Home Fire Safety Notice Privacy Notice
Introduction
Last updated: February 2025
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is committed to protecting your
personal information. The processing of personal data is covered by the General
Data Protection Regulation 2018 and Data Protection Act 2018.
This privacy notice explains the information SFRS (“we”) are collecting about you,
why we have collected it and how it will be used.
Process owner: Prevention, Protection and Preparedness
This notice relates to the following categories of data subject: Public
Why are we collecting your information?
If you self-referred or have been referred for the SFRS to consider undertaking a
Home Fire Safety Visit (HFSV) or provide appropriate safety advice, it is important
that you understand how your personal information will be collected and used and
what rights you have when it comes to your information.
The information we collect is needed to enable us to consider visiting you at your
home or provide you with a detailed advice pack.
The information that is collected is used by us to provide the requested service and
to meet our obligations under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005. These obligations
include promoting fire safety, reducing yours and others risks from fire, providing advice on actions to take in the event of a fire, safeguarding our community by
improving yours and others safety and providing support to improve your health and
wellbeing.
How we collect the information about you?
The visit or advice will be undertaken by SFRS staff and is provided because of a
referral from another agency, a request from yourself or a family member, or
because of an incident in your area. This helps us assess risk and provide the
necessary advice and support.
A Home Fire Safety (HFS) questionnaire / visit contains questions and observations
around:
• Fire safety;
• Wellbeing;
• Any lifestyle issues that might impact on personal safety.
We will make a record of your responses and document anything we have seen that
relates to the questions and the purpose of the visit. We will also keep a record of
referrals made to other agencies and the reasons why.
As part of this process, we will request Equality data from you, however this is
optional for completion, we collect this information if you choose to complete the
Equality questions via a link to Citizen Space.
What information is being collected by us?
Personal Information:
• Full name;
• Address;
• Date of Birth
• Contact details.
Special Category information:
• Vulnerable risk responses.
The following special category data requested is optional. Any responses you
do provide are anonymised by the system during collection.
• Gender / gender identity;
• Disability;
• Ethnicity;
• Trans;
• Conditions or illnesses;
• Sexual Orientation;
• Religion or belief;
• Main language;
• Care Experienced;
• Email address for receipt.
Legal basis for the processing
Before we process your data, we need a legal basis for doing so.
In respect of processing your personal information:
• processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the
controller is subject – Art 6(1)(c) – Fire (Scotland) Act 2005;
• the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her Personal
Data for one or more specific purposes – Art. 6(1)(a).
In respect of processing your special category information:
• the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those
Personal Data for one or more specified purposes – Art. 9(2)(a)
How the information will be used?
• To provide appropriate services to protect your safety or the safety of others;
• To record and evaluate outcomes of the services SFRS has provided;
• To analyse activity, identify any trends and provide anonymised statistics to
Scottish Government on the total amount of visits that have been
undertaken;
• To monitor equality data and identify groups / communities that are
underrepresented to ensure all communities have ability to access our
Service;
• By submitting your referral, you agree we may contact you to obtain an
evaluation of our service delivered
Where we store your information and who we share your information with?
Your information will be stored on an internal system and will be used by staff who
require it to undertake their role, to provide advice, to carry out, if necessary, a visit,
progress outcomes from the visit and administer and evaluate the service.
An outcome of a visit could be that SFRS Control Room personnel and operational
crews would benefit from having access to certain information to provide an effective
emergency response. In these circumstances, they would have access to an
address and a note against that address, such as: 22 High Street – oxygen cylinder.
Protecting your personal information is vital to us so, if we make a referral to a
partner agency, appropriate security measures are in place to ensure it is shared securely, and we will only share the minimum amount of information necessary to
meet the purpose of the referral.
In most of cases, we will not share your personal information without your consent,
and you will be informed at the time of the referral.
Examples of referrals which could be offered, dependent on our findings, are:
• Local Authority falls prevention teams who can support individuals in preventing
falls in and around the home;
• Trading Standards, to safeguard you as a consumer and support legitimate
trade;
• Police Scotland, to provide advice and support to those who have concerns
involving crime, anti-social behaviours, vulnerability and safeguarding;
• Local Authority Social Services who can offer support to individuals across a
range of areas.
There are occasions where your personal information can be shared without us
asking you: if we have a legal duty or power to share information with other statutory
bodies, when the public good is of greater importance than personal confidentiality
and where your safety or the safety of others is at risk. Decisions will be made on a
case-by-case basis.
How long we hold your information for?
Any paper records collected during a HFSV will be securely destroyed once the
information has been transferred to our HFSV Application system. The information
in the system will be kept for 6 years and up to 10 years when necessary for SFRS
to fulfil its obligations under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 to promote fire safety and
reduce the risk from fire to the community. Anonymised data will be retained for an
extended period for use of analysis, statistical reporting and equality monitoring
Automated decision making?
The information we have collected may make any automated decisions as
responses to set questions will determine which is best appropriate for you in respect
of us scheduling a visit or providing an advice pack.
Requesting access to your personal data and your rights
Under data protection legislation, you have many rights regarding your personal
data. You have the right to:
• be informed of how we will process it;
• request a copy of what we hold about you;
• have it deleted (where we do not have a legal requirement to retain it);
• have it rectified, restricted;
• object to us using it;
• data portability (in certain circumstances).
Where we are processing data based on your consent, you have the right to
withdraw that consent at any time.
To act on any of the above rights or if you have any concerns about how we are
using your personal information, please contact the Data Protection Officer (contact
details below).
However, if you are unhappy with the way we have processed your information or
how we have responded to your request to exercise any of your rights in relation to
your data, you can raise your concerns directly with the Information Commissioner’s
Office, Tel. No. 0303 123 1113 or in writing to:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
For more information about your rights:
To complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office:
We are a Data Controller for personal data. Our details have been registered with
the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and our register number is Z3555625.
The ICO’s register can be viewed online at http://ico.org.uk
If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact:
Carol Wade, Information Governance Manager / Data Protection Officer
Email: SFRS.GDPR@firescotland.gov.uk
Review date: February 2026