Privacy notice for museum firearms licences and rifle or muzzle-loading pistol club approvals

This notice lets you know how the Scottish Government will handle any personal information relating to your firearms authorisation.

1) In order to process your authorisation the Scottish Government Firearms Unit may collect and handle information about you and/or your organisation. We may use this information to contact you about your authorisation at any time.

2) We may ask Police Scotland to conduct enquiries on our behalf and may share your information with, and obtain information about you from, Police Scotland for this purpose. This may include relevant information about your business/organisation, other firearms licences, your job role, your health and/or criminal offence data (i.e., any prior criminal offences, accusations or ongoing criminal proceedings/investigations), as well as your: name; date of birth; home address and contact information.

3) Information will be used to reach a decision as to whether you should be granted authorisation or not. If information necessary to make this decision is not made available then your application will be refused and, if necessary, any existing authorisation may be revoked.

4) If your application for authorisation is granted then the Scottish Government Firearms Unit will keep your information for 20 years.

5) General data processing is carried out in accordance with Article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), for the performance of functions of the Scottish Ministers that are in the public interest in accordance with the Firearms Act 1968 and/or the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. The processing of information relating to your health, which is considered to be special category data, is carried out in accordance with Article 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR, for the performance of functions of the Scottish Ministers for reasons of substantial public interest in accordance with the Firearms Act 1968 and/or the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. Processing of criminal offence data (including information about any prior criminal offences, accusations or ongoing criminal proceedings/investigations) is carried out for reasons of substantial public interest, for the performance of functions of the Scottish Ministers under the Firearms Act 1968 and/or the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, in accordance with Schedule 1 paragraph 6 of the UK GDPR.

Rights

Under data protection legislation you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• The right to be informed about how we use your personal data, which is done through this privacy notice
• The right to access copies of your personal data
• The right to have inaccurate to a matter of fact, or incomplete, data rectified
• The rights to have data deleted, or to object to or restrict our use of your data in certain circumstances
• These rights are not absolute and exemptions may be applied on a case-by-case basis.

6) For further information please write to the Firearms Unit, Safer Communities Division, Scottish Government, Regent Road, EH1 3DG. Alternatively please email firearms.enquiries@gov.scot.

If you wish to make a complaint about the handling of your personal data by the Scottish Government, please contact our Data Protection Officer: dataprotectionofficer@gov.scot.

Following this complaints process, you also have a right to make a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s independent authority on data protection: Make a complaint | ICO