Births, Marriages, Deaths, Civil Partnerships and Citizenship

  1. Summary

    This privacy notice explains what personal information the Registration Service collects about you, what it is used for and who it is provided to. The notice also describes why we collect and use your data, and the legal basis on which we do this. This privacy notice relates to the Births, Marriages, Deaths, Civil Partnerships and Citizenship Services within the Council. It provides additional information that specifically relates to this particular service, and should be read together with our general privacy notice, which provides more detail.

    The information you provide for registrations will be held and processed by registration officers for this registration district.

    The Superintendent Registrar is a joint data controller for birth, marriage and death registrations and can be contacted at: Manchester Register Office, Heron House, 47 Lloyd Street, Manchester, M2 5LE.

    The Registrar General for England and Wales is also a joint data controller for birth, marriage, death and civil partnership registrations and can be contacted at the General Register Office, Trafalgar Road, Southport, PR8 2HH.

    The Council is the data controller for civil partnership registrations and Citizenship, and can be contacted at: Manchester City Council, Legal Services, PO Box 532 Town Hall, Manchester, M60 2LA.
     

  2. What personal information does this service use?

    For registration, this information includes:
    ●    name
    ●    date of birth / death / still birth / marriage / civil partnership
    ●    place of birth
    ●    occupation
    ●    nationality
    ●    address
    ●    marital / civil partnership status
    ●    current contact details

    For Citizenship this information includes:
    ●    full name and name at birth, if different
    ●    date of birth
    ●    place of birth
    ●    gender
    ●    your address or your solicitors address, but not both.
     

  3. What is your personal information used for?

    We need to collect, hold and/or use personal information about you in order to comply with legal requirements and to provide our services in relation to the registration of births, deaths, still births, marriages and civil partnerships and Citizenship. Information is also used to maintain our own accounts and records, and to monitor/assess our performance and set targets for our service are at summary, not individual level.

  4. What is the lawful basis we are relying on?

    We collect, hold and use personal information only where it is necessary, and we do so where we are required to by law (Art 6(1)(c) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (‘UK GDPR’)), or, where we are not required, where it is necessary to perform our public tasks as a Council. (Art 6(1)(e)) of the UK GDPR.

    The Population (Statistics) Act 1938 authorises the collection at registration of certain particulars from which statistical analyses about the fertility of the population are compiled. Because these particulars are of a personal nature, they are not entered in the register nor held permanently on the electronic registration system but are disclosed to the UK Statistics Authority and are always treated as confidential.

    We collect and use special category personal information primarily when it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (which is for a statutory purpose) (Art 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR).

    We may also use special category personal information where it is necessary for legal cases (Art 9(2)(f) of the UK GDPR) or where it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes (Art 9(2)(j) of the UK GDPR).

    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 legally be obliged under these acts, and other pieces of legislation, to provide certain pieces of information to us. 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.
     

  5. Where has the personal information come from?

    The majority of personal information will be provided by you.  
    In order to carry out citizenship ceremonies, we are provided with personal information about you by the Home Office in the form of a certificate.

  6. Who will we share your personal information with?

    A copy of any register entry will be provided by this office 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 for registrations in Manchester are available in manual books, which can be accessed by appointment, for a statutory fee; or by accessing the General Register Office indexes online. They are also available at Archives+ in Central Library.

    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 be shared with other organisations in the course of carrying out our functions, or to enable others to perform theirs.

    We will only share information where there is a lawful basis to do so for the following reasons:
    ●    statistical or research purposes
    ●    administrative purposes by official bodies e.g. ensuring that records are up-to-date in order to provide services to the public
    ●    fraud prevention or detection, immigration and passport purposes.

    Further information on data held by the registration service and a full list of the organisations with whom registration data is shared, the purpose and the lawful basis for sharing the data can be found by requesting a copy of Annex A from Manchester Register Office, Heron House, 47 Lloyd Street, Manchester M2 5LE.
     

  7. How long will we keep your information?

    Registration data is retained indefinitely, as required by law.

    Our retention schedule sets out how long we keep personal information for.

  8. Your personal information and your rights

    You can find out more about your rights regarding the personal information used for this service. Your rights apply to the information held by the Superintendent Registrar or the Council as a data controller, and the information we hold on behalf of the other data controllers.

  9. Contacting us about your data and updates

    If you have any questions or concerns about how we use your personal information, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer or the Superintendant Registrar.

    You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you're unhappy about how we process your information.

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