Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2025: data protection impact assessment

Description of the project and personal data

Description of the work

An EPC assessment for a property collects building information data, such as wall, roof, floor and window types, heating systems, property age and renewable technologies present to then calculate ratings of the building’s energy performance. The data could take the form of photographs, drawings (such as property floor plans), measurements, records of the model and serial number of an installed heating system or specification of window glazing.

This data can be categorised into two types:

• ‘Pre-lodgement data’ (the data collected by energy assessors during the assessment process). This data is not lodged on the EPC Register (such as photographs of the property), but needs to be stored for the purposes of audit, to verify that an assessor has made an accurate and reliable assessment.
• ‘Lodgement data’ (this is the data which is lodged on the EPC Register) – such as information on the heating system type and performance, measurements of floor area, measurements of insulation thickness, the address and postcode of the property.
• Typical lodgement data for the existing Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2008, includes:
  • Property Information:
    • Address and postcode
    • Property type (e.g. detached house, flat, office)
    • Total floor area
    • Year of construction
    • Type of transaction (sale, rental, new build)
  • Heating and Insulation Details
    • Main heating type and fuel
    • Secondary heating (if any)
    • Hot water system
    • Wall, roof, and floor insulation levels
    • Window glazing type
  • Energy Efficiency Ratings
    • Current and potential energy efficiency rating (A–G scale)
    • Environmental impact rating (CO₂ emissions)
  • Recommendations
    • Suggested improvements to increase efficiency
    • Indicative cost of improvements
    • Potential savings from improvements
    • Impact on energy rating if improvements are made

This information is sent to the EPC Register, using software provided by the assessor’s accreditation body. The data sent to the EPC Register allows for an EPC and Property Report to be generated together. The EPC and accompanying Property Report can then be accessed via the Scottish EPC Register website.

The EPC lodgement data, held on the EPC Register, was made publicly available in 2013 and advice on data protection issues was sought from the Information Commissioners Office who advised that EPC data is not considered personal data.

Given the volume of data – over three million EPCs (valid and historic) – and given that if address data is combined with other publicly available information that this could enable the occupier of the building to be identified, this Data Protection Impact Assessment is being completed. This takes a similar approach to the one taken by the UK Government Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in its 2019 Data Privacy Impact Assessment^[7] Under the Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2025, a new EPC Register is established, where EPCs continue to be lodged, following their preparation by assessors.

The regulations allow the Scottish Government to appoint a keeper of the register.

The Scottish EPC Register currently has records (historic and valid) for:

• Over three million domestic EPCs
• Over 84,000 non-domestic EPC

These will continue to be retained in the new Register under the new regulations, and be added to, as new EPCs are lodged under the new regulations.

A bulk download of EPC data is available from statistics.gov.scot. There are currently four published data extracts:

• Valid domestic – statistics.gov.scot : Domestic Energy Performance Certificates - Dataset to Q2 2025
• Valid non-domestic – statistics.gov.scot : Non-domestic Energy Performance Certificates - Dataset to Q2 2025
• Historic domestic – statistics.gov.scot : Domestic Energy Performance Certificates – Extended Historic Dataset to Q2 2025
• Historic non-domestic – statistics.gov.scot : Non-Domestic Energy Performance Certificates – Extended Historic Dataset to Q2 2025

The Scottish Government currently updates these datasets quarterly. This process will be reviewed as part of the Register redevelopment to determine if datasets can be updated more regularly and in user friendly formats. This data set does not include assessor names or include any Green Deal data.