Funeral Sector Inspectorate and Funeral Director Licensing Scheme: privacy notice

Who we are

We are the Burial, Cremation, Anatomy and Death Certification Team and are part of the Health Protection Division in the Population Health Directorate of the Scottish Government. We are located at St Andrew’s House, Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG. 

Why we need your personal information

We want to provide reliable, relevant and direct information about the implementation of the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 (‘2016 Act’), and related regulations, codes of practice and guidance which impact the funeral sector. We also want to continue providing important information about other key policy changes which may impact you or your business/organisation, for example those related to Covid-19 restrictions.

We are asking all funeral sector businesses and organisations operating in Scotland to tell us their type of business (e.g. funeral director, burial authority, cremation authority or other), and their business/organisation name, address and email contact details. This information will allow us to communicate effectively and appropriately with funeral sector businesses and organisations.

We are also asking you to agree to us retaining that information, as per the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), only for as long as necessary for the purpose of providing you with the important updates noted above. We will regularly review our information and erase or anonymise personal data when we no longer need it. 

The sign up page allows you to provide your details, so that they can be added to a list of funeral sector businesses and organisations being developed by The Scottish Government Health Protection Division. The list is being created for the purposes of establishing a future register of the funeral sector, particularly funeral directors operating in Scotland and will enable us to contact you about licensing and other important information about the regulation of the funeral sector.   

We are the data controller in respect of any personal data that you provide when you agreed to allow us to use and process your contact information. 

What is our lawful basis

The lawful bases being relied on to process your personal information are set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

• Article 6(1)(c) ‘the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject’; and
• Article 6(1)(e) ‘processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller’.

What we will do with your data

We will use your information to establish a database of those working in the funeral sector in Scotland as part of the creation of the Funeral Sector Inspectorate. We will also send you updates on upcoming changes to the law or guidance affecting you or your business or organisation. The updates will include, for example, details about the Funeral Director Code of Practice, the Funeral Sector Inspectorate and the upcoming licensing scheme for funeral directors. The updates may also include details about wider changes such as those related to COVID-19 restrictions.

How long is your data kept

We will keep your data for no longer than is necessary for the purpose of providing you with the important updates noted above. We will regularly review our information and erase or anonymise personal data when we no longer need it.

How your data will be collected and stored

Data will be collected via the sign-up page to the blog. We store all data confidentially on secure servers and in accordance with data protection legislation.

What are your rights

You have a right to ask us to erase any personal data we hold about you. You are able to make this request at any time.

You have a right of access to any personal data we hold about you by making a Subject Access Request (SAR).

In addition, if you believe that the data we hold is inaccurate or incomplete you can ask us to update our records by contacting dpa@gov.scot

To find out more about the rights you have over your personal data, please visit the ICO website Your data matters | ICO

Complaints

If you have concerns about the way we process and handle your personal information, in the first instance you should raise your concerns with our Data Protection Officer by email to DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scot.

If you are not satisfied with the response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can raise this with the UK regulator for data protection, the Information Commissioner (ICO), you access information on how to do here Raising a concern with an organisation | ICO