How we use your information
The Returning Officer for Aberdeen City processes information about you, which is received from the Electoral Registration Officer, in the form of the Electoral Register.
They have a statutory duty to process certain personal data to administer elections and referenda. Examples of how your personal data is used include producing polling cards (the card you receive prior to a poll), the production of postal votes, the verification of postal vote statements and the creation of corresponding number lists.
The Returning Officer shares the information with the Council employees involved with the running of the election/referenda, electoral staff such as Presiding Officers and Polling Clerks, The Electoral Registration Office, Police Scotland (if required), specialist printing companies and postal vote management partners.
The Marked Registers include your name, address and elector number. They are statutorily available for public inspection and purchase by certain bodies such as political parties.
The Returning Officer is required by law to protect the public funds they administer. In order to prevent and detect fraud, information may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds.
How long we will keep your information for
The personal data we hold from the process of administering elections or referenda will be deleted when it is no longer required by law, which is 1 year after the poll.
Your rights
You’ve got legal rights about the way the Returning Officer handles and uses your data, which include the right to ask for a copy of it, and to ask us to stop doing something with your data. Please email the Returning Officer on elections@aberdeencity.gov.uk or write to:
The Returning Officer
Aberdeen City Council
Election Office
Town House
Aberdeen
AB10 1FY
See more information about all the rights you have. The Information Commissioner’s Office are responsible for making sure organisations like the Council handle your data properly and in line with the law.
Our legal basis
The Returning Officer is the Data Controller for this information. Whenever we process personal data we have to make sure we have a basis for doing so in data protection law. We understand our basis for processing this information to be Article 6(1)(e) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is because 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 Returning Officer.