The ICO exists to empower you through information.

View our 'what we do with your personal data when you...' infographic for a basic overview of the below information.

Contents

Purpose and lawful basis for processing

Our purpose is to investigate and take regulatory action in line with our statutory duties.

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 report 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.

What we need

We collect information you have given us about nuisance calls and text messages you have received that you wish to report to us. Our reporting tool will prompt you for certain information.

We ask you for the phone number you received the nuisance message on, and contact information in case we need to contact you for more information when investigating an organisation. But you don’t have to supply any of your personal data during the reporting process.

We’ll ask for the first part of your postcode so we can create anonymised reports about where people are receiving nuisance calls and messages.

Why we need it

This information will help us investigate and take action against those responsible.

What we do with it

We may share this information with other regulators, telephone service providers, or the organisations we are investigating.

How long we keep it

For information about how long we hold personal data, see our retention schedule.

What are your rights?

You are giving us your personal data so that we can act in our official capacity as a regulator, 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’

Do we use any data processors?

No