless you have asked for your contribution to be anonymised.
We may decide not to publish the names of individuals when we have received a large quantity of submissions.
If you have responded in a professional capacity, the published version of your response will include your name, your job title/role, if relevant, and the name of your organisation. We may, in exceptional circumstances, agree to anonymise submissions from individuals who have contributed in a professional capacity. In these situations, committee members may have access to the full content of your submission.
Acceptance and publication of contributions from young people
Before accepting contributions from individuals under 13 years old, 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.
We will not publish the names of individuals under 18 years old alongside their contributions.
Contributions that are not suitable for public disclosure
If you provide any information in your contribution 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. If you have any questions about the kind of information that is suitable to be provided, please contact the relevant committee clerk directly.
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 committee document, such as a report. If the request cannot be agreed, we may not be able to accept your evidence.
Confidential contributions will be seen by relevant officials, the committee Members (including any substitutes) and, possibly, staff from committee members’ offices (and the staff of substitutes). Confidential contributions will 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 certain living third parties personally 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. Committee members (and possibly substitutes) 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 should be anonymised if the number of redactions required to the text is such that it is difficult to understand or read.
Retention and use of your contact details
If you have provided written evidence or correspondence in a personal capacity, we will retain your contact details on our secure internal ICT network so that we can keep you up to date about Senedd consideration of the subject of your contribution and related matters. We will not retain your contact details beyond the end of the Sixth Senedd (which is due to come to an end in 2026).
If you do not want us to communicate with you, you should notify us at the time you make your contribution.
We will not share your contact details with a third party without first seeking your agreement.
If you have provided material in a professional capacity or on behalf of an organisation, we may retain your professional contact details and may contact you or your organisation to invite you to provide evidence for other Senedd committee inquiries in future. We will retain such contact information in a database with restricted access held on our secure internal ICT network.
We may collect and store publicly available contact details for professional individuals, organisations, or individuals working in organisations, in a database with restricted access held on our secure internal ICT network. We will use this information to invite such organisations or individuals to contribute to the work of Senedd committees.
Senedd Petitions
The Senedd Petitions site lets individuals start and sign petitions to raise issues with the Senedd. We need to collect, process, and store some personal data to enable you to do this. A separate privacy notice has been prepared for this service. Written submissions made to the Petitions Committee are covered by the Committees Privacy Notice.
Appearing before a Committee
Committees may hold formal meetings and other events to collect contributions to their work. Meetings or events may take place in person or remotely.
Remote meetings and events are facilitated through third-party software tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Information on which platform we are using for each specific event will be made clear when sharing information about the meeting or event.
Microsoft and Zoom may use and store personal data such as your name, email address, and telephone number (in some cases); IP address, and details about your device.
Any transfer of data by Microsoft outside of the EEA is covered by contractual clauses under which Microsoft ensure that personal data is treated in line with relevant legislation.
Zoom holds data in the US and takes appropriate contractual and other steps to protect personal data under applicable laws. This includes ensuring that any international transfer of data is governed by Standard Contractual Clauses where appropriate. To minimise the data that is shared with Zoom, meeting participants will not be asked to register their details with Zoom. Instead, participants will be provided with a Zoom meeting link, a meeting ID number and password in advance.
- For more details, please read the Microsoft privacy policy.
- For more details, please read the Zoom privacy policy.
Formal oral evidence sessions in remote or physical Committee meetings
Audio-visual recordings and transcripts of formal evidence sessions are published on the Senedd’s website. These recordings and transcripts will remain public indefinitely. Third parties may use published audio-visual recordings or transcripts of meetings for their own purposes. We may use parts of audio-visual recordings on our website and on social media platforms used by Senedd committees.
We will collect and retain the contact details of individuals who have agreed to appear before a committee for purposes in relation to the administrative arrangements for the relevant meeting.
We may, on occasion, collect and retain information about individuals’ protected characteristics for administrative purposes. This information will be retained in a protected area of the Senedd’s IT system. This information will be deleted no later than one month after the relevant meeting.
Informal discussions and other events
Committees may organise events to collect contributions or to promote their work.
Publication and retention of contributions
Events will not normally take place in public or be recorded. If it is decided that the event should be open to the public or that a transcript of discussions should be produced or that the event should be recorded for publication, we will notify participants in advance.
Photographic and other recordings of events
We may take photographs and record videos or audio at these events. If you do not want to appear in such media, please notify us in advance. Photographic, video or audio recordings made at events may be published on our website, on social media platforms, or in printed and/or digital material.
Photographic, video or audio recordings made at committee events could potentially be used without reference to the context of the event to promote the work of the Senedd and engage with the people of Wales.
Any photographic, video or audio recordings made at committee events that are published on our website or used on social media will remain public indefinitely.
Any photographic, video or audio recordings made at committee events that are not published by the Senedd Commission will not be retained beyond the end of the Sixth Senedd (which is due to come to an end in 2026).
Diversity monitoring and collecting feedback
Decisions about policies and laws affect people in different ways. This means it is important that the Senedd hears a diverse range of perspectives and experiences to help Members scrutinise government actions and make laws. Diversity comes in many forms, so Senedd committees want to hear from different people, communities, sectors, groups, and organisations - especially those that are affected by an issue under consideration.
We are monitoring witness diversity to help us understand if this is happening. As part of this, committees and the Senedd Commission may use information about your name, professional role(s), the organisation(s), or sector(s) that you represent, and when you contribute to committees’ work, to provide statistics for monitoring and reporting purposes, to help to identify any patterns, and to ensure that our policies and procedures are improving, inclusive and effective.
Your rights
As a data subject, you have several rights. 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 request from us:
- 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).
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 the Commission will confirm whether that is the case when you make a request.
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 using one of the methods set out at the top of this notice.
Requests for information made to the Senedd 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 at the top of this notice.
If, following a complaint, you remain dissatisfied with our response, you can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The ICO’s address is:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Changes to this privacy notice
We keep this privacy notice under regular review, please check back regularly. We will announce changes via the Senedd’s social media channels. This privacy notice was last updated in July 2021.
View previous versions of this Notice:
Inquiry Privacy Notice (Fourth Assembly)
Inquiry Privacy Notice (to July 2018)