Privacy Notice Summary

Who we are

NatureScot NatureScot promotes, cares for and improves Scotland’s natural heritage. We enable a greater awareness of nature and help people to enjoy nature responsibly. Looking to the future, we promote the sustainable use of natural assets now.

Your rights

You have some rights over how information about you is used. These rights include the right to object to how we process your personal information; to access your information, to correct inaccuracies, in some circumstances to delete and restrict how we use your personal information. You also have a right to complain to us and the UK Information Commissioner (ICO) (ico.org.uk)

How we gather personal data

In most cases, people write to us or apply to us for things like licenses, grants management agreements. We do obtain peoples information from other organisations we work with such as the Scottish Government or Local Authorities. We might also obtain information by asking local contacts for example if we need to get in touch with a land owner.

How we use your personal data

We use personal information to carry out our statutory duties to issue licences, permissions and consents, to manage protected sites and species; to inform, raise awareness and encourage participation; to give out funding and provide advice about the natural heritage; and to run our organisation.

Sharing and transferring personal data

We do share some personal information with our partner organisations. For example, when working with other statutory bodies such as the Scottish Government or Local Authorities to deliver our statutory functions or have a role in supporting the delivery or their statutory functions such as planning or agri-environment subsidies. We may also share information with contractors/suppliers who are helping us carry out work.

Keeping personal information

NatureScot holds personal information for as long as we need it to carry out the work the information is linked to. We are required by law to have a Records Management Plan that sets our approach to keeping information (retention schedules). We can make copies of our Records Management Plan available on request.