Personal information charter
Source: gov.uk (2025-10-10)

When we need to handle personal information about you, this is how we look after that information.

Nuclear Waste Services Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice applies to:

Any interactions we have with you via our websites, such as submissions of enquiries, FOI requests or technical data we may collect from you via cookies (see our cookie policy (https://www.gov.uk/help/cookies) for more details)

Any interactions we have with you in person and electronically, including via social media platforms, and including around our work in relation to the Geological Disposal Facility (“GDF”) siting process

This Privacy Notice explains what personal data we process, why we do so, our legal bases for collecting your personal data, and your rights in relation to this.

About us and this Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice is provided by Nuclear Waste Services Limited (“NWS” or we” or “us”). Our registered office is located at Pelham House, Pelham Drive, Calderbridge, Seascale, Cumbria, United Kingdom, CA20 1DB, and we are registered in England and Wales (Company no. 13551995).

We are a ‘controller’ for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the UK Data Protection Act 2018 (“Data Protection Laws”). This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are also registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”).

We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice sets out the standards you can expect from us when we collect, hold or use your personal information.

We ask that you read this Privacy Notice carefully as it contains important information about our processing and your rights.

How to contact us

If you need to contact us about this Privacy Notice or would like this Privacy Notice in another format (for example, audio, large print) please use the details below:

Data Protection OfficerNuclear Waste ServicesPelham HousePelham DriveCalderbridgeCumbriaCA20 1DB

Telephone number: xx-xxxx-xxxx

xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx)

Changes to the Privacy Notice

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. Changes to the purposes for which we process your data will be highlighted to you.

This Privacy Notice was last updated on 9 October 2025

What information we collect

Information provided by you:
- We collect information when you interact with us in person or electronically via email or our contact forms.
- Website visitors – if you are just browsing our website, we will collect cookies. Please see section below.
The information collected may include the following categories of personal data (not exhaustive):
- Name
- Contact details
- Social media handle (if you contact us via social media)
- Information provided by you in general enquiries (and feedback if provided)
- Job title and industry sector (if provided)
- Place of work (if provided)
- Information about your attendance at NWS events (if provided)
- Nationality (if provided when visiting our buildings)
- NI number (if provided when visiting our buildings)
- Date of birth (if provided when visiting our buildings)
- Images of you, your background and audio stream and personal opinions shared (if you participate in recorded video calls via O365 Teams)
- Technical data (including IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types)
Information provided by third parties:

We proactively try to identify individuals in a position of authority or who have an interest in nuclear waste management such as politicians, key figures within local authorities, community group and business group leaders so that we can engage with them about our work and discuss key issues. To do this we may collect certain information about you from other third-party sources.

This includes information such as your name and contact details obtained from publicly available sources (e.g. organisations’ websites and social media) and from databases collated by third parties. We will only collect name, contact details and any opinion on the subject of nuclear waste management which is offered publicly. If any stakeholder does not want to receive further communications from us, they can opt out of our communications at any time.

Why we use your information:

The below table provides a summary of the types of personal information (also known as personal data) we collect direct from you, as well information about why we use it and what lawful ground we rely on to justify our use. For more information about lawful grounds for processing, please refer to the heading ‘Lawful grounds for processing’ below.

Lawful grounds for processing

We rely upon the following legal bases under Article 6 UK GDPR to process your personal data:

Public task

NWS can carry out data processing activities if the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest of for official functions, which have a clear basis in law.

Data subjects have the right to object to processing of personal data on the grounds of legitimate interests. See the ‘Data Subject Rights’ to find out more.

Legal obligation

NWS are subject to legal obligations for processing your personal data. For example, if you apply for a job with NWS, the law requires us to check that candidates are entitled to work in the UK. You may provide us with information about reasonable adjustments you require under the Equality Act 2010 and we are allowed to process your personal information in order to comply with our legal obligations under the Act. We may also process information to safeguard the health and safety of people affected by, or working for, our projects.

Consent

Sometimes NWS would like to use your personal data in a way that is entirely optional for you, such as sending you our regular news and communications and invitations to our public events and meetings. On these occasions, we will ask for your clear consent to use your personal data. If you no longer wish to receive newsletters or updates, please click the “unsubscribe” link in the emails or contact us using the details in the “How to contact us” section to withdraw your consent at any time.

Legitimate interest

NWS are permitted to process your personal data if it is based on our ‘legitimate interests’. This means we have good, sensible, practical reasons for processing your personal data which is in the interests of NWS or a third party. To do so, we have considered the necessity of the processing and the impact on your interests, rights, and freedoms and have placed appropriate safeguards to ensure that the intrusion on your privacy minimal.

Data subjects reserve the right to object to processing of personal data on the grounds of legitimate interests. See the ‘Data Subject Rights’ to find out more.

How we keep your personal data secure

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures in order to protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, accidental loss or alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access and any other unlawful forms of processing. We aim to ensure that the level of security and the measures adopted to protect your personal data are appropriate for the risks presented by the nature and use of your personal data.

Organisations with which we share your personal data

We may share personal data with the following organisations and for the following purposes:

For general management and oversight purposes, we share personal information with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (“NDA”), as we are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NDA, and the relevant government department that sponsors us (please contact us if you would like further information).

As part of the DCO application process (as explained in the “Why we use your information” section), we may provide the planning inspectorate with personal data processed during the course of responding to general enquiries and engaging in dialogue, meetings and public events.

Like any business or organisation, we use third party suppliers to assist with our operations such as web page hosting, customer relationship management system hosting, and other IT services. These third parties will process your personal data in order to carry out their services for us. We take steps to ensure that our service providers process your data in accordance with the Data Protection Laws, only use it in accordance with our contract with them, and keep it secure.

Other than stated above, we do not pass your personal data to third parties, unless required to do so by law or unless we have your consent to do so.

We do not sell or exchange our mailing list with other companies or organisations for marketing purposes.

Transfers of your personal data outside the UK

The service providers that we share your personal data with may, from time to time, transfer personal data outside the UK or European Economic Area. Any such international transfer of your data will be carried out in accordance with the Data Protection Laws to safeguard your privacy rights and give you remedies in the unlikely event of a security breach. If you would like more information about our processors and any international transfers of your data, please contact us using the details in the “How to contact us” section.

Retention and deletion of your personal data

We only retain your personal information for as long as we need it in order to provide you with the service you have requested from us.

Newsletters and updates

If you have subscribed to receive information from us via our news and communications or about our public events, we will keep your information until you tell us that you no longer want to receive these emails. You can unsubscribe or manage your preferences via the links in the emails. Alternatively, you can contact us via the details at the “How to contact us” section to unsubscribe.

General enquiries, including Community Investment Funding (CIF) enquiries

If you have contacted us with a general enquiry or question about NWS or CIF, you have participated in the GDF siting process or we have processed your data as part of our routine dialogue, meetings and public events, we will keep the data for a period of up to 20 years in order to evidence our engagement with stakeholders and members of the public as part of the planning applications which will be required to develop a GDF.

Freedom of Information

In relation to freedom of information requests, we will keep the data for 2 years, after this, details of the request will remain on the log but your personal data will be deleted.

Visitors to our buildings

If you visit our buildings or the Repository Site, your information will be held for 12 months.

How to request us to remove your information

You can ask us to remove your personal information from our systems by contacting us via the details above in the section ‘How to contact us’.

Cookies

Our web page uses cookies provided by the Government Digital Services. Please see gov.uk notice on cookies for more information. You will find the link at http://www.gov.uk/help/cookies.

Your data protection rights

You have the following rights under the Data Protection Laws:
- The right to be informed about our processing of your personal data
- The right of access to personal data relating to you (Data Subject Access Request)
- The right to correct any mistakes in your personal data
- The right to request that we erase your personal data in certain circumstances.
- The right to prevent or limit your personal data being processed
- The right to data portability
- The right to object to processing of your personal data
- The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling (Note: NWS does not use automated decision-making in any of its processes)
- The right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing or newsletters
- The right to withdraw your consent
If you would like to exercise your rights, please contact us using the details set out above in the “How to contact us” section. Please note that exceptions are applicable to some of these rights which we will apply in accordance with the law.

We will respond to any request to exercise your rights within a month of receiving your request, unless the request is particularly complex, in which case we will respond within three months. If we need to extend the deadline to three months, then we will inform you of this when we acknowledge receipt of your request.

Further information on how to complain

When you provide us with personal data, we will process it in accordance with the Data Protection Laws. If you would like further information on how we process your personal data, please contact us using the details in the “How to contact us” section.

If you believe your personal data has not been handled in accordance with this Privacy Notice, or if you would like to make a complaint about the way we have handled your personal data, please contact us using the details in the “How to contact us” section.

Once we receive your complaint, we will send you an initial acknowledgement to confirm that we have received it. The law requires us to do this within 30 days of the day after we receive the complaint; however, in most cases, we will provide an initial acknowledgement of your complaint within 5 working days of receipt.

When we provide the initial acknowledgement, we may ask you to provide further information or supporting evidence, including details of what decision you are unhappy about and the outcome you are seeking. We may also ask for proof of identity. If you are making the complaint on behalf of another person, we will need you to provide evidence that you have the authority to act on that person’s behalf, which may include evidence of power of attorney or a signed letter of authority.

Once you have provided proof of identity and any further required information, we will send you a further acknowledgement which will explain how we intend to proceed with the complaint investigation. We will also set a date by which you can expect a full response to your complaint. This will usually be within 30 days of receipt of proof of identity and any further required information, but in some circumstances, for example if the complaint is particularly complex, we may need longer to carry out the investigation. We will keep you updated on progress throughout the investigation and will provide you with a point of contact to whom you can address any further questions.

When we have completed our investigation, we will provide you with a full response, explaining how we investigated the complaint, the findings of the investigation, and the outcome, including any remedial actions that we have taken or propose to take.

If you remain dissatisfied following our response to your complaint, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”). Information about how to do this is available on the ICO’s website at https://www.ico.org.uk (https://www.ico.org.uk/).

In order to administer the complaints process, we need to keep a record of certain information about you, including your name, the date of your complaint, the details of the complaint, and the outcome. Our lawful basis for processing this information is our legal obligation to comply with UK GDPR. Where the complaint involves special category data, we rely on substantial public interest, and our condition under the Data Protection Act 2018 is statutory and government purposes, with the relevant statutory law being UK GDPR. The information we collect will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Notice. It will not be shared with any third parties and will be retained for two years after the date at which we resolve your complaint.