Handling of personal data and the principle of public access to official documents
Here you can find information about what personal data is, how the Equality Ombudsman (DO) handles personal data and the rules regarding processing of personal data. You can also read about the principle of public access to official documents.
(Behandling av personuppgifter och offentlighetsprincipen)
The definition of personal data
Personal data is any data that can be linked to you as a person, such as your name, address and email address. Sensitive personal data include information such as your ethnic origin, political opinion, trade union membership, religious belief, sexual orientation and information contained in your personal health record.
DO's routines for processing personal data
DO is responsible for the personal data that is sent to and processed by us. All personal data is processed according to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
DO need to process personal data to fulfil the agency's mandate. DO's mandate is to counteract discrimination, and work towards equal rights and opportunities. Our core tasks are to develop, collect, share and exchange knowledge, to influence and promote as well as to perform supervision.
The purpose of processing personal data is to handle cases, make comprehensive case analyses, collect statistics and write reports on discrimination. The processing of personal data involves collecting, recording, storing and handling of data.
DO only processes personal data when it is necessary in the delivery of our assigned areas of responsibility. This may include investigations of substantial public interest, our exercise of public authority and compliance with a legal obligation. Thus, DO has a legal authority to process personal data.
Important to know about the principle of public access to official documents
DO is a state agency. All messages that are sent to or created by a state agency are public records. This is determined by the Freedom of the Press Act, which includes the principle of public access to official documents. This means that when someone requests a public document from DO, we are required to release it. In certain cases, DO can protect information in public documents from being disclosed if they contain sensitive personal data. The type of data that DO can protect is determined by the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act.
According to the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act, DO needs to keep and archive public records. Only on rare occasions can DO delete public records.
Your rights as data subject
You have, according to GDPR article 15, the right to obtain confirmation as to whether your personal data is being processed within DO. If you want to view this information, you can request this by phone or email.
We will need to verify your identity before we release the requested information.
- You have the right to request amendments to personal data we hold about you that is incorrect. To have the data corrected, you must inform DO which data needs to be amended and how it should be amended. This can be done via phone or email (Contact us).
- If you wish to file a complaint about the way DO processes your personal data, you can contact the agency responsible for monitoring GDPR implementation, The Swedish Data Protection Authority (Datainspektionen External link.).
Contact information to DO's data protection officer
Contact the data protection officer if you need further information about our handling of personal data.
You can contact our data protection officer by phone 08-120 20 700 or by email dataskyddsombud@do.se