Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act gives the public the right to access information held by central government, local government, police services, the NHS and the education sector. The FOI Act is intended to improve openness and accountability in the public sector.

The HTA has a responsibility to make its information available in accordance with the FOI Act.

Making an FOI request

Members of the public have a statutory right to obtain, either through this website or in another form, all information which is covered in the HTA’s publications scheme. Regardless of when it was created, by whom, or the form in which it is now covered. This is subject to exemptions outlined in the FOI Act.

FOI requests can be made directly to the HTA to enquiries@hta.gov.uk or by writing to the address below. Where possible a response will be issued within the FOI response time of 20 working days of initial receipt of the request.

Human Tissue Authority
Finlaison House
15-17 Furnival Street
London
EC4A 1AB

Email enquiries@hta.gov.uk

Complaints

If you are not happy with the information communicated to you by the HTA, you have the right to complain. Complaints should be directed in the first instance in writing to the HTA, at the above post or email address. The HTA will respond to all complaints within 30 working days.

Publications scheme

Download the HTA publications scheme

This publications scheme contains links to where the documents on the scheme can be found on this website.

Data Protection

Data Protection Statement

The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) is a Data Controller under the Data Protection Act 1998 (‘the Act’). This statement confirms the HTA’s commitment to protect your privacy and to process your personal information in a manner which meets the requirements of the Act.

Why we need your personal information

The information we collect may include:

Name and job title
Contact information
Age, disability status, ethnicity, gender and nationality
Occupation and company details
Other information relevant to statutory functions.
Other information relevant to our HR function

The HTA may use this information for the following reasons:

To carry out our statutory functions
Licensing
Complaints and dispute handling
Investigations
Improve our services
Send information to you which we think may be of interest to you
Staff administration, including HR functions
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Monitoring and recording of communications

We may monitor or record any communication between you and the HTA for quality control and training purposes.

Security

The HTA has appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to prevent the unauthorised or unlawful processing of your personal information, and accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, your personal information.

Your rights to access your personal information

You are entitled pursuant to the Act to ask for a copy of your personal information, for which we will charge a £10 fee, and to have any inaccuracies in your information corrected. Download a Subject Access Request form.

Other Information

Email addresses

We collect email addresses from those who voluntarily sign up for any one of our free email newsletters. We do not sell or pass on these addresses to any other organisation, or use them for any other purpose ourselves. Other contact details are not passed on without advance notification or consent (or both).

Other personal data

We collect contact details for individuals so that we can carry out our work. Professional contact details are either taken from public sources or given to us knowingly and used with permission.

Our guidelines for use of personal data on our website and in our publications:

We will not give the personal data or full name of anyone in a photographic image
We will not include personal email or postal addresses, or telephone or fax numbers in any of our publications

Our privacy policy is compliant with the UK Data Protection Act 1998, and we are entered in the Data Protection Register. Visit www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

If you have an enquiry or concern about our privacy policy, please email enquiries@hta.gov.uk