The Berkshire Lieutenancy

Privacy policy

This privacy policy tells you what to expect when the Berkshire Lieutenancy collects, processes, shares and stores your personal data.

When you contact us:

  • Personal data you provide about yourself (for example, your name and contact details).

When a third party contacts us on your behalf:

  • Personal data provided by a third party such as your name, contact details and specific circumstances. This could be from friends, family, employers or government agencies.

When you are invited to attend a Royal event or visit a Royal site either by us or a third party:

  • Your name and contact details;
  • On some occasions, we may also collect your date of birth and place of birth, and whether or not you have a criminal record (for security accreditation purposes), dietary requirements, details of any required special access arrangements, and details of your vehicle if applicable;
  • If you are eligible to bring a companion, we may also collect their information;
  • Your image may appear in footage from CCTV security cameras around the Royal residences, galleries and shops.

When you meet a Member of The Royal Family, or their representative during a visit, reception or other event:

  • Information about you is usually provided to us by the organisation or body you are connected with or affiliated to.

When you visit our website or interact with us via social media:

  • Your IP address and browsing preferences and choices.

We may collect information about you from a number of source. These include:

  • From you when you contact or interact with us by telephone, email or post, or when you communicate with us through social media;
  • From forms we may ask you to complete;
  • From public sources;
  • From organisations/bodies you are connect to or affiliated with, when they provide your information to us for events/meetings or if you are meeting a Member of The Royal Family or their representative.

In some cases we collect the data out of a contractual necessity e.g. so both the Berkshire Lieutenancy and you are fulfilling the obligations set out in our supplier terms and conditions or any contract that may be in place.

Other times we collect the data because it is a legitimate interest of the organisation to process the information, for example, to log any correspondence you send us and respond accordingly. We process visitor and guest information to be able to send out invitations for meetings or events. We provide information to Members of The Royal Family, or their representative(s) so that they know who they will be meeting and why.

In other cases, we hold the information because you have given us your consent. If the basis for collecting and processing your data is based on your active consent, you also have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.

We process your data in order to:

  • Record any correspondence we receive and respond accordingly;
  • Send out invitations to meetings and events;
  • Know who will be visiting Royal sites for security, and health and safety purposes;
  • Provide Members of The Royal Family, or their representative(s) with information about who they will be meeting and why;
  • Enter into contracts with suppliers and to pay them for goods and services received;
  • Send press releases, operational notes and media advisories.

Your personal data is stored in a number of ways:

  • In paper files stored securely;
  • In software systems which are managed on the Berkshire Lieutenancy network (operated on its behalf by Reading Borough Council) or by a third party supplier

We may share your data with and/or obtain information from some third parties:

Service providers

We work with selected service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf, for example:

  • Stationery providers and other companies who produce event invitations for us;
  • Third party providers for the management of cookies on our website;
  • Social media providers to deliver our social media presence.

Other organisations

We may share personal data with other organisations in the following circumstances:

  • Our legal representatives e.g. solicitors, in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights;
  • Government departments or Independent Parliamentary Bodies, where we are required to by law or by a public authority or when such organisations are better placed to facilitate a response or to help resolve a query contained within a letter.
  • The Diocese of Oxford in relation to safeguarding concerns.

We take the security of your data very seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your data is retained appropriately, and is not accessed except by our employees or authorised third parties in the proper performance of their duties.

Where we engage or work with third parties to process personal data on our behalf, they do so, on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality, and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data in line with the relevant legislation.

We retain your data in line with our retention schedules as agreed with the Information Assurance team of Reading Borough Council (on behalf of the Berkshire Lieutenancy). Some personal data may be kept indefinitely as it is stored in the Royal Berkshire Archives for reasons of historic interest.

The Berkshire Lieutenancy website does not store or capture personal information; it logs the user’s IP address which is automatically recognised by the web server.

We do not use cookies for collecting user information and will not collect any information about you except that required for system administration of our web server.

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

  • access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
  • ask us to change incorrect or incomplete data;
  • ask us to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
  • object to the processing of your data where we are relying on our legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing;
  • request a copy of the data you have provided to us in an agreed format, so that you can reuse it or transfer it to another data controller if you wish;
  • ask us if we use automated decision making or profiling when processing your data.

Please contact us at: Office of the Lieutenancy for Berkshire, The Royal Berkshire Archives, 9 Coley Avenue, Reading, Berkshire RG1 6AF or email lord.lieutenant@reading.gov.uk.

If you have concerns about the use of your personal data, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is an independent body set up to uphold information rights in the UK.

They can be contacted through their website: www.ico.org.uk or their helpline on 0303 123 1113, or in writing to: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

1 May 2024