Cookie preferences
Toggle search
Toggle menu

Planned System Maintenance - Limited Service

Sunderland City Council will be carrying out planned system maintenance from 12 noon on Friday 5th June until 7am on Tuesday 9th June. During this period, we will only be able to respond to urgent enquiries. If your enquiry is not urgent, please contact us before or after these times when full services will be available. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding.

Data Protection

How does the council protect information about you?

The Data Protection Act and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) tell us how to ensure that the information we create, use and hold about you is processed lawfully, fairly, transparently and in accordance with your individual rights.

The Act places a legal responsibility on the council to make sure that all data collected, obtained and processed receives the right level of protection and is protected from loss and unauthorised use or disclosure.

Your Rights

The Data Protection Act and UK GDPR gives members of the public rights in relation to their personal information including:

1.     The right to know what information the council holds about you, for what purpose, on what legal basis

This Privacy Notice describes, in general terms, how we use your personal data.  You can also find details on how each service uses your personal data.

2.     The right to request access to your information; this is known as a Subject Access Request (SAR)

3.     The right to ask the council to correct inaccurate data or change the way we use it

4.     Under certain circumstances, the right to raise an objection to how your data is being processed

5.     Under certain circumstances, the right to have your personal data erased

Subject Access Requests

How can I see information you hold about me?

To request access to the personal information Sunderland City Council holds about you, you can:

We recommend using the online form, as it helps us find the right information and understand your request more effectively.

The more specific you are about your request and what information it relates to, the quicker we will be able to locate it and provide you with our response.

The Council is entitled to verify the identity of a requester where we have reasonable doubts about the authenticity of a Subject Access Request. You may be asked to provide proof of identity if we do not have an established relationship with you, or if we do not hold sufficient contact details to confirm who you are.

If you have concerns about providing ID or would like to discuss alternative ways for us to verify your identity, please contact us and we will be happy to talk through the options with you.

You can also ask a third party (e.g. a relative, friend or solicitor) to make a Subject Access Request on your behalf.  As the information belongs to you as the Data Subject, we will need to be satisfied the third party is entitled to act on your behalf.

Under data protection legislation the Council will always be fair and as transparent as possible when processing your personal information. Council services are expected to consider disclosing your information to you on a regular, routine basis as part of their day-to-day business processes. Before making a SAR, it will usually be worth checking with the service area if they can provide you with a particular document or piece of information.


What information will I receive

You will usually only receive information about you. There is an exemption in the DPA 2018 that says we do not have to comply with a SAR, if doing so means disclosing information which identifies another individual, except where:

  • the other individual has consented to the disclosure; or
  • it is reasonable to comply with the request without that individual's consent.

The UK GDPR and DPA 2018 recognise that, in some circumstances, we might have a legitimate reason for not complying with a SAR, as there are a number of exemptions from the right of access. Where an exemption applies to a particular request, we may refuse to provide all or some of the requested information, depending on the circumstances. This might relate to safeguarding, health data, criminal activity, legal professional privilege, court documents or information that has been provided in confidence.

Any information that you are not entitled to receive will be 'redacted'. This means that we will black out that information. An example of this can be seen here.

The right to access information we hold about a child is the child's right rather than anyone else's, even if: 

  • they are too young to understand the implications of the right of access;
  • the right is exercised by those who have parental responsibility for the child; or
  • they have authorised another person to exercise the right on their behalf.

However, if you are requesting information on behalf your child, we will usually supply this information if we are satisfied that your child is too young to make their own request and that you have parental responsibility, or if an older child has authorised you to act on their behalf.

If you are requesting information that has another access route under alternative legislation, e.g. Adoption Records or Education Health and Care Plans, we will not process your request as a SAR. Your request for this type of information should be sent to the Adoption Service or SEND Team in Together for Children directly: Together For Children - Together for Children. Any requests we receive for this type of information will be forwarded to those teams for response.

The UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 only applies to identifiable living individuals, therefore an application for access to a deceased person's records cannot be made using the usual SAR route. Requests for access to records of deceased persons must be made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000: Freedom of Information - Sunderland City Council

The Council must only keep personal data for as long as it is needed, so some old data may have been confidentially destroyed in line with our retention schedules. Retention schedules are available here. We do keep some documents for up to seventy-five years, so some of the information you receive might be handwritten or faded.

The Council may hold information about you that originates from other partner organisations, for example health services or the police. We will process that information as part of your request, but we are obliged to consult with those organisations about possible exemptions. This means that this information may take slightly longer to process. You may wish to make Subject Access Requests directly to other organisations that you are involved with to get this information quickly.

How can I receive my personal data

Please note that SARs can take up to a calendar month to process, or three months if the request is deemed complex. We follow the Information Commissioner's guidance on this.  What should we consider when responding to a request? | ICO

We will respond electronically using the contact details you have supplied, if you would prefer a postal response, please advise at point of making your request.

Further Information

If you have any queries or concerns regarding your rights or how the Council handles your personal data please contact the Data Protection Officer at: [email protected] or on 0191 520 5555

The Information Commissioner oversees use of personal data in England and Wales.