Crown Copyright

You may use and re-use the information featured on this website (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence 2.0

We encourage users to establish hypertext links to this website.

Any enquiries regarding the use and re-use of this information resource should be sent to

e-mail: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (eg name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Occasionally, you may be asked to provide us with information regarding your personal, professional interests and more detailed personal information.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Planning Service to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. Planning Service will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

During the course of any visit to the Planning Service Website, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us better understand your needs in order to provide you with a better service and it assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to, say, the Development Plans and Policy pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight Development Plans and Policy information on a subsequent visit.

When you enter the Planning Service site your computer will be automatically issued with a cookie, in order to collect non-personal user information required for system administration of the website.

Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a site, and contain a unique, anonymous number. They are stored in a text file in the cookie directory of your hard drive, and do not expire at the end of your session. Cookies do not contain any personal information about you and cannot be used to identify an individual user.

The PlanningNI site uses a cookie that stores a random number on your computer to help us count the number of times users return to our site.  The information that is supplied by cookies can help us better understand your needs in order to provide you with a better service and assist us to analyse the profile of our visitors.

You can set your browser not to accept cookies. If you do not know how to do this, you should visit the website of your browser manufacturer.

When you supply any personal information to Planning Service we have legal obligations towards you in the way we process and handle that data. We must collect the information fairly (see the notices on particular web pages that let you know why we are requesting the information); we must let you know how we will use it; and we must tell you in advance if we decide to pass the information on to anyone else.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of a personalised service, when you no longer wish to continue your registration as a personalised user. Where personal information is held for people who are not registered users of the site, that information will be held only as long as necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information Planning Service holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. Please address requests to Planning Service using the contact address available on our Website.

As the services provided by Planning Service expand, there will be more opportunities to enhance the services provided to you. We may offer you the opportunity to participate in surveys carried out by Planning Service, or its agents, that help our research into the types of service we offer. Planning Service will keep a record of information provided by you.

Please note that any information you provide to Planning Service will only be used within Planning Service. It will never be supplied to third parties without first obtaining your consent unless we are obliged by law to disclose information.

If you are under 18, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the Planning Service’s Website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.