Some of the language used in privacy notices can be specialised. The Information Commissioner's website provides a useful introduction to key terms and concepts.
Purposes of the processing
Your views and opinions are essential to the working of the Scottish Parliament Committees. Committee’s sometimes use a third-party online tool to collect these views called Your Priorities. This is an online discussion platform where you can express your ideas and views and rate the ideas put forward by others when Committees ask for your views during an inquiry or call for views. This platform can also be used to crowdsource issues and priorities to support committee business planning. You can provide information using a video or audio format as well as writing your comments and you can choose to provide a profile photo. The Committee will use the information you provide via Your Priorities to help it make decisions and recommendations and to aid parliamentary scrutiny of the performance of the Scottish Government and other areas of interest within the Committee’s remit.
Collecting and holding personal data
Before taking part, you will need to register on the Your Priorities Site. You will be asked to provide a username and email address. To ensure we hear from a diverse range of participants we may also ask you to voluntarily provide information relating to your gender; age; location and ethnicity.
When you submit any ideas or make any comments on the site, your username will be made public, along with the comments you make on the site. You can also submit information anonymously if you prefer.
Please consider this when choosing a username. You can use an anonymous username, or your own name if you prefer, but please avoid using any offensive language as part of your username (or anywhere in Your Priorities) and do not use your email address as a username. The ideas and views expressed using Your Priorities will be subject to moderation.
Participants are reminded that this is a public forum. Participants should therefore not post information that can identify another person, such as other people's names, or any addresses or telephone numbers. If you intend to refer to a third party, please ensure you have their permission before posting.
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (the SPCB) processes any personal data you send to it under the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (the UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). Personal data consists of data from which a living individual may be identified. The SPCB will hold any personal data securely, will use it only for the purposes it was collected for and will only pass it to any third parties with your consent or according to a legal obligation.
Further information about data protection legislation and your rights
The Code of Conduct places further obligations on all Members of Parliament in terms of how they handle material containing personal data in the course of their Committee work.
Read the Code of Conduct, Section 7
Categories of information processed
The ideas you submit and any comments you make will be made available publicly to allow you to participate in Your Priorities. Depending on what views and experiences you have decided to share the content of your ideas and/or comments may be considered as *special category personal data.
Your username and email address may be used to contact you about your comments, or to ask you to fill in a survey about your use of Your Priorities. This is standard or normal category personal data.
The information you provide upon registration relating to your gender; age; location and ethnicity will be used to ensure the Parliament is engaging with a diverse range of participants and may be used to inform committees about priorities that have been highlighted by a particular gender; age; location or ethnicity. This information may be considered as *special category personal data
*Special category personal data includes information revealing an individual’s race; ethnic origin; political or religious views; sex life or sexual orientation; trade union membership; physical or mental health; genetic or biometric data.
Data sharing
The ideas and views you submit to Your Priorities in all formats will be shared on social media and will be available in the public domain. It will also be shared with members of the moderating team at the Scottish Parliament and with other offices within the SPCB involved in making your views public. These include but are not restricted to Committee Offices, the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe), the Parliament Communications Office and the Participation and Communities team. Your contact details will be retained by the SPCB and will not be made public. These will only be used to contact you in relation to your content. Your individual “special category” personal data such as gender, age, location and ethnicity will not be made public and will only be used to monitor participation rates and to support analysis of the views submitted to the platform to aid parliamentary scrutiny and support committee business planning.
The information you provide using Your Priorities will also be held by Citizens Foundation who are the providers of Your Priorities.
More information about the Citizens Foundation
Legal basis for processing
Data protection law states that we must have a legal basis for handling your personal data. The legal basis for collecting, holding, sharing and publishing your personal data on Your Priorities is that the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest (for normal category data) or substantial public interest (for special category data) in accordance with Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR and section 8(d) DPA (for normal category data) or Article 9(2)(g) and section 10(3) and paragraph 6(2)(b), part 2, schedule 1, DPA (for special category data). The task is to facilitate evidence gathering for a parliamentary committee which is part of the core function of the SPCB and therefore a government function in accordance with section 8(d) DPA. For effective and full consideration of public views and opinions, the SPCB must be able to receive, store and use submissions which include special category data submitted by the respondent. The processing of special category data is therefore necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.
For the transfer of data to the National Records of Scotland (referred to below), the legal basis is that it is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest (Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR, section 8(d) DPA or Art 9(2)(j) UK GDPR, section 10(2) and paragraph 4(a). part 1, schedule 1, DPA).
Publishing your views
The contributions you make to Your Priorities (including the username you provide) may be referred to in discussions by Parliamentary committees or in committee reports and may be archived for permanent preservation. This means that they may be made publicly available in one or more of the following ways:
- using social media including for example Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
- being referred to in a live broadcast of Committee proceedings
- made available in a recorded video of Committee proceedings on Parliament TV
- in the transcript of Committee proceedings published by the Parliament (the Official Report)
- in written reports published by the Committee and made available on the Parliament website)
To find out more please read our Privacy Notice about how comments submitted for committee evidence is treated.
As part of the process for registering on this site, you will be asked to tick a box to confirm that you have understood how your data is going to be processed. You should be aware that we will be unable to delete any references to comments which have already been mentioned during Parliamentary Committee broadcasts (including archive recordings available on the Parliament website) or already published in Committee reports or in the Official Report.
Retention of data
Your ideas, comments and username will be available on the Your Priorities site for the duration of the Committee inquiry before being transferred to Scottish Parliament IT systems. Your contact details will be deleted one month after the close of the consultation.
A summary of contributions may appear on the Parliament website and as a link in an annexe to a report.
The content of your participation in Your priorities will form part of the public record and will help create the evidence base upon which Members of the Scottish Parliament make decisions. Personal information contained within a public record will be retained in accordance with the Scottish Parliament records management policy and may be transferred to the Scottish Parliament archive at National Records of Scotland where it will be publicly available.
Children and young people safeguarding and child protection
In line with the principles underlying the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland (2014), published by the Scottish Government, our staff may report a concern to the relevant authorities if they come across an issue during their work which causes them to think that a child may be at risk of abuse or harm.
Your rights
Data protection legislation sets out the rights which individuals have in relation to personal data held about them by data controllers. Applicable rights are listed below. You can exercise your data subject rights in particular circumstances depending on the purpose for which the data controller is processing the data and the legal basis upon which the processing takes place.
The following rights may apply:
Access to your information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information about you that we hold.
Further information on how to make a data protection "subject access request"
Correcting your information
You have the right to ask us to correct the personal data we hold about you. We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date and you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
Objecting to how we may use your information
You have the right at any time to require us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes. In addition, where we use your personal information to perform tasks carried out in the public interest then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue.
- please note that the right to object to the processing of personal data does not apply where the data subject has consented to the processing, subject to the right to withdraw consent
- the right to object to the processing of personal data for the purposes of a public interest task is restricted if there are legitimate grounds for the processing which override the interest of the data subject
- the right of erasure and the right to object to processing of personal data do not apply where personal data is processed for the performance of a legal obligation. This will be considered on a case by case basis and depends on what personal data is involved and the risks further processing of that data could pose to you
Deletion of your information
You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:
- you consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained
- we are using that information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent – see Withdrawing consent to using your information below
- you have validly objected to our use of your personal information – see Objecting to how we may use your information above
- our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations
- please note that the right allowing for deletion or erasure of personal data (right to be forgotten) does not apply in cases where personal data is processed for the purposes of the performance of a task carried out in the public interest
- the right of erasure and the right to object to processing of personal data do not apply where personal data is processed for the performance of a legal obligation. This will be considered on a case by case basis and depends on what personal data is involved and the risks further processing of that data could pose to you
Restricting how we may use your information
In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information about you that we hold or assessing the validity of any objection you have made to our use of your information. The right might also apply where there is no longer a basis for using your personal information, but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right is validly exercised, we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.
Withdrawing consent to using your information
Where we use your personal information with your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time and we will stop using your personal information for the purposes for which consent was given.
Please contact us in any of the ways set out below if you wish to exercise any of these rights.
Changes to our privacy statement
We keep this privacy statement under regular review and will place any updates on this website. Paper copies of the privacy statement may also be obtained using the contact information below.
This privacy statement was last updated on 16 June 2021.
Complaints
We seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle personal information but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office.
Or by phone at: 0303 123 1113
Contact information and further advice
If you have any further questions about the way in which we process personal data, or
about how to exercise your rights, please contact the Head of Information Governance
at:
The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP
Telephone: 0131 348 6913
(Calls are welcome through the Text Relay service or in British Sign Language through contactSCOTLAND-BSL.)
Email: [email protected]
Please contact us if you require information in another language or format