The staff at the Office of the Ombudsman for Bermuda take your privacy seriously. We will only use your personal information in accordance with the Ombudsman Act 2004 and the Personal Information Protection Act 2016 (“PIPA”) to address the queries that you raise with our Office, or to investigate the complaints that you make to us.
This Privacy Notice explains how we use, store, and protect your personal information. Please read this document carefully and contact us if you have any questions.
1. Who are we?
We are the Office of the Ombudsman for Bermuda. Our Office is located at:
Suite 102, 14 Dundonald Street West
Hamilton HM 09 Bermuda
The Office consists of a Human Resources and Administration Section and an Investigations Section. This Privacy Notice covers all personal information that is collected for use by both sections.
2. Privacy officer
If you have any general questions regarding this Privacy Policy or our use of your personal information, please contact our privacy officer at:
Junior Watts Privacy Officer
Office of the Ombudsman for Bermuda Suite 102, 14 Dundonald Street West,
Hamilton HM 09
Telephone: (441) 296-6541 Email: jcdwatts@ombudsman.bm
3. What personal information do we use and where does it come from?
Personal information includes things that can allow someone to identify you either directly, through your name or passport number (etc.), or indirectly, through your address, phone number, date of birth or IP address (etc.).
We obtain your personal information from:
You
You may contact us by telephone, email, online form, or in person to make an inquiry or a complaint. When you do so, we will record your name, address, telephone number, email address and details of your inquiry or complaint, along with any other information you choose to tell us about yourself.
Third party individuals
In the course of making a complaint to our office, a third party may provide us with your personal information. This information may include your name, address, telephone number, or email address.
Third party organisations
During the course of our inquiries and investigations, we may ask third party organisations to provide us with information that is relevant to the issues. The information that the organisation provides to our Office may include your name, address, telephone number, and email address.
Sensitive personal information
“Sensitive personal information” means any personal information relating to an individual’s place of origin, race, colour, national or ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, sexual life, marital status, physical or mental disability, physical or mental health, family status, religious beliefs, political opinions, trade union membership, biometric information, or genetic information. In some cases, the nature of the complaint to our Office will result in your sensitive personal information being provided to us.
We will only collect sensitive personal information if it is needed to assist you with your inquiry or to investigate your complaint.
4. Third-party personal information
You must not provide personal information about a third party unless you are legally entitled to do so. Before you provide personal information about a third party, you must state that you intend to do so and provide proof of your legal entitlement to do this.
5. Children’s Personal Information
Some inquiries or investigations may result in children’s personal information being provided to our Office. We will only use children’s personal information when we have the consent of the parent or guardian, or as permitted by law.
We give enhanced scrutiny to the use and security of children’s personal information.
6. What are our legal conditions for use of personal information?
The Office of the Ombudsman was created by section 93A of Schedule 2 to the Bermuda Constitution Order 1968. The functions of the Ombudsman are:
- to investigate any administrative action of an authority for the purpose of deciding whether there is evidence of maladministration on the part of the authority;
- pursuant to an investigation, to make recommendations to the authority concerning any administrative action that formed the subject of the investigation and, generally, about ways of improving its administrative practices and procedures; and
- to perform such other functions as may be conferred on him under this or any other
Section 7 (2) (a) of the Ombudsman Act 2004 stipulates that when a complaint is made to the Ombudsman, he shall record:
- the complainant’s name, address and telephone number;
- the subject matter of the complaint; and
- the date when the complaint was
Our legal conditions for use of personal information under section 6 of PIPA are:
- with your knowing consent
- for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or for taking steps at your request with a view to entering into a contract
- in performing the functions of the Office as authorised by the provision of the Ombudsman Act and other relevant legislation
- it is in the public interest for our Office to use your information in the exercise of the Ombudsman’s official authority
- our use of your personal information is necessary in the context of your current, past, or potential employment with our Office.
7. What is our purpose for using personal information?
We use your personal information for the following purposes:
- to record your inquiry or complaint
- to make inquiries with government authorities during the course of our investigation of your complaint
- in our investigation reports
- for our human resources
8. Who has access to your personal information?
The following individuals and/or types have access to your personal information:
- Relevant staff in the investigations section and the finance and administration section
- Our Information technology contractors’ staff who require access to perform their
These persons have access to only that personal information necessary for the discharge of their duties. All persons with access are under contract and understand their obligations to maintain customer personal information subject to conditions of confidence.
9. How is personal information transferred in Bermuda and overseas?
In Bermuda:
- We only transfer personal information to third parties in Bermuda as required by law or when necessary to provide the service(s) you require.
- We use reasonable efforts to ensure that only the personal information that is relevant and necessary is transferred.
- All third parties who use personal information transferred by us or on our order must meet our third party transfer requirements.
Overseas:
- We only transfer personal information to third parties outside Bermuda as required by law or when necessary to provide the service(s) you require.
- We use reasonable efforts to ensure that only the personal information that is relevant and necessary is transferred.
- All third parties who use personal information transferred by us or on our order must meet our third party transfer requirements including an assessment of the laws that apply in the relevant jurisdiction.
We will not sell or rent your personal information.
10. Where is your personal information stored?
Your personal information is stored in accordance with our policies and procedures applicable to the relevant area and the sensitivity of the personal information that is used. This may be in Bermuda or, if outside Bermuda, in accordance with our policy and procedures for international transfers.
We will only collect information that we need to assist you with your inquiry or to investigate your complaint. Your information will be stored in a file that is held:
- on a computer
- on paper
- in the cloud (on internet servers).
If we conduct an interview with you about your complaint by telephone or virtual platform, we may record the call we have with you and retain a copy. We will inform you that the call will be recorded, and you will be able to request a copy and transcript of the recording.
11. How long do we keep your personal information?
We will keep the information about you and your complaint for two years after making our decision. After that period, we will securely dispose of the information except for your name, the authority about which you complained, the nature of the complaint, and our decision or investigation report.
12. What are your rights?
We will do all we reasonably can to assist you with any issue arising from our use of your personal information. You have the right to access your personal information and the right of rectification, blocking, erasure, and destruction (in limited and specific circumstances).
If you wish to access your personal information, exercise any of your other rights under PIPA, or if you have any general questions about this notice, please send a written request to our Privacy Officer, listed at paragraph 2 above.
For further information relating to the PIPA please see the website of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.bm.
13. Security
We constantly monitor the security of our IT systems, and we review our policies and procedures on a regular basis.
Information transmitted normally over the Internet can never be guaranteed as 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot fully guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us. Once we receive your personal information, we make all reasonable (and appropriate) efforts to ensure its security on our systems.
14. Social media plug-ins, cookies and website analytics
The social media plug-ins, cookies and website analytics we use see paragraph are:
Social Media Plug-Ins
We include a limited number of social media plug-ins that you may use that allow you to directly post links on the relevant network. The respective social network provider uses your personal information for its own purposes. The legal condition for the use of your personal information (if any) is consent though your access and use of our website.
The social media plug-in connects to a network outside Bermuda. Please see the privacy notice of the relevant social media provider.
The social media plug-ins used are:
- Service: Facebook – facebook.com/……
- Privacy Details: facebook.com/privacy/explanation
- Details: [News and information relating to….]
Cookies: General
Our website uses cookies.
Cookies are small files that are stored on your computer. They are designed to hold information specific to a particular client and website and can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. Cookies help us optimise your access to and use of our website and enable the correct functioning of those parts of our site that you access. You can find out more about our cookies on www.allaboutcookies.org.
The legal condition for the use of your personal information (if any) is consent though your access and use of our website. You may at any time deactivate the cookies which may affect access to or the performance of the website.
Cookie personal information is used by our own servers as well as the servers of third parties based outside Bermuda.
The cookies used are:
[Name: Google Analytics Service: website statistics Privacy Details: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Details: Tracks the number of times a visitor has been to our site, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred. Google Analytics uses the information to calculate visitor statistics.]
15. Privacy Notice (administrative details)
Privacy Notice No.: [01/2025]
Effective Date: [01/01/2025]
This Privacy Notice may be updated from time to time. Any amended Privacy Notice becomes effective and replaces the previous version once published.