General information
The Suffolk Register Office is part of Suffolk County Council, and is responsible for the registration of, and the provision of certificates for, births, deaths, marriages, and civil partnerships that have taken place in Suffolk. It’s necessary for us to collect and use personal data in order to fulfil these duties.
The processing of personal data is governed by the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018), as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (DUAA), collectively referred to as data protection law.
This privacy notice explains how the Suffolk Register Office uses information about you when you contact us or use our services, and how we protect your privacy.
The Superintendent Registrar is a data controller for the personal information that is processed for birth, marriage, and death registrations. Suffolk County Council is the controller for the personal information that is processed for civil partnership registrations. Both can be contacted at:
Suffolk Register Office
Endeavour House
8 Russell Road
Ipswich,
IP1 2BX
The Registrar General for England and Wales is a joint data controller for birth, marriage, death and civil partnership registrations and can be contacted at:
General Register Office
Trafalgar Road
Southport
PR8 2HH
Contact details for the council’s Data Protection Officer and Compliance Manager can be found in the council’s corporate privacy notice, which is available on the council’s website.
What is personal data?
Personal data includes information about you, which can be used to identify you as an individual. Examples include:
- Your name
- Your date of birth
- Your contact details
- Your image
Special category data is the most sensitive type of personal data and includes:
- Information about your health or any social care services that you may use
- Information that could identify your racial or ethnic origins
- Information that could identify your political beliefs
- Information that could identify your religious or philosophical beliefs
- Information that could identify your trade union membership
- Genetic data
- Biometric data (where used to identify you, e.g. use of fingerprints to access online services)
- Information about your sex life, or sexual orientation
The types of personal data that we process and where it comes from
For a detailed list of the types of personal data that we collect, and where it comes from, please see the table at the bottom of this privacy notice document.
In addition to the details provided in the document, data may also be collected from you if you make an application to this office, for example for a certificate or to correct information contained in a register entry.
The information you provide will be held and processed by registration officers for this registration district.
Do you have to provide your information to us?
Personal information collected from you in order to register an event is required by law.
The main legislation which governs the collection of registration information is the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the Marriage Act 1949 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004.
You may be legally obliged by these acts, and other pieces of legislation, to provide certain pieces of information. If you fail to provide information you are required to give us you may, amongst other things, be liable to a fine, or we may not be able to provide the service you are applying for, such as a marriage or a civil partnership.
Why do we process your personal data?
Our reasons for using personal information include:
- delivery of services and support to you
- managing our services
- training workers
- investigating complaints about our services
- monitoring and protecting public spending
- monitoring the quality of our services to ensure they are delivered in the most efficient and effective way
- helping us to improve and plan new services
- complying with laws that require us to provide personal information to other organisations, such as health organisations and courts
Our legal basis for processing your information
Under data protection law, the Suffolk Register Office can only process your personal data if it is lawful to do so.
For processing personal data, we rely on the following lawful basis(es):
Sharing your information
The Suffolk Register Office does require us to share personal information with third party organisations where there is a lawful basis for doing so and for the following reasons:
- Statistical or research purposes
- Administrative purposes by official bodies e.g. ensuring their records are up-to-date in order to provide services to the public
- Fraud prevention or detection, immigration and passport purposes
Section 19AA of the Registration Service Act permits sharing of data between public bodies where a data sharing agreement has been approved and signed by both parties, and, if more than 1,000 records are to be shared, additional approval is required by the Registrar General.
The Suffolk Registration Office shares the following data under this provision:
- National register log 2613 – sharing of death registration data with Suffolk County Council Blue Badge, Adult Care Services, Children’s Services, Trading Standards & Finance teams
- National register log 141– sharing of death registration data with Housing & Benefit teams at Suffolk District & Borough Councils
- National Register Log 414 – Sharing of death registration data with Norfolk & Suffolk Foundation Trust
A copy of the information collected by a registration officer will also be sent to the Registrar General for England and Wales so that a central record of all registrations can be maintained.
Registration information held at this office may also be shared with other organisations in the course of carrying out our functions, or to enable others to perform theirs.
Please see part 2 - Sharing of Registration Information, at the bottom of this document which contains full details about what information is shared, with which organisation, and the lawful basis for doing so
In addition to sharing information with other organisations, a copy of any register entry will be provided in accordance with the law to any applicant, provided they supply enough information to identify the entry concerned and pay the appropriate fee. The copy may only be issued in the form of a paper certified copy (a “certificate”). An application for a certificate may also be made to the General Register Office.
Indexes for events registered at this office are publicly available in order to help members of the public identify the registration record they might need. Indexes are available for public searching for which a statutory fee applies.
Whether we intend to transfer your information to another country
We do not transfer any personal data to any countries or international organisations outside of the EU, the EEA (European Economic Area), or any other country that does not have an equivalent level of data protection to the UK.
How long we keep your information
We keep personal data for as long as we need it to fulfil the purpose that it was collected for, and in line with any statutory or locally determined retention periods.
Registration information is retained indefinitely as required by law
Information collected during the booking of appointments and ceremonies and for certificate orders is retained for 2 years. At which point is is securely destroyed.
Automated decision-making and profiling
The Suffolk Register Office does use automated decision-making processes or profiling in respect of your information.
Your rights under data protection law
Under data protection law, you have the right to request access to the information
that we hold about you. If you would like to make a request to access your personal
information, please contact data.protection@suffolk.gov.uk.
You also have other rights regarding your personal data. You can find out more information about these rights by looking at the council’s corporate privacy notice.
Your right to independent advice
If you would like independent advice on this privacy notice or other matters about how Suffolk County Council processes your personal data, including how to make a complaint, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office at:
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Email: casework@ico.org.uk
