How do I respond to a request to correct or delete information?

Individuals have a right to request the correction of any personal information you hold about them (individuals can ask for their information to be corrected by way of removing or deleting information about them). If you decline to correct the information as requested, then the individual has the right to ask to have a statement of correction added to the information in dispute.

Once you receive a request for correction and/or a statement of correction, you have 20 working days to review the information in question and make a decision about whether or not you want to make the correction requested.

You don’t necessarily have to make the correction if you don’t want to − for instance, you might consider that the information is already accurate, or there might be a good reason why you can’t change a historic record.

However, you should also keep in mind that you have an obligation to make sure personal information is accurate before using it and, as such, there could be issues leaving inaccurate or disputed information on someone’s file.

Once you’ve decided how you’ll be responding to the request for correction, you should let the individual know if you’ll be making the correction or not. If not, you should let them know they have the right to provide you with a statement of correction (if they haven’t done so already).

You should also let the individual know that they have the right to review your decision not to correct the information, by making a complaint to us.