Urgent Telephone Weekends : 01233 331111

Data Protection Complaints

From June 2026, the Data Use and Access Act 2025 allows you to make a data protection complaint directly to us.  

What is a Data Protection complaint?

You can make a data protection complaint if you believe we have breached UK GDPR and this has affected you directly. For example, your complaint may be about:

  • How we have handled your subject access request or another individual rights request. Find out more about your rights on our Visit our individual rights page
  • How we have collected, used or managed your personal information, for example:

o   where your information is stored
o   how long it is kept
o   whether it is accurate 

  • A personal data breach, including:

o   How you have been affected by the data breach
o   The security measures used to protect you information.

What isn’t a Data Protection Complaint?

A data protection complaint does not include:

  • A complaint about another council service, even if you are also exercising your data protection rights.
    For example, a complaint about Housing where you also request copies of your personal information. Please use our general service complaints form to leave a comment or compliment about a council service.
  • A complaint about how we have handled a Freedom of information (FOI) request. These complaints are dealt with through our FOI internal review procedure.

How we will handle your data protection complaint:

When we receive your complaint, we will:

  • Acknowledge it as soon as possible. We may ask you to clarify details or provide proof of identity or authority if someone is acting on your behalf.
  • Investigate your complaint without delay.
  • Provide a response explaining the outcome as soon as possible and no later than one calendar month.
  • Keep you informed if we need more time to complete our investigation. 

If you are not happy with our response, you should first follow our internal review procedure. If you remain unhappy after the review, you can complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.   

You can complain to the ICO at any point.

How to make a data protection complaint

You can submit a complaint in any of the following ways:

Find out how to contact the council via telephone, email or in person.

How we use your personal information

Ashford Borough Council is the data controller for the personal information you provide when making a data protection complaint.  We will use your information to manage and respond to your complaint.  This processing is carried out under our legal obligations in the Data Use and Access Act 2025, the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.  

Your information may be shared with relevant council departments where necessary to deal with your complaint. We will not share your information with third parties unless we are legally required or permitted to do so.

We will keep your complaint and related information for six years.

For more information about your data protection rights, please see the Council’s data protection pages or contact the Data Protection Officer at Ashford Borough Council, International House, Dover Place, Ashford, TN23 1HU.