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Home Office: Subject Access Requests

Answer

Subject Access Requests (SARs) made under UK data protection legislation are handled by a number of specialist teams across the Home Office, depending on the nature of the request.

SARs relating to borders, immigration and citizenship matters are handled by the Subject Access Request Unit (SARU) within UK Visas and Immigration. Passport-related SARs are handled by HM Passport Office (HMPO), and SARs relating to modern slavery are handled by the Single Competent Authority (SCA). The Knowledge and Information Management Unit (KIMU) handles SARs from current and former members of staff, and SARs from members of the public that do not relate to these specialist areas.

The reference numbers used for SAR responses vary between teams:

SARU: "SARU-" followed by seven numerical digits.

HMPO: "Disc/Info" followed by the requestor's surname and the date the request was received.

SCA: A National Referral Mechanism (NRM) case reference, which may take different formats depending on when the case was referred. For cases referred post 28 April 2019 the reference will be six to nine numerical digits

KIMU: "SA" followed by four numerical digits.

As a result, SAR responses issued by the Home Office do not all follow the format of "SARU" followed by a series of numbers; the format used depends on the team handling the request.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

14407

Session

2026-27

Subjects

Home Office Subject access requests

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk