Privacy notice

We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that any personal data you provide is handled securely and in line with data protection legislation. Personal data is any information which can identify you either on its own or when combined with other information. This notice explains what personal data we process for the purposes of the survey and the post-survey feedback interview, why we need it, how it will be used and your rights.

Personal data used to invite you to the survey

The Safety During Childhood Survey (SDCS) survey is designed so that it will not collect any personal data, however in order to contact you about this survey, we needed to use your name and contact details which were provided to us by NHS England. This information is kept completely separate from survey responses. The information used to contact you is deleted within five days of the letters being received to protect the confidentiality of your survey responses.

Survey data

Your invitation and reminder letter will contain a unique access code (UAC), which you can use to enter the survey, as well as pause and resume the survey at any time within the collection period. Your responses will be saved as the survey progresses, so it will not be possible for you to go back to see or change earlier responses.

The data collected in the survey will only be used to produce anonymous statistics. You will not be identified from any survey response data we collect or statistics we publish. The anonymised survey data will be deleted two years after the findings have been published.

If you contact the ONS

If you contact the ONS (i.e. via the Survey Enquiry Line (SEL) or the SDCS email address (sdcs@ons.gov.uk) and share any personal details, these will be deleted after the query has been dealt with and will not be linked to your survey responses. However, if you disclose a safeguarding issue, personal data may have to be kept to allow ONS to follow ONS safeguarding procedure. This will involve passing on the details to ONS SEL, who will share with the safeguarding officer on duty to review. More details can be found in the ONS Safeguarding Policy.

Personal data used for the post-survey feedback interview

If you would like to take part in the post-survey interview, you will be asked to provide your contact details after the SDCS survey is completed. This will be collected separately from your survey responses and ONS will not be able to link contact information you provide with your survey responses. The information will be held securely and only used to arrange the post-survey interview and process your thank-you voucher if requested. Contact details will be deleted after the post-survey interview takes place.

If you sign up for the post-survey feedback interview, you will be sent further information and a permission form to complete, which will ask for your name, email address, age, sex, ethnicity and religion for the purposes of understanding how representative of England and Wales the group of people providing feedback are. Contact details will be deleted after the post-survey interview takes place.

Feedback interviews will be video recorded on Microsoft Teams, and the video recording will be transcribed for analysis. The information provided during the interview will not be linked to your survey responses.

All responses will be combined to provide anonymous outputs, which will help us to evaluate the survey and provide recommendations. Analysis will be conducted using approved techniques such as artificial intelligence analytical tools. Once analysis has been completed, recordings and transcripts will be deleted. All other information will be deleted within 2 years.

We may use direct quotes from the interviews, but these will not identify individuals. All anonymised findings will be published on the ONS website and used to inform policy to improve the safety of children and young people in England and Wales.

If you disclose a safeguarding concern during the post- survey interview, we will follow the ONS safeguarding procedure detailed above.

Personal data used to process online vouchers

If you would like an online voucher as a thank you for completing the survey, you will be asked to provide your contact details after the SDCS survey is completed. This will be collected separately from your survey responses, and ONS will not be able to link the contact information with your survey responses.

If you would like an online voucher as a thank you for completing the post-survey feedback interview, your contact details will be confirmed at the end of the interview.

This information will be held and shared securely with the voucher provider Pluxee. This information will only be used to provide you with your online voucher. Contact details will be deleted 6 months after the voucher has been sent to ensure any voucher queries can be managed appropriately.

Non-response survey

If you do not wish to take part in the SDCS but would like to provide feedback on it, you can complete the non-response survey. We do not ask for your name or any personal data in the non-response survey to preserve your anonymity. The data collected in the survey will be used to produce anonymous outputs. If you do provide any personal data within the free text boxes, these will be anonymised unless you disclose a safeguarding concern; we may then need to follow the ONS safeguarding procedure detailed above.

ONS is the UK’s largest independent producer of statistics, with the objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. We are bound by data protection laws that set out how we process and keep your data safe.

ONS will process your personal data as is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest and for statistical purposes. ONS is the Data Controller of any personal data collected as part of this exercise, which means that ONS decides what data is collected, how it is used, and how it is managed.

You have rights available to you under data protection law, such as to ask ONS as the Data Controller to provide you with access to the data we hold about you, to correct any incorrect information we hold about you and to object to us processing your personal data. In some circumstances you have the right to ask us to erase or stop processing your personal data or pass information we hold about you to another Data Controller.

If you wish to use any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer (see information below). However, please be aware that we may not be required to comply if the data is being held for statistical purposes only.

You can visit the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to get further information on the rights available to you and the circumstances under which you can exercise them. You also have the right to raise a complaint with the (ICO).

Our Data Protection Officer provides ONS with advice and guidance on protecting personal data. Please email the Data Protection Team at DPO@statistics.gov.uk. If you have any queries regarding your data, wish to exercise any of your rights, or wish to make a complaint about how your personal data is being handled.

You can also find further relevant contact details in the ONS corporate privacy notice.