You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or to ask on behalf of someone else. You will need to provide identification to prove who you are and that you have the right to access the information.
If you make a request for your personal information through an online portal, you still need to provide identification. We cannot accept a request from a portal unless we can check your identity and be certain that you wish the company providing the portal to act on your behalf. We need to feel assured that the company is complying with data protection law before sharing your personal information.
If we receive your request through an online portal, we will contact you directly to verify your identity. If you have not provided any contact details we will not be able to process your request.
We encourage you to make a request using the form on this page instead.
Identification required to process your request
We ask for 2 forms of identification:
- one with your name and date of birth
- one with your name and current address (dated within the last 3 months)
Asking for information about a child
If you are asking for information about a child we also ask for proof of parental responsibility eg birth certificate of child or adoption certificate.
Asking for information about a third party
If you are the personal representative acting on behalf of someone we also ask for written evidence that you are authorised to act on the data subject's behalf eg signed consent, power of attorney.
There is no automatic right of access to the personal data of third parties and your request may still be refused.
Asking for CCTV or body worn camera footage
You will need to provide the following identification documents when requesting information from CCTV or body worn camera footage:
- for footage of a person - photographic ID or name and date of birth ID, together with a recent photograph of yourself
- for footage of a vehicle - vehicle log book (DVLA V5C form) if you are the vehicle owner, or Vehicle Log Book and written consent from the vehicle owner
Please send copies of the original documents to subjectaccess@sheffield.gov.uk. Failure to provide suitable identification or proof is likely to delay the request.
Make a subject access request
You can make a subject access request using our online form.
Once we have received your request, and satisfactory identification, you should expect to receive a response to your request within 1 month. In some circumstances where a request is complex, we may extend this to a maximum of 3 months. We will contact you you in this case.