The Children’s Commissioner collects information about children to help make their lives better.

Sometimes we get this information by talking to you or asking you to do a survey.

And sometimes we ask other organisations to share information they have about you.

For example: we ask the Department for Education to tell us what marks children got in their exams. This information does not contain your name, address or contact details.

We don’t publish anything about you that means someone could guess who you are. For example, we don’t print your name or what school you go to.

Sometimes children want us to use their names. But we only do this if you say this is ok. This is called giving your consent.

What do we do with the information we have about you?

• We only ask for the information we need
• We keep it safe by using passwords
• We don’t keep it longer than we need to.

Sharing the information

We won’t give information we have about you to anyone else, unless

• You tell us we can
• We think that doing so will protect you from harm
• The law says we have to (e.g. to prevent a crime)

Consent forms

If you take part in an interview or focus group with us, we will ask you to give your consent either by signing a form or telling us that you are happy to take part first. This is how you tell us you want to take part.

If you are younger than 13, we may ask your parent/guardian to sign the consent form for you.

You can change your mind, even after the research has finished.

You can ask us what information we have about you

You can always:

• Ask us for a copy of the information we have about you
• Ask us to delete the information we have about you
• Ask us to change the information we have got about you, or bring it up to date, if it is wrong
• Tell us if you are worried about the way we are keeping or using information about you, and want to make a complaint about this
• Change how you’d like us to get in touch with you.

Get in contact with us

You can find out what information we have about you. You can do this by emailing us at [email protected]

If there’s anything you don’t understand or if you have any questions our Data Protection Officer will be able to help you. You can email them at [email protected]

This policy was last modified on 10 March 2021.

If you want to know more information about your data when interacting with us, you can visit the pages below