Our core data protection obligations and commitments are set out in the Council’s primary privacy notice.
This privacy notice relates specifically to electoral services and explains what personal information is collected, what it is used for and who it is provided to.
This notice deals specifically with personal information concerning:
The Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) is responsible for ensuring that all eligible persons are registered to vote and the Returning Officer (RO) is responsible for ensuring the provision of elections/referendums.
It is important to note that both the ERO and RO are separate Data Controllers from the Council.
Tom Stannard (Salford City Council Chief Executive) acts in both the roles of ERO and RO and both roles are legally independent of the council.
This notice also describes why the ERO/RO requires your data and the legal basis on which they do this.
We use your personal data for electoral registration and administration purposes, including:
The powers to do much of the above come from the following legislation:
This section of the privacy notice describes how we process personal data.
In relation to individuals who are registered, or applying to be registered to vote we will process names, (current and former) addresses, dates of birth and nationalities of individuals. For a limited period we may also hold National Insurance Numbers of individuals registered (or registering) to vote.
When you apply to register to vote, 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.
Where it is not possible to verify an elector’s identity via the Individual Electoral Registration Digital Service, there may be additional processing of personal data in respect of supplementary evidence of identity submitted by applicants.
In relation to particular categories of elector (service voters, overseas electors, crown servants, etc) there may be additional information processed. For example, in relation to service voters, information may be processed relating to type of service (Army/Navy/Air Force), Rank, Regiment and BFPO address.
Where an elector requests an absent vote (i.e. to vote by post or proxy) personal identifiers in the form of signatures and dates of birth will be processed. For postal voters redirection addresses will be collected and for proxy voters details of the electors’ nominated proxies will be processed.
At elections we will process, in addition to the information relating to electors, information relating to candidates, candidate’s agents and individuals subscribing candidate’s nomination papers.
Personal data will be processed relating to staff employed directly by the Electoral Registration Officer or the Returning Officer. Such staff data will include an employee’s name, address, other contact details, national insurance number and bank details.
Personal data relating to individuals making enquiries or making submissions to election-related statutory consultations will also be processed.
We also process the following special category personal information:
In limited circumstances we will also process personal data relating to “criminal convictions and offences” (which under the Data Protection Act 2018 includes the alleged commission of offences) – for example the Electoral Registration Officer may receive a request to register to vote from a prisoner on remand or an application for anonymous registration may contain references to the alleged commission of offences by an identifiable third party.
We collect, use and otherwise process this personal information on the basis of our legal obligations (Article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)) and/or its public task functions (Article 6(1)(e) of the GDPR).
In the case of the collection, use or other processing of special category personal data, the additional basis relied upon for processing such information is that it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (Article 9(2)(g) of the GDPR).
The statutory basis for the above is as detailed in section 2 of this notice.
The personal information that we process will often be provided by you directly, such as when you apply to register to vote, apply to have an absent vote or put yourself forward to stand for election. In the case of electoral registration applications using the online portal, your information will often be provided to us via the Individual
Electoral Registration Digital Service managed by the Cabinet Office.
On occasion, personal information may be obtained by us from third parties, when we exercise our powers to obtain such information. Individuals may also provide us with information about other people, such as where an individual completes a household enquiry form and includes information about other residents.
We may share personal information about you.
We are required by law to provide copies of the full Electoral Register to certain organisations and individuals. They may use it for their own reasons which are different to ours but they still have to look after the data contained in the Register in the same way that we do.
Click here for a list of those organisations and individuals.
If you are a postal voter, we use your information to make decisions through automated means when we check personal identifiers that you provide against those contained in your original postal vote application. In any case where the automated process reports that the personal identifiers you have provided do not match those on your original postal vote application, there will be an intervention by a human being who will make any final decision (i.e. there will always be the involvement of a human decision-maker where the result of the automated process indicates the possibility of a decision to your detriment).
We will retain any documents that contain your personal information for only as long as it takes for your registration application to be determined following which we securely dispose of the documents.
We retain electronic information about persons on the electoral register for only as long as they remain registered, following which the information will be deleted.
We are required by law (Principal Area Rules 2006) to retain candidate nomination papers for candidates standing in elections for no longer than 12 months after the election, following which the documents are securely destroyed.
Home address forms provided by candidates standing in General Elections are retained for a period of 21 days after the return of the legal writ, following which they are securely disposed of. However, if an election petition relating to the election is presented within the 21 calendar days, the home address forms must be kept securely until the conclusion of the petition proceedings (including any appeal from such proceedings). They must then be securely destroyed on the next working day following the conclusion of the proceedings or appeal.
We are required by law to retain candidate election expenses documents for a period of no more than 2 years from the date on which the expenses are received. At the end of the two year period, the respective candidate can request the return of the expenses documents. Otherwise the expenses documents will be securely disposed of.
You can find out about your rights here. If you wish to exercise any of your rights please submit your request to infogovernance@salford.gov.uk or by post to:
Salford City Council,
Information Governance Team
Phase 2 Building
Salford Civic Centre,
Chorley Road,
Swinton,
Salford, M27 5AW
If you wish to raise a concern about our handling of your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at infogovernance@salford.gov.uk.
Whether you are exercising your rights or raising a concern, you will normally need to include documents that prove your identity as well as a clear and precise description of your request/concern.
We will process requests in accordance with the legislative framework and statutory timescales and inform you should an extension of time be necessary.
If you are not satisfied with the way we have answered a request from you or handled your personal information, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/
This right is not dependant on you raising a complaint with us first but we would encourage you to contact our DPO so we can consider your concerns as quickly as possible.
We may update or revise this Privacy Notice at any time but the most up to date version will always be provided on this web page.