Your rights

A man stands holding a laptop. He has short dark hair, glasses, a light stubble. He is wearing a white shirt and checked grey pants. He is in a contemporary office with a wooden desk, laptop, and plants. We will try to accommodate any accessibility needs you have when contacting us in accordance with the Human Rights Act 1993.

We know privacy breaches are stressful, but we need you to be calm and respectful when working with us.

Harmful communications to our staff – such as abusive or offensive comments and harassment – are never acceptable and may result in us declining to investigate your complaint.

Please also be cautious if using AI to contact us.

You can expect us to:

Treat you courteously and with respect.
Answer your questions about our process.
Keep you informed about your complaint and when you can expect to hear back from us.

We expect you to:

Treat us with courtesy and respect.
Co-operate with our process and requests for information.
Write and talk to our staff politely and in a way that maintains staff wellbeing.
Accept that we will not tolerate rude or abusive behaviour or correspondence that undermines staff wellbeing.
Understand that we have a zero-tolerance approach to threats made to OPC staff.

Read our Service Charter, which sets out, in detail, what you can expect from us when you use our complaints service, and what we expect from you.

We take violence or threats of violence seriously

We take the safety and wellbeing of our staff seriously. Violence or threats of violence will not be tolerated. We may give you a warning, limit access to our services, report a matter of concern to the Police, or issue a trespass notice.

If we need to report your threats of violence or offensive communications to Police or another complaints body, we might need to disclose your personal information. This will be done as it is necessary for the safety and wellbeing of our staff.

Read our policy for responding to threats to staff safety.

Don’t let your behaviour get in the way of resolving your complaint

Inappropriate or offensive communication with our staff may result in a warning or may mean that we are not able to deal with your complaint. This includes:

abusive or offensive comments or threats to OPC staff
intimidation or harassment of OPC staff by phone or email
inappropriate questions to OPC staff or referencing non-relevant OPC staff personal information
threats to defame OPC staff or to publish personal information about OPC staff
posting personal information about OPC staff online, including any communication that breaches the communication principles in the Harmful Digital Communications Act.

If you cannot manage your behaviour, we may limit the ways you communicate with our Office in line with our policy on Managing Unreasonable Conduct.