Cereal survey: news and guidance

Privacy Notice

Under Article 6(1)(e) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we are notifying you that the Scottish Government (the data controller) collect and process these data for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. Data are collected under the Agriculture (Retained EU Law and Data) (Scotland) Act 2020 Part 2. Data will only be collected and processed for the purposes specified in Section 17 part 4 of this legislation.

How we will store your data

We will hold all of the data confidentially on a secure server and in line with data protection legislation. We will store the data for as long as the information is required for statistical analysis, this will be reviewed every year.

What we will do with your data

This survey collects data on cereal production and disposals in Scotland. The results are used for:

• measuring the importance of cereal farming within the economy
• developing policies for the benefit of the industry
• contributing to estimates of GDP for Scotland and the UK
• the UK’s Cereal Balance Sheet

The results of this survey are published only as grouped information or averages, from which it is impossible to identify data from an individual farm business.

The Agriculture (Retained EU Law and Data) (Scotland) Act 2020 Sections 13 - 18 and the lawful basis of ‘public task’ under Article 6(1)(e) of UK GDPR allows us to process and share this data with authorised research institutes, universities and other government agencies, for research purposes. With each request to share information, we review the arrangements that the receiving body must securely hold the data, and the purposes of the research. There are strict criteria used to ensure acceptable conditions are met before we share data.   

If we do share the data, it is done so under data sharing agreements which include strict confidentiality restrictions covering how the data is securely stored, limiting access to only people who require it, ensuring that data is deleted after use and that no publications identify individuals or individual businesses.  

In all of these cases your data will be combined with others responding to this survey before publication of results so that your individual business cannot be identified.  

Complaints 

You can complain about the way your data has been handled during this Survey through the Scottish Government Data Protection Team (dpa@gov.scot). You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office. You can contact them via email at Scotland@ico.org.uk.