Privacy notice

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) is an initiative of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT).

At CIOT, we are committed to protecting and respecting individuals' privacy. This privacy notice explains what personal information we collect about you, how and why we process (collect, store, use and share) your personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us or make a complaint.

CIOT is regulated under European and UK data protection laws and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of your personal information for the purposes of those laws.

By 'personal information', we mean information which relates to you as an individual and tells us something about you.

1 The personal information we collect and use

1.1 Personal information we collect about you

When you contact us by post or email (via our website), the information we collect from you includes:

your contact details including name, title, telephone number, email address and postal address;

a description of your status (low income worker, pensioner, student, migrant, disabled person, in the armed forces, carer, journalist, adviser or other);
how you heard about us; and
any personal information contained in your enquiry to us and subsequent correspondence.

Sometimes, we will help you (or act on your behalf) to challenge your tax or tax credit treatment. In these circumstances, we may collect additional information from you including relating to your:

date of birth;
bank details;
employment, salary, tax and national insurance contributions;
family situation and childcare costs.

Some of the information collected about you may come from third parties such as credit reference agencies or government departments.

1.2 How we use your personal information

We use this information:

to respond to your enquiry and any follow-up correspondence from you;
to help you challenge your tax or tax credit treatment;
occasionally, to make a formal challenge to your tax or tax credit treatment on your behalf.

We may also use your information as anecdotal evidence to inform our policy representations and campaigning activities, but we will always anonymise it before doing so.

1.3 Who we share your personal information with

We will not share your information with anyone outside CIOT except as follows.

government departments and agencies, local councils, other charities and courts if necessary to help you and with your prior consent;
law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

1.4 Whether information has to be provided by you, and if so why

The provision of your personal information is entirely voluntary but we may not be able to assist you without it.

1.5 How long we keep your personal information for

We keep your personal information for 7 years from the end of our last communication with you.

1.6 The legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information

We process your personal information on the following legal bases:

that it is in our and your legitimate interests to assist members of the public in relation to low income-related tax and tax credit matters;
where applicable, that you have consented to the processing.

2 Your rights

2.1 Under data protection laws you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include the right to:

access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Notice is already designed to address;
require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold;
require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations;
receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit that information to a third party in certain situations;
object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing;
object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information;
otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

2.2 For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

2.3 To exercise any of those rights, email [email protected], making sure you include:

enough information to identify you;
proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill);
the information to which your request relates.

2.4 To unsubscribe from any marketing material you receive from us you can do so by contacting us at [email protected]. It may take up to five working days for this to take place.

3 Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected information security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected information security breach where we are legally required to do so.

4 How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information.

You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner. If you live or work elsewhere in the EU or EEA, you can also complain to your local supervisory authority.

5 Changes to this privacy notice

We may change this privacy notice from time to time – please check this page for any updates.

6 How to contact us

Send an email to [email protected] or write to The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, 30 Monck Street, London, SW1P 2AP.