Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, each local authority is required, by law, to appoint a Returning Officer.  This is a personal appointment separate from Falkirk Council and the local authority's statutory duties. 

This privacy notice explains what information we collect, what we use the information for, and who it might be shared with to enable the Returning Officer to comply with their statutory duties under the Representation of the People Act 1983 to administer elections and referendums. 

The information is being collected for the following purpose:

1. To deliver statutory duties under the Representation of the People 1983 and other relevant election legislation, within the Council’s local authority area, including the administration of elections and referendums. 

The legal basis for each purpose is set out below:

We collect information in relation to voters, including where we require to make provision for absent or postal voters, voting by proxy or voting by those who may need adaptations to the voting process.  This may require us to collect special category data about health. 

We collect information relating to candidates, candidates’ agents and individuals subscribing candidate nomination papers.  This may require us to collect special category data, such as information on political opinions included in nomination papers. 

We collect information relating to staff employed by the Returning Officer to support the election and referendum process, including names, addresses, contact details, date of birth, national insurance number and bank details. 

We collect information relating to individuals making enquiries, complaints and requests or making submissions to statutory consultation. 

We collect information from you, as a voter, an election employee, a candidate or their representative or agent.

To enable us to carry out electoral functions, there may be a requirement to share personal information with:

• The Electoral Commission
• Contracted electoral technology suppliers (e.g. printing companies)
• Electoral Registration Office
• Police Scotland
• Electoral Courts

For certain elections, we may need to share information with other Returning Officers and local authorities. For spending returns in certain elections, we may need to share information with the UK or Scottish Government.

Where staff are appointed to support the Returning Officer's functions, we may also share information about those staff with the appropriate departments within the Council and HMRC.

We may also need to make any disclosures required by law and may also share information with other bodies responsible for preventing or detecting fraud or auditing and administering public funds.

We may need to appoint other organisations to carry out some activities on our behalf, such as printing and mailing or providing consultancy services.

We are legally obliged to publish certain personal information, such as that relating to candidates and election agents.

We do not routinely transfer your information outwith the UK.  If there is a transfer to another country because of the voting technology used, then we will ensure there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect that information. 

We keep your information for the minimum period necessary to fulfil our statutory functions.  This may be based on legal requirements or business need.  You can find more details on our Business Classification and Retention Schedule.

You do not have to provide information to us, but this may result in you not being able to exercise your right to vote or stand as a candidate. 

If you are a postal voter, we use your information to make decisions through automated means when personal identifiers that you provide are checked against those contained in your original postal vote application.

In any case where the automated process reports that the personal identifiers you have provided do not match those on your original postal vote application, there will be an intervention by a human being who will make a final decision (i.e. there will always be the involvement of a human decision-maker where the result of the automated process indicates the possibility of a decision to your detriment). 

This notice was first published September 2025.