Scottish household survey: privacy notice

How we got your details

Every year, we contact a random sample of addresses from Royal Mail’s publicly available list of all addresses, and invite them to take part in the Scottish Household Survey.

Taking part is voluntary. And if you do take part, you do not have to answer all of the questions. But it is very important that the information we collect is as comprehensive as possible, so that the information collected is fully representative of the people of Scotland, and not just of certain groups of people who are more likely to respond.

Information the survey collects and how it is used

Ipsos is contracted by the Scottish Government to carry out the Scottish Household Survey. A professional interviewer from Ipsos will carry out the survey interview. This will normally be face-to-face, in your home. The survey interview is in two parts:

• The first part takes around 15 minutes. It asks the homeowner or main tenant (or partner) about their home and household.
• The second part takes around 30 minutes. It asks one adult (aged 16 or over) in the household, who is selected at random, about a range of topics including how they travel, and their views on the area where they live and local public services.

More details of the questions asked during the social survey are available at https://www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-household-survey/#surveyquestionsasked

Your household may also be selected for a visual inspection of your home by a trained property surveyor, employed by Ipsos to assess its condition and energy efficiency. Details of the information collected during this home inspection are available at https://www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-house-condition-survey/#technicalreports

Ipsos subcontracts C.A. Design Services (CADS) to manage the appointment system for the home inspections, and Building Research Establishment (BRE) to process the data from these inspections.

The information collected in the interview and home inspection is used for statistical and research purposes, and not to make decisions about individual people or households. It is used to produce reports about the circumstances and experiences of the population of Scotland in general, and of particular groups with a shared characteristic (e.g. disabled people, young adults, people living in remote rural areas).

The survey results help the Scottish Government, local councils and various charities to understand the needs of people in Scotland, and to make sure money is spent in the right places and in the most effective way. For example, the information collected allows us to work out how many households can’t afford to heat their homes properly, and how this varies across Scotland and between different types of household. This helps to target funding to improve the energy efficiency of Scottish homes and bring down fuel bills (e.g. through loft and wall insulation). Information from the survey on travel patterns helped plan large transport projects like the Queensferry Crossing, the Airdrie to Bathgate railway, and motorway improvements.

The Scottish Government is legally allowed to process information collected in the survey because it helps us to undertake our “public task in the public interest”. Relevant laws include section 5 of the Science and Technology Act 1965 and section 2(2)(r) of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988.

Some of the information we collect in the survey is ‘special category data’ – for example, questions about ethnicity, religion or health. You can be confident that we ensure that any use of this information is proportionate and necessary for statistical or research purposes under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (article 9 Sections (2)(g) and (j)).

To maximise the value of the information collected in the survey, the Scottish Government may link it with information from other datasets, using identifying information such as address to make sure the correct records from each dataset are matched. After the datasets have been linked, the identifying information would be deleted from the combined dataset. The combined datasets would be used for statistical and research purposes, and not to make decisions about specific individuals or households.

The household and individual level information collected in the survey is made available for use by approved researchers external to the Scottish Government, such as academics, via the UK Data Service, once it has been disclosure controlled (that is, information has been removed that may, alone or in combination, allow households or individuals to be identified).

If external researchers require additional data not available in the disclosure controlled version of the dataset on the UK Data Service – for example, if they want to be able to link the SHS data with information from other datasets – then they need to put in a formal request that will be scrutinised thoroughly by the Scottish Government. All approved requests are governed by data sharing agreements that set out strict requirements for the processing and safekeeping of personal data. Linkage-ready versions of the datasets may be made available for approved requests via the Scottish National Safe Haven, a Trusted Research Environment.

How your information is stored

The information you provide will be stored securely in restricted access files that contain the following:

• Addresses of all households invited to take part in the survey, along with unique identification numbers that allow them to be matched temporarily with the information collected in the survey, for the purpose of data linkage described above. Ipsos stores these until fieldwork is complete. The Scottish Government stores them indefinitely for the purpose of data linkage described above, and to co-ordinate survey activity so that a particular household is not invited to take part in more than one Scottish Government population survey (Scottish Household Survey, Scottish Health Survey or Scottish Crime and Justice Survey) in a four year period.

• The information collected in the survey interviews and (where applicable) home inspections, along with unique identification numbers that: allow the addresses to be matched temporarily, for the purpose of data linkage described above; and/or allow contact details to be matched temporarily, for the purposes described below. Apart from these temporary uses, the information collected in the survey is stored separately from direct personal identifiers such as address and contact details. Ipsos stores the information collected in the survey until it has completed its processing and quality assurance of the data. The Scottish Government stores the information indefinitely, for the purposes of research and statistics.

• Contact details of people asked to take part in the survey

1. Some people invited to take part in the survey provide their contact details to Ipsos so a suitable date and time for a survey interview and/or home inspection can be arranged. These contact details are deleted when fieldwork is complete.
2. In order to ensure that its interviewers have carried out the survey correctly, Ipsos contacts a percentage of the participants afterwards. If you take part in the survey, you will be asked whether you agree to provide a phone number and/or email address for that purpose, which will be deleted once these quality checks have been completed.
3. If you take part in the survey, you will be asked if you are willing to be contacted in the future to take part in other research carried out by, or on behalf of, the Scottish Government. If you agree to be contacted for this purpose, your name, phone number and/or an email address will be stored in a separate recontact dataset along with your address and unique identification number. Ipsos will transfer this dataset to the Scottish Government, and it will be stored by the Scottish Government for a maximum of 5 years.

The contact details you provide will not be used for any marketing activities.

Your rights

Under data protection legislation, you have the right to:

• Be informed about the use of your data
• Request a copy of your data
• Request the deletion of data
• Request the correction of inaccurate data
• Request the restriction of your data
• Object to the use of your data

These rights are not absolute and may be subject to exemptions or restrictions. If you wish to make a rights request, please contact us using the details below.