The Data Controller is the Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (BEIS). 

The Met Office is an Executive Agency of  BEIS and is registered with the Supervisory Authority (in the name of BEIS), Registration No. ZA204800.

The right to lodge a complaint with the Supervisory Authority: 

If you have any concerns relating to the handling of your personal data, you may refer the matter to the Supervisory Authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, who can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF https://ico.org.uk/.  Telephone: 0303 123 1113.

Find out about:

• Personal information we may collect from you
• How we will use information about you
• Access to your information
• Where we store and process your personal information
• Disclosure of your information
• Cookies
• Met Office App
• Changes to our privacy policy
• How to contact us

Personal information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following information about you:

• Information that you provide, for example when you place an order for data or data services together with the details necessary to administer your account.
• Information that you provide by filling in forms and subscribing to our services.
• Information that you provide to us when you write to us, including by email or when we speak to you by telephone.
• Information that you provide to us by completing feedback, surveys or participating in competitions.
• Information that you provide to us in relation to our public task duties.

How we will use information about you

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to.  Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you (contractual necessity).
• Where we need to carry out our public task duties (public interests).
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. (legitimate interests).
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation (compliance with legal obligations).
• Where you have provided your consent (consent).

We may use information about you in the following ways:

• Registration details and customer information will be used to administer your account, to keep a record of which services you have subscribed to and to deliver the services you have requested.
• To provide you with information about Met Office offers and services (direct marketing) that you request from us or which we believe may be of interest to you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes or where we believe it is in our legitimate interests to do so.  You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information for direct marketing purposes. If at any time you wish to opt out of directing marketing, please contact [email protected].
• To ensure that contact from the Met Office website is presented in the most effective manner.
• To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between us.
• By submitting your details to us, the Met Office may contact you to request your feedback and views to help us improve our services.  We will contact you via our own internal platforms and third party service providers accredited to the Market Research Society for this purpose, who will contact you on our behalf.

We do not sell your personal information to any other organisations.

The basis of our legitimate interests:

• To keep our records up to date and to monitor how our customers use our products and services.
• To develop our products and services.
• To help us improve our services.
• To respond to enquiries from members of the public.

Please note that we may process your personal information for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purposes for which we are using your information.  Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal basis we are relying upon to process your personal information.

Access to your information

You have the following rights under data protection legislation in relation to the processing of your personal data: 

• The right to be informed
• The right of access
• The right to rectification
• The right to erasure
• The right to restrict processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object
• The right to prevent automated decision making and -profiling.

For further information in respect of your rights as a data subject, please see details on the Information Commissioner’s Office. To exercise any of the above rights, please contact [email protected]

Please note that we may require evidence of your identity in relation to your request.

Where we store and process your personal information

The Met Office is responsible for the processing of your personal information and is based in the United Kingdom (UK).

We will not transfer your personal information outside the UK or European Economic Area (EEA) unless suitable safeguards are in place.

Whenever we transfer your personal information from the UK outside the UK or EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal information to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries
• Where we use certain data processors, we may use specific contractual clauses approved by the European Commission which give personal information the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries

Our technology services providers or other contracted service providers may also have access or store data for us, but solely for use on behalf of the Met Office in accordance with our instructions and under our control. 

You may be able to access your own registration details over the Internet from locations abroad. This privacy policy covers just processing by the Met Office and does not cover any processing which may be carried out by your Internet service provider.

You may also access your registration details through the relevant customer administration page, using your customer password. Access is strictly controlled and password protected. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of the Met Office websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential.

Disclosure of your information

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason, and that reason is compatible with the original purposes.  If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

We may share your personal information with our external third party processors for the purposes of the provision of our services to you and to help us improve our services.

We require all third party processors to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third party processors to use your personal information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

How long do we retain your data?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including the purposes of satisfying any legal and regulatory requirements.

Unless otherwise specified, we will hold your personal information:

• In accordance with our business needs, ie managing our relationship with you;
• Whilst we provide you with our services;
• In accordance with our contractual retention period;
• In accordance with any legal and regulatory requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Cookies

To find out how the Met Office use cookies, please see How cookies are used by the Met Office

Other websites

The Met Office website contains links to other websites.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that they have their own privacy policies and we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.

Met Office App

The Met Office takes the privacy of its customers very seriously. This privacy policy applies to your use of the Met Office Android or iOS mobile application software (“App”) and explains how we use any personal information we collect about you. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children below the age of 13. Do not use the App if you are below the age of 13 without obtaining parental consent.

The Data Controller is the Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (BEIS). 

The Met Office is an Executive Agency of BEIS and is registered with the Supervisory Authority (in the name of BEIS), Registration No. ZA204800.

The right to lodge a complaint with the Supervisory Authority: 

If you have any concerns relating to the handling of your personal information, you may refer the matter to the Supervisory Authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, who can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF https://ico.org.uk/.  Telephone: 0303 123 1113.

The data we collect about you

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal information about you as follows:   

• Contact Data
• Transaction Data
• Device Data
• Content Data
• Profile Data
• Usage Data
• Marketing and Communications Data
• Location Data

These categories of data are explained further below.

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data to provide us with insight into users experience within the App.  Our analytics helps us understand how our products are being used to help user experience. We also use analytics to identify when there is a problem with the App. For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific App feature. You have the ability within the App to switch your analytics preferences to “off” if you wish. You can do this by switching the ‘Performance’ toggle to ‘off’ in our Privacy consent screen, within the settings menu.   

We do not collect any special categories of personal information about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.  

How is your personal information collected?

We will collect and process the following data about you:  

• Information you give us. This is information (including Identity, Contact, and Marketing and Communications Data) you consent to giving us about you. It can include information you provide when you download or register an App, search for an App, enter a competition, promotion or survey, and when you report a problem with an App
• If you contact us, we will keep a record of that correspondence
• Information we collect about you and your device. With your consent, each time you use our App we will automatically collect personal information including Device, Content and Usage Data. We collect this data using App storage technology
• Location Data: We also use device GPS to determine your current location, both for analytics purposes (crash reporting) and to deliver you location-specific weather forecasts. Some of our location-enabled services require your personal information for the feature to work. You can withdraw your consent at any time by disabling Location Data in your settings, or to disable analytics (crash reporting) you can do this in the settings on the App
• Unique application numbers. When you want to install or uninstall a service containing a unique application number or when such a service searches for automatic updates, that number and information about your installation, for example, the type of operating system, may be sent to us.

Tracking technologies

We use App data to distinguish you from other users of the App on the distribution platform (Google Play store or Apple App Store) to remember your preferences. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you use the App and also allows us to improve the App.

Purposes for which we will use your personal information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to.  Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

• To install the App and register you as a new App user (Consent)
• To manage our relationship with you including notifying you of changes to the App or any services and to deliver our services (Consent, Contractual Necessity, Legitimate Interests)
• To enable you to participate in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey (Consent, Legitimate Interests)
• To administer and protect our business and this App including troubleshooting, data analysis and system testing (Legitimate Interests)
• To measure and analyse the effectiveness of the advertising we serve you and to monitor trends so we can improve the App (Consent, Legitimate Interests).
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation (compliance with legal obligations)
• To deliver content and advertisements (including personalised advertisements) to you (Consent, Legitimate Interests).

The Met Office app participates in the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework and complies with its Specifications and Policies. The app uses the Consent Management Platform provided by OneTrust, with the identification number 28.

With your consent (provided through the App) we will process your personal information to deliver you adverts more relevant to you. Personalised advertising within the App adheres to the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF). You can choose your consent options through the settings menu by selecting ‘Manage your privacy settings’ and then ‘Manage preferences’. You can also object to the use of legitimate interests here if you wish. You can find details of the Transparency and Consent Framework at https://iabeurope.eu/iab-europe-transparency-consent-framework-policies/

You should also note that you may also see personalised adverts that rely on your consent given through another App not related to the Met Office if that App uses the same platform to deliver adverts as the Met Office.  

Although the Met Office cannot directly control your non-personalised advertising settings for you, there are some steps that you can take to further control these yourself:

Settings can apply differently across web browser and mobile platforms, if you are accessing Met Office services though the web browser on your mobile device, you should read our web privacy policy and follow the instructions given in our Cookie Policy. However, mobile applications use different technologies to recognise your device. To turn off your App usage data being used to target advertising within apps on your device generally you should follow the instructions below:

Google Android

1. Go to Settings

2. Select Google in the Accounts section

3. Select Ads in the Privacy section

4. Tick Opt out of interest based ads

Apple iOS

1. Go to Settings > Privacy

2. Please refer to Apple's support site for further information

Met Office third-party advertising partners

You can review the third-party advertising vendors and how this information is being used in our privacy consent screen, which is shown both on first downloading the app or at any time within the app by navigating to Settings -> Manage your privacy settings -> List of partners (Vendors).

If the privacy consent screen does not appear on first opening the app (for example if you have no network connection at that time) then your preferences will be defaulted to off, but we will still be using the ‘Strictly necessary’ SDKs. Software Development Kits (SDKs) are collections of software tools used by developers to provide specific aspects of app functionality, for example sending push notifications, or the video player which serves the latest presented forecast videos.

You can also customise your consent preferences for our tracking technologies within the privacy settings screen.

Strictly necessary SDKs

Below is a list of the third party SDKs (Software Development Kits) deemed as strictly necessary in the Met Office app, and therefore those which are ‘Always on’. These will be on even when ‘Reject all’ has been chosen for your consent preferences:

• Brightcove video player – this SDK allows the forecast video to be played in the app. It transfers some analytics to Brightcove, such as how long the video has been played for, but this is non-identifiable information. You can view the Brightcove Privacy Policy at https://www.brightcove.com/en/legal/services-privacy-policy
• Amazon Pinpoint – This stores information such as device identifier and location tags on your device, and is used in order to enable push notifications for National Severe Weather Warnings. You can view the Amazon AWS Privacy Policy at https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/
• Mapbox – This enables maps to be shown within the Met Office app, including those where National Severe Weather warnings are displayed. You can view the Mapbox Privacy Policy at https://www.mapbox.com/legal/privacy

International transfers

Please refer to the Privacy Policies of our third party adverting and analytics partners as detailed above.

Data security

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers.

Any payment transactions relating to in App purchases will be carried out by Apple for iOS devices.  Please see details on https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/privacy/en-ww/

Any payment transactions relating to in App purchases will be carried out by Google Play Store for Android devices.  Please see details on https://policies.google.com/privacy

Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way.  We will collect and store personal information on your Device using application data caches and other technology.  Certain services include social networking features. Ensure when using these features that you do not submit any personal information that you do not want to be seen, collected or used by other users.  We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator when we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

In the event that you uninstall the App, information/technologies stored on your device will be deleted.

Please also refer to the Privacy Policies of our third party advertising and analytics providers as detailed above relating to the retention of your personal information.

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances you have the following rights under data protection legislation in relation to your personal data:

• The right to be informed
• The right of access
• The right to rectification
• The right to erasure
• The right to restrict processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object
• The right to prevent automated decision making and profiling.

For further information in respect of your rights as a data subject, please see details on the Information Commissioner’s Office. To exercise any of the above rights, please contact [email protected]

Please note that we may require evidence of your identity in relation to your request.

Changes to our privacy policy

This privacy policy may occasionally be updated or amended therefore we advise you to revisit this page regularly. This privacy policy was last reviewed on 17 October 2022.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you, please contact us:

• by email to the Met Office Data Protection Practitioner to [email protected];
• or write to our Data Protection Practitioner at the address set out above.

You may also contact the Data Protection Officer at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

• by e-mail to [email protected]
• or write to the Data Protection Officer at:
  BEIS Data Protection Officer,
  Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
  1 Victoria Street,
  London,
  SW1H 0ET