You asked
Please answer the following questions:
- Where a member of the public contacts the Census contact centre by telephone or online, how long is the personal data collected such as call recordings or webchat transcripts retained? Are other records kept regarding contact with the contact centre and if so what is the retention period for personal information?
- When the Census is completed online I assume that data such as IP address data and possibly also other data such as information about the type of device and browser used is collected. Can you please confirm what data of this nature is collected when a Census questionnaire is filled in online and what the retention period for this kind of technical data is?
We said
Thank you for your request.
Where a member of the public contacts the Census contact centre by telephone or online, how long is the personal data collected such as call recordings or webchat transcripts retained? Are other records kept regarding contact with the contact centre and if so what is the retention period for personal information?
During the 2021 Census, there may be occasion to review calls and transcripts if ONS receive complaints about the contact centre. In this event the data will be securely transferred from the supplier to ONS and moved to a secure storage location accessible to only the ONS contact centre service team. At the end of the census it will be deleted as part of the decommissioning process.
At the end of the 2021 census the calls and transcripts captured by the Contact Centre will be securely transferred from the supplier to ONS to be stored within in a secure environment with restricted access. ONS will then verify that the supplier has destroyed all data that they hold following the agreed appropriate security guidance. The data held within ONS will allow analysis to be carried out to improve a user's journey for any future survey or census carried out by ONS. The retention of this data will be reviewed every 3-6 months to determine that the access for analysis is still required.
When the Census is completed online I assume that data such as IP address data and possibly also other data such as information about the type of device and browser used is collected. Can you please confirm what data of this nature is collected when a Census questionnaire is filled in online and what the retention period for this kind of technical data is?
When the Census is completed online, IP address data and other request header information such as the user agent is captured in webserver logs, this is used for technical operational purposes and problem determination. It is not stored alongside or linked with respondents Census form data. The log retention period is currently 365 days but this will be reviewed.