The ICO exists to empower you through information.

Restricted contact 

We may impose a restriction on your access to our services if it’s necessary to protect our staff from unacceptable behaviour as explained in our service standards.

The lawful basis we rely on to process your personal data is article 6(1)(e) of the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), which allows us to process personal data when this is necessary to perform our public tasks as a regulator.

If we do this, we’ll explain to you the restriction we have applied and why we feel it’s necessary. We’ll create a record of the restriction for administration purposes, so relevant staff members know the restriction is in place. This will include your name, contact details and a description of why we have imposed a restriction.

The decision to impose a restriction will be taken, and reviewed, by a manager. We’ll write to you explaining why we’ve applied the restriction. We’ll review the restriction periodically. We’ll remove it if we feel your behaviour has changed or if you no longer communicate with us.

Single point of contact 

We may provide a single point of contact if you or we (or both) believe it will help to create a better outcome for all concerned.

The lawful basis we rely on to process your personal data is article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR, which allows us to process personal data when this is necessary to perform our public tasks as a regulator.

If the information you provide us in relation to your single point of contact contains special category data, such as health, religious or ethnic information the lawful basis we rely on to process it is article 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR, which also relates to our public task and the safeguarding of your fundamental rights, and Schedule 1 part 2(6) of the DPA2018 which relates to statutory and government purposes.

A decision will be made by a manager to give you a single point of contact. This may be where you have several complaints and we believe it will be more efficient for us to deal with them in this way. We’ll make a record of the fact that you have a single point of contact. All relevant staff will know about using it to manage communications between our office and you. It will include your name, contact details and a description of the need to have a single point of contact. We’ll review this requirement from time to time.

What are your rights?

We are acting in our official capacity as a regulator regarding your contact restriction or single point of contact (or both), so you have the right to object to our processing of your personal data. There are legitimate reasons why we may refuse your objection, which depend on why we are processing it.

For more information on your rights, please see ‘Your rights as an individual’.