Freedom of Information and Data Protection

Freedom of Information

The Children’s Commissioner must comply with the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

This gives you a right to ask for and be given the information we hold, unless we can give you a good reason for not providing you with it.

Requesting information

The Government of Jersey’s Central FOI Unit co-ordinates all Freedom of Information requests on behalf of this office.  If you want to see any information that we hold, please go to this webpage to find out how you can make a request.

Data Protection

When you contact us, we will use the personal information you provide to us to allow us to respond to you.

You can find out more about how we look after the personal information you provide us by reading our privacy notice.

For more information about your rights and how you can exercise them please visit the website of the Jersey Office of the Information Commissioner.

Accessing information about yourself

Subject access requests

The Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 provides you with a right to access personal data which is processed about you by a controller, such as our office.

You can ask

• Whether your personal data is being processed by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner
• The purposes for which your data is being or is to be processed
• The categories of personal data concerned
• The recipients or classes of recipients to whom your data may be disclosed
• How long the data is likely to be kept for
• Where the data was collected from if not from our office
• About any automated decision making about your personal data and the reasons behind it
• About safeguards in place where data is transferred to a third country (usually meaning outside Europe) or any international organisation

You also have rights to

• Lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority
• Request rectification, erasure, restriction of processing (under certain circumstances)
• Object to processing on the basis of direct marketing, legitimate interest or public function
• Request for your data to be provided in a structured machine readable format in order to transmit to another data controller

You can also request a copy of the data that our office holds about you.

Before making a subject access request

You can only ask for personal data about yourself, or about someone you have a right to ask about, such as a child you have parental responsibility for. If the information you’re requesting is not about yourself or someone you have a right to make a request on behalf of, your request may be refused.

Should you wish to request information about our office which is not personal information, you can make a ‘Freedom of Information’ request (see section above 'Freedom of Information').

 Redactions and exemptions

Just like FOI, there is certain information which cannot be released as part of your subject access request. The reasons for this include (but are not limited to):

• Personal details about other people
• Information which is subject to ongoing court proceedings
• Information which would reveal management information or other confidential information
• If your information is redacted or withheld for any reason we will inform you of this

How to make a subject access request

• Email us 
• Write to: Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Jersey, Brunel House, 3 Old Street, St Helier, JE2 3RG

You will need to provide your real name and contact details when you make a subject access request. If it helps to structure your request, you can click on the link at the end of this section and download the form, which you can then send to us using the contact details above.

You do not need to pay to make a subject access request.

Timescales

You will receive a response to your request within four weeks. However, if the information you ask for is very complex, large in volume, covers a broad period of time or covers a lot of areas, this may mean that it could take longer. In these cases, the law allows for an extension of a further eight weeks. If this is the case, we will contact you to let you know within four weeks of your initial request.

We may contact you to help you refine or clarify your information request so that we can respond more quickly.

Questions or complaints

If you have a question or a complaint about a subject access request you have made, please contact us.