Privacy policy

Your security and privacy are important to us. Read more about what privacy is and how we protect your personal data.

What is personal data?

When you submit the contact form to the Parliamentary Ombud for Scrutiny of the Public Administration (Sivilombudet), you share information about yourself with us.

Information such as your name, age and phone number is called personal data.

You own your personal data and may freely decide whether or not to share it with others. If you are under the age of 18, however, your parents, caregiver or guardian may sometimes make decisions concerning your personal data. They may share it with your school, for example.

When you choose to share your personal data with others, you consent to them using it. However, this does not mean that the people you share it with, can do anything they want with your personal data. They must tell you specifically what your personal data will be used for (its purpose) and you must agree to that in advance (give your consent).

What is privacy?

When we receive personal data about you, and we use it, this is called processing. When we process your data, we become what is called the data controller.

It is our responsibility to make sure we process your personal data in accordance with the law. You have a right to information about who we are, why we are processing your personal data, and how we do so.

Personal Data Act

In 2018, Norway passed a new Personal Data Act. All member states in the EU and EEA have virtually identical legislation to protect people’s privacy, including their personal data. The right to privacy includes your private and family life, which everyone has a duty to respect.

The European Convention on Human Rights and the Norwegian Constitution both state that everyone has a right to a private and family life.

This means that Norwegian authorities, including both central and local government bodies, cannot violate your right to privacy. All public sector bodies, whether at the national, regional and local level, must strive to protect your privacy and personal integrity.

Confidentiality and duty to avert

At the Parliamentary Ombud, we are all bound by a duty of confidentiality. This means that we should never share with others what you tell us when you contact us. You should be able to trust us. At the same time, however, we also have an obligation to notify the police if we learn that you are being subjected to violence or assault, or if your life and welfare is otherwise in danger. This is called the duty to avert.

You can read more about the duty to avert at plikt.no.

Beyond that, the Parliamentary Ombud will keep everything confidential. In other words, you can tell us whatever you want to, and we will not tell anyone else. You should be able to trust us.

Which types of personal data do we process?

When you submit our contact form, you share your personal data with us.

This could include your name, age, phone number or IP address.

An IP address is the “address” of your computer, smartphone or tablet. The IP address normally consists of four numbers, separated by dots. It could look something like this: 101.101.10.101. An IP address is also a type of personal data.

If the police believe your life or welfare is at risk after we notify them, they may retrieve your IP address to help you as soon as possible. Only the police will have access to your IP address. The IP address is deleted after one week.

Why do we process your personal data?

At the Parliamentary Ombud, we process the personal data you submit in the contact form to answer your questions and help you if you want to file a complaint.

We only ask you to send us the information that is necessary for us to contact you.

This is called purpose limitation, and it means that you only provide the personal information needed for us to answer your questions. In this way, you protect your own privacy and never provide more information than necessary. You protect your private life.

You choose whether you share your personal data with us

It is completely up to you to decide if you wish to provide information about yourself in the contact form or share information over the phone. You give consent to us receiving your personal data in order to answer your questions.

We have a duty to process your personal data in accordance with the law, and we cannot share your information with anyone else or use it for any other purpose than to answer your questions.

Personal data in the contact form

We delete the information you entered in the contact form after we have contacted you. Only the Parliamentary Ombud’s case workers who work with cases concerning children will have access to the information you have entered in the contact form.

Personal data in the complaint form

If you fill out our complaint form, you will be asked to confirm that you have familiarized yourself with how we process personal data.

When you submit an electronic complaint form to the Parliamentary Ombud, it is processed in the same way as a regular letter in terms of confidentiality, record-keeping and the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, Public Administration Act and Personal Data Act. The information you provide in your complaint will be stored in our database solely for the purpose of processing your complaint. The information will not be used in any other context or by any other party. The complaint is encrypted and forwarded to the Parliamentary Ombud over a secure connection.

You have the right, at any time, to request access to the information about you that we process, and you have the right to have this information corrected if it is incorrect. If you want to request access to the personal data we have about you, please contact us: ung@sivilombudet.no.

Contact us if you have any questions!

If you have any questions, or would like to file a complaint about the way we process your personal data, you can send a complaint to our data protection officer and/or to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority: postkasse@datatilsynet.no / www.datatilsynet.no.

If you have any questions about your privacy and how we at the Parliamentary Ombud process your personal data – please send us an e-mail, and we will get back to you as soon as possible: ung@sivilombudet.no.

The Parliamentary Ombud’s data protection officer is Kari Rørstad. The job of the data protection officer is to make sure that nobody violates your privacy or your integrity by using your personal data in an unlawful way.

If you want to contact our data protection officer, you can send an e-mail to Kari Rørstad at kar@sivilombudet.no.