Our Privacy Policy is designed to tell you about our practices regarding the collection, use and disclosure of information that you may provide via the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website. Whenever you use this site, you consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Some areas of the site require you to actively submit information in order for you to benefit from specific features (such as our range of online services). You will be informed at each information collection point what information is required and what information is optional.
Some of this information may be personal (information that can be uniquely identified with you, such as your full name, address, email address, phone number etc).
We only collect such information when you choose to supply it to us.
Information is also gathered without you actively providing it, through the use of various technologies and methods such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and cookies. These methods do not collect or store personal information.
An IP address is a number assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), so you can access the Internet. It is generally considered to be non-personally identifiable information, because in most cases an IP address is dynamic (changing each time you connect to the Internet), rather than static (unique to a particular user's computer).
We use your IP address to diagnose problems with our server, report aggregate information, and determine the fastest route for your computer to use in connecting to our site, and to administer and improve the site.
Cookies are small files that are often created when you visit a website, and which are stored in the cookie directory of your computer. A cookie often includes an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies do not damage your computer. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but to protect your privacy your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites. You do not have to accept cookies. You can decide if you want to accept cookies by changing the settings on your browser to either accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. Switching off cookies will still allow you to view the majority of information available on our website, however, you will not be able to make full use of our online services.
We use cookies to track users’ progress through the site, allowing us to make improvements based on usage data. The information in a cookie does not contain any personally identifiable information you submit to our site.
There are two types of cookie. Persistent cookies remain on your computer for a specified time. Our persistent cookies will remain on your computer for 5 years.
We use persistent cookies to:
Session-specific cookies are deleted when you leave the website. We use session-specific cookies to:
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) (this link will open a new window) provides in depth information about cookies.
We use JavaScript page tags to aggregate and analyse customer usage patterns on our website. This provides us with data on your site usage and behaviour. We use this information to make changes to the layout of the website and to the information in it. This process does not collect any personal or identifiable information about users. You can disable JavaScript on your computer however, disabling JavaScript may affect your ability to access some of our online tools and services.
Sometimes we tag pages on sites we use to promote various campaigns.
These tags are provided by our advertising management partner, DoubleClick.
These tags enable DoubleClick to recognise a unique cookie on your browser,
which in turn enables us to learn which advertisements bring users to
our web site. The cookie was placed by us, or by another advertiser who
works with DoubleClick. With this technology, the information that we
collect and share is anonymous and not personally identifiable. It does
not contain your name, address, telephone number, or email address. There
is more information about DoubleClick - including information about how
to opt out of these technologies - on their website.
We may monitor email communications with HMRC (this includes any HMRC member of staff). Any such monitoring will take place in accordance with the law.
We use log files generated by our web servers to analyse site usage and statistics but the files do not identify any personal information. Log file analysis helps us to understand usage patterns on our website and to make improvements to our service.
Except as otherwise stated, we may use information you provide via this site to improve the content, to customise the site to your preferences, to communicate information to you (if you have requested it), for internal marketing and research purposes, and for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.
We do not disclose any information you provide via the site to any third parties or other government departments except where:
We will take all reasonable steps in accordance with our legal obligations
to update or correct personally identifiable information in our possession
that you submit via this site.
You have a right to ask to see details of any personal information that
we hold about you. If you wish to do so please contact our Data Protection
Officer at Room BP4302, Benton Park View, Longbenton, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE98 1ZZ
HMRC has a legal duty to protect the confidentiality of taxpayer information. We take all reasonable steps to protect any information you submit via our website, both online and offline, in accordance with legislation such as the Data Protection Act 1998.
We take all appropriate steps to protect your personally identifiable information as you transmit your information from your computer to our site and to protect such information for loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and operate strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.
Where you use passwords, ID numbers, or other special access features on this site, you also have a responsibility to take reasonable steps to safeguard them.
This site contains links and references to other websites. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to those websites and we encourage you to read the Privacy Policy of every website you visit.
We will post details of any changes to our Privacy Policy on the website to help ensure you are always aware of the information we collect, how we use it, and in what circumstances, if any, we share it with other parties.
This Privacy Policy was last updated July 2008.
