Senedd Committee Privacy Notice

Published 19/06/2020 | Last Updated 15/06/2026 | Reading Time minutes

Published 15 June 2026

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.

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.

In this notice, when we say “processing” we mean any use we make of your personal data including collecting, holding, publishing and deleting it. By “information” we mean your personal data.

What will we do with your information?

Your information will be processed by staff working for the Senedd Commission. In doing so, 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.

Specific details about how we use your information are set out below.

Written contributions and correspondence

All written contributions (i.e. written evidence, submissions, responses and correspondence) will be stored securely on our ICT systems which includes third party cloud services provided by Microsoft. We may also use Microsoft’s artificial intelligence tools to process your information. Any international transfer of information by Microsoft is covered by contractual clauses under which Microsoft ensure that personal data is treated in line with relevant legislation. This ensures that your personal data is protected. To find out more about how Microsoft will use your information, you can read the Microsoft privacy statement.

If you provide a hard copy written contribution, it will be scanned to our systems and destroyed in hard copy (within six months) and retained in digital form. Apart from the published digital version, 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that has been redacted, the unredacted version considered by the committee will be retained indefinitely but will not be published (see below for more information about our approach to redacting contributions).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 or other Microsoft software to collect written contributions.

Contributions may be shared with third parties for thematic analysis, for example if there is a significant volume of contributions to be analysed.

Publication of written contributions and correspondence

We will usually publish written contributions and correspondence on our website, subject to the provisions that follow.

We may decide not to publish written contributions when we have received an extremely large quantity or where we receive multiple contributions 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 contribution, 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 contribution 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 Senedd Commission staff.

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 contributions 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 contributions 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 contributions.

If you have responded in a professional capacity, the published version of your contribution will include your name, your job title/role, if relevant, and the name of your organisation. We may, in exceptional circumstances, agree to anonymise contributions from individuals who have contributed in a professional capacity. In these situations, committee members, Member support staff and Senedd Commission staff may have access to the full content of your contribution.

Format of your contribution

The Senedd seeks to be open and accessible. If you would prefer to provide your contribution in a form other than a written submission, we may accept contributions provided as video or audio files. This may include contributions provided in British Sign Language (BSL) or a language other than Welsh or English. If you require any assistance in doing so, please contact the relevant committee clerking team whose contact details are published as part of each individual call for contributions.

If a submission is provided as an audio or video file, or in a language other than Welsh or English we may create a written transcript/translation of it to assist the Committee in considering it. This transcript/translation together with your original submission will be handled and published together as one submission in accordance with this privacy notice, unless requested otherwise. We will hold your video or audio content and the written translation/transcription in a secure electronic format.

The Senedd may share the content you provide to us with our third-party translation or transcription service provider (as appropriate) in order to obtain the translation or transcription of your contribution.

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 usually publish the names of individuals under 18 years old alongside their contributions, although we may do so if that individual has responded in a professional capacity.

Contributions that are not suitable for public disclosure

If you provide any material 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 material 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 contribution 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 contribution.

Confidential contributions will be seen by relevant Senedd Commission staff, the committee Members (including any substitutes) and, possibly relevant Member support staff. Confidential contributions will be retained indefinitely with restricted access on our secure ICT network pending archiving with the National Library or audited destruction.

References to third parties

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

If a contribution cannot be edited to remove information relating to third parties, a redacted version of your response may be published. Committee members (including any substitutes) and relevant Member support staff may have access to the full content of your contribution, 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 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 for more than six months beyond the end of the Seventh Senedd (which is due to come to an end in 2030).

If you do not want us to communicate with you, you should notify us at the time you make your contribution.

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 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 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 contributions made to the Petitions Committee are covered by this 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.

Zoom and Microsoft ensure that international data transfers are in line with standard contractual clauses to ensure use of personal data complies with relevant laws. For more details, please read the Microsoft privacy policy and the Zoom privacy policy.

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.

Formal oral evidence sessions in 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 for more than six months beyond the end of the Seventh Senedd (which is due to come to an end in 2030).

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 evidence diversity to help us understand if this is happening. As part of this, we 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.

Active monitoring of the diversity of evidence we receive and feedback on the evidence giving process is undertaken via a diversity monitoring survey.

For the purposes of diversity monitoring, we may collate and analyse this information either on its own or as part of reports. We may publish statistics relating to this information in a way that identifies individuals. For example, we may publish statistics that show the number of times an individual has given oral evidence, or which organisations have given evidence the most often.

The survey will be accessed and processed by Senedd Commission staff. This will include producing statistics and analysis which may be shared with Senedd Commission staff, Members of the Senedd, relevant Member support staff, and may also be published. We may also use Microsoft’s artificial intelligence tools or another third-party platform to process your information.

Copies of the survey responses will be retained on our ICT systems no more than six months after the end of the Senedd in which the response was submitted. Statistical data and analysis produced from the survey responses for internal use or for publication on our website in whole or in part either as part of a dataset or in a report will be kept indefinitely.

Any survey responses from people who identify themselves as being under the age of 16 will be deleted (or securely disposed of if submitted in hard copy) as soon as they are identified, and before any analysis takes place.

Information relating to travel and subsistence claims by external witnesses

If you claim for travel and subsistence in relation to your attendance at a Senedd committee meeting or event organised by a Senedd committee, we will retain your personal details and the contents of any receipts received for 7 years. They will then be securely deleted.

Our lawful bases for processing your information

We process your information to carry out our parliamentary function of supporting the work of Senedd committees, for example when we use information submitted in response to a committee’s call for evidence. Our lawful basis is that processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest in accordance with Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR (referred to as our “public task”).

It will also be necessary for the Commission to communicate and promote the work of the Senedd to enable the Senedd to consider the views of the people it represents when making decisions. When we do this, we rely on our public task lawful basis.

Information about criminal convictions and offences

We will process personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences if you choose to provide any. This will be processed where it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the “substantial public interest” in accordance with Article 10 UK GDPR, together with section 10 of, and paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to, the Data Protection Act 2018.

Information about special categories of personal data

We will 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” in accordance with Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR, together 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. This will be processed where it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. Whenever we archive any special category personal data or information relating to criminal convictions or offences, 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.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have several rights. These include:

the right to request access to your own personal information, sometimes called a ‘subject access request’.
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 we stop using your personal information for certain purposes or 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 our Data Protection Officer (see below).

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.

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

data.protection@senedd.wales

How to complain

If you are concerned that we have not handled your personal information properly you can make a complaint to the Data Protection Officer at the following address: data.protection@senedd.wales

If, following a complaint, you remain dissatisfied with our response, you can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under review, and will place any updates on this website.