The Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science and the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science receives enquiries from individuals concerned about many different things such as education, research etc., including issues that concern their own situation. Personal data is processed in order to answer the enquiries.
Purpose and legal basis
The purpose of processing personal data is to be able to answer the specific enquiries.
The legal basis for the Ministry to answer individual enquiries is in many cases unwritten legal principles and principles of suitable public administration practice, where the Ministry must provide guidance, or respond to, the enquiry. In § 7 of the Public Administrations Act, it is stated that the Ministry has an obligation to provide guidance, when the enquiry concerns a subject that falls within the area of the Ministry.
Categories of registered individuals
The Ministry processes the personal data of the individual it is in contact with. Depending on the specific enquiry, the Ministry may process data about other people, usually if information about other people appear in the enquiry.
Categories of personal data
The Ministry processes the personal data of the individual it is in contact with, in order to be able to answer the enquiry. It may be necessary to process other types of personal data in order to answer the enquiry, typically if that data appears from the enquiry. Often it will be standard data, but depending on the enquiry, it may include special categories of personal data.
Forwarding of personal data
Sometimes, the Ministry will forward personal data to the Danish Agency for Institutions and Educational Grants or to the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education. For instance, this could be the case if one of the agencies have to reply to a specific enquiry from the public or if the Ministry needs a contribution to a specific case from one of the agencies. Note that it is possible to contact the data protection officer for the agencies as mentioned in “general information”.
From where does the personal data originate?
The personal data usually originates from the individual who contacts the Ministry with an enquiry.
Storage of personal data
Documents with personal data are filed in accordance with the rules set forth in the Access to Public Administration Files Act and is handed to the authorities in charge of storage in accordance with the Archives Act (approximately every 5 years). The Ministry will hand the data to the authorities in charge of archiving, but the Ministry will keep a copy of the data for approximately 5 years depending on the required period for filing. Hereafter, the Ministry deletes the data.