We have known for years, that the British Royals have a database in which they store people's information. They mention this on the Privacy Policy on Royal.UK. And one of the things I have seen from the British Royals and other royal families is replies getting sent to my old address, meaning they have to be storing my address in their database. I was curious as to what exactly and how much personal information was being stored. So, as outlined on their Privacy Policy, as they are required by law, I wrote a letter to the Data Protection Manager asking for a copy of my personal information.
This is the reply I received.
Note: Black are things they redacted. Blue are things I redacted.
The Letter says:
Dear Miss Daly,
Thank you for your hardcopy letter dated 20 July 2020 in which you requested your personal information. Unfortunately, I only received your letter on 15 January 2021 due to the COVID-19 lockdown. I apologise for my late reply. I have processed your request and enclosed the results.
Please note, I have redacted information from these documents which does not constitute your own personal data. Thus, information which relates to third parties and information which references the internal operations of the Household have been redacted. This is normal practice when an organisation responds to a subject access request made under the UK's Data Protection Act 2018.
In addition to the enclosed information, we have on file our organization's responses to your letters. I have not included copies of those as you will have already received them. However, if you would like copies of these correspondences, please let me know and I will send those to you.
If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know in the first instance. My email address is [I redacted that]
If you are dissatisfied with the response to your request, under the protection policy of the Royal Household you have a right to complain to The Keeper of the Privy Purse. Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you also have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner's office. They can be contacted through their website: www.ico.org.uk or their helpline on 0303 123 1113, or in writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Yours Sincerely,
[Signature of someone]
(PP) Catherine Leonard
"PP" Stands for "Per procurationem," which means the letter was signed on a person's behalf. Catherine Leonard is The Palace's Data Protection Manager, so she is technically the one sending the letter, but it was actually signed & sent on her behalf by another staff member.
In terms of my actual personal information, there was not a lot being stored. It was just my name, addresses (current and past), and blog web address. There were other personal details that were included in the description of each letter I sent.
With that is a list of the letters I had written to the Royals. I noticed it does not include all of the letters I have sent. There were a number that were missing, likely because that office did not take the time to enter my letter into their database. There are also some entries where they say a reply was sent, but I never received a reply.
Member of the Royal Family (MRF) initials
- The Queen (Q)
- Prince Charles (POW), Duchess Camilla (DOC), Wales (POWDOC)
- Prince William (PW), Duchess Kate (DSSOC), The Cambridges (DDSSOC), Prince George (PG)
- Prince Harry (PH), Duchess Meghan (DSSOS), The Sussexes (DDSSOS), Archie (AMW)
- Prince Edward (EW), Countess Sophie (CW), The Wessexes (ECW)
- Princess Anne (PSSR)
- Prince Andrew (DOY)
- Duke of Kent (DOK)
The list did not include the letter sent to Prince Philip, Princess Beatrice & Princess Eugenie (even though their mail was answered by Andrew's office), Queen's Cousins (except for one letter to Duke of Kent), Duchess Sarah (which is as expected, as they just forward on her mail.)
I also noticed letter for Duchess Camilla that were handled by her personal staff because Camilla was personally signing the card/letter, were not included in the database.
Below is not the full list, but rather a section of each page, so you can see the type of information stored in their database. Some of the descriptions contained personal informatiton I had mentioned in my letter, like Birthday, Age, University I had attended, Job, etc. (Though those parts are not shown below.)
Details on how to request your own personal information from the Palace can be found on their Privacy Policy. I was curious as to what personal information was being stored. And now we know, they store your name, address, and what you wrote in your letter/card. If that is something you feel you need to know, you can request it. But let's not spam them with 100 requests as you will likely just find out the same thing, they are storing your name, address and what you wrote in your letter.
