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Privacy notice for the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and Environment (COT)

Information on the COT privacy notice, why we require data, what we do with the data and your rights.

The Food Standards Agency will be what is known as the ‘Controller’ of the personal data provided to us.

Why we need it

We need to collect this information for recruiting new members to the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and Environment and associated subgroups, and in carrying out the day-to-day business of running the Committee.  

We do this in line with the performance of our official duties. We will not collect any personal data from you which we do not need. 

Providing us with this information is a contractual requirement and failure to provide the information could result in you not being recruited onto the Committee or associated subgroups.

What we do with it

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary to carry out these functions, and in line with our retention policy. This means that this information will be retained for 18 months if you have applied to become a member of the COT and have been unsuccessful, and 12 months beyond the end date of your most recent appointment term if you have been appointed onto it. We will retain the personal information of co-opted members of subgroups for 12 months after the group has been disbanded. 

All the personal data we process is located on servers within the European Union. Our cloud based services have been procured through the government framework agreements and these services have been assessed against the national cyber security centre cloud security principles. 

No third parties have access to your personal data unless the law allows them to do so. In line with this commitment your information may be passed to other members of the recruitment panel who may not be FSA employees. Your information may also be passed to the Food Standard Agency’s (FSA) Chief Scientific Advisor's Team to consult you, or otherwise keep you informed of work related to your role on one of the FSA’s Scientific Advisory Committees.

Your rights

You have a right to see the information we hold on you by making a request in writing to the email address below. If at any point you believe the information we process on you is incorrect you can request to have it corrected. If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter. 

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).