Introduction
This privacy notice explains the way in which we (the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales) handle your personal information. This privacy notice is layered. You can read more about the way we process your information depending on the nature of your contact with us.
The general information section of this privacy notice explains:
- Who we are
- How you can contact us
- How you can contact our Data Protection Officer
- How we collect your personal information
- The steps we take to protect your information
- How long we keep your information
- Your data protection rights
Who we are
The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has legal powers to consider complaints about public services in Wales. For example, you may complain that you have been treated unfairly or received a bad service through some failure on the part of the body providing it. We can consider complaints about most public bodies in Wales.
We can also look at complaints that councillors (including community councillors) have breached their local authority’s code of conduct.
How you can contact us
You can contact us in the following ways:
- By phone: 0300 790 0203
If you use BSL, you can use our free SignVideo interpreting service to talk to us (available from 8am-6pm, Monday to Friday). You can read the SignVideo Privacy Policy from here.
- Through our website: www.ombudsman.wales
- By email: ask@ombudsman.wales
- By post: Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, 1 Ffordd yr Hen Gae, Pencoed, CF35 5LJ
We record our calls (telephone and other audio/video calls), as we find that it can be useful to listen again to conversations, to help us understand what we have been told. Calls are recorded and stored on our own systems.
Our Data Protection Officer’s contact details
Our Data Protection Officer is Alison Parker. You can contact her at Information.Requests@ombudsman.wales
How we collect your personal information
What information we collect depends on the nature of your contact with us. Depending on the reason for your contact we may need to collect information about you from others. To find out more read the privacy notice that relates to your reason for contacting us.
- Making a complaint about a Welsh public body
- Making a complaint about a councillor
- You are an accused member
- You are a complaint witness
- Providing us with expert advice
- Interested in working for us
- Taking part in a consultation or an engagement event
- Making an information request to us
- Visiting our website
- Visiting our office
The steps we take to protect your information
We ensure that we protect your personal information in the following ways:
When you communicate with us by email, we may ask you to use a secure email service, called Egress Switch. This is service is free for you to use. You can read Egress’s platform privacy policy here.
We use data processors who are third parties to provide some services for us. We have contracts or data processing agreements in place with them for these services which set out the instructions they must follow. This includes ensuring that adequate safeguards are in place to protect your information.
How long we keep your information
We will keep the information only for as long as we need it and will depend on what it is being used for. Find out more about how long we keep different records for in our record retention schedule.
Your data protection rights
You have the following rights over the information we hold about you:
- to request access to your information
- to ask that we update, complete or correct your information, if it is inaccurate or incomplete
- the right to object to our using your information in certain circumstances, and
- the right to limit our use of it in certain circumstances.
You can contact us to exercise your rights or to make a complaint about how your information is used by emailing Information.Request@ombudsman.wales
If you are unhappy with the way in which we have used your information you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).