NERC Information Charter
Your privacy is important to us. We may need to handle personal information about you so that we can provide services for you. This charter is intended to give you confidence in the security of that information by explaining what we do with it.
If we ask you for personal information, we promise:
- to tell you why we need it;
- to only ask for what we need;
- to look after it and make sure it's only accessible to those with a genuine need to see it;
- to let you know where information is shared between organisations to give you better services - and to give you the opportunity to say no to this where we can;
- to make sure we don't keep it longer than necessary; and
- not to make your personal information available for commercial use without your permission.
In return, we ask you to:
- give us accurate information; and
- tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes, such as a new address.
This helps us to keep your information reliable and up to date.
You can get more details on:
- how to find out what information we hold about you and how to ask us to correct any mistakes;
- agreements we have with other organisations for sharing information;
- circumstances where we can pass on your personal information without telling you, for example, to prevent and detect crime, to produce anonymised statistics, or where we are required to do so by a relevant authority;
- our instructions to staff on how to we handle personal information;
- how we check the information we hold is accurate and up to date; and
- how to make a complaint about how we hold or use your information.
NERC, together with the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS), and partner organisations, has signed up to these shared principles for handling your information.
For more information, contact the NERC Data Protection Officer (data.protection@nerc.ac.uk).
When we ask you for information, we will keep to the law, including the Data Protection Act 1998. For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data-sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 08456 30 60 60
NERC Information Security
Ultimate responsibility for government security policy lies with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office. Public bodies, such as NERC via its Chief Executive, must assess and manage their security risks within the parameters set out in the Government's Security Policy Framework 
.
Core government security principles:
- All government employees (including contractors) have a collective responsibility to ensure that government assets (information, personnel and physical) are protected in a proportionate manner from illegal or malicious activity.
- Departments and agencies must be able to share information (including personal data) confidently knowing it is reliable, accessible and protected to agreed standards irrespective of format or transmission mechanism.
- Departments and agencies must employ staff (and contractors) in whom they can have confidence and whose identities are assured.
- Government business needs to be resilient in the face of major disruptive events, with plans in place to minimise damage and rapidly recover capabilities.
For further information contact information.security@nerc.ac.uk.