Legal
How to raise a concern with us about your personal data.
We take the privacy and security of your personal data seriously. If you have a concern about how we have collected, used, shared, stored or deleted your personal information, including how we have used any automated tools or AI in a way that affects your personal data, we want to hear from you. We will do our best to put things right.
This notice explains your rights, how to raise a concern with us, what to expect when you do, and what to do if you are not satisfied with our response.
Your right to complain directly to us is a statutory right under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. You do not need to go to the ICO first. We are your first point of contact, though you are always free to contact the ICO directly if you prefer.
Under UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, you have the right to:
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details below.
Data protection at VA4U Virtual Assisting is the responsibility of:
| Responsible person | Sharon Elliott, Owner |
| hello@va4uvirtualassisting.co.uk | |
| Post | VA4U Virtual Assisting, Worthing, West Sussex |
We accept complaints however they reach us, by email or in writing. However your complaint arrives, we will log it and handle it in the same way. You do not need to use a particular form or format.
A data protection complaint is any concern you raise about how we have collected, used, stored, shared or deleted your personal data. This covers a wide range of situations, not just formal data breaches. Examples include:
If you are not sure whether your concern is a data protection matter, please contact us anyway and we will help direct it to the right place.
To help us investigate your concern as quickly as possible, it helps if you can tell us:
You do not need to provide all of this to make a valid complaint. If you are not sure what to include, just get in touch and we will help you from there.
| Step 1 Acknowledgement |
Within 30 calendar days of receiving your complaint. We will confirm we have received it, the date we received it, the name of the person handling it, and what happens next. |
| Step 2 Investigation |
We will investigate your complaint fairly and thoroughly, without undue delay. This may include reviewing records and speaking to relevant team members or suppliers. |
| Step 3 Keeping You Informed |
We will not go silent while we are investigating. If we need more information from you, or if anything changes, we will get in touch as soon as possible. |
| Step 4 Our Response |
We aim to respond within one calendar month. In complex cases we may extend this by up to two further months. If we need to do this, we will tell you within the first month and explain why. Our response will set out what we investigated, what we found, what action we have taken, and your right to escalate to the ICO. |
We will not charge a fee for handling your complaint unless it is clearly unfounded or excessive, in which case we will explain this before proceeding.
If your concern relates to how AI or an automated tool has been used in connection with your personal data, we will review whether AI was used and at what stage, whether the use was lawful, fair and transparent, and whether appropriate human oversight was in place.
We will not use AI alone to decide the outcome of a data protection complaint. A named member of our team will handle the investigation and response personally.
Where your complaint relates to an automated or AI-assisted decision, you have additional rights under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, including the right to ask us to explain how the process worked in plain English, to request a human review, and to ask us to reconsider the outcome. The person carrying out that review has full authority to change the original decision.
Where our processes involve third-party tools, platforms or suppliers, we remain your single point of contact for any data protection complaint. You do not need to contact our suppliers directly. We will liaise with them on your behalf and keep you informed of the outcome.
We keep records of all data protection complaints we receive, the steps we take to investigate them, and the outcomes. Complaint records are held securely and only accessed by those who need to handle the matter. The ICO may request access to our complaint records as part of its regulatory role and we are required to provide them.
If you remain unhappy after we have responded, or at any point during our process, you have the right to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). You do not have to wait for us to finish before contacting the ICO, though we would always appreciate the opportunity to put things right first.
| ICO website | ico.org.uk |
| Helpline | 0303 123 1113 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 4:30pm) |
| Live chat | Available at ico.org.uk |
| Post | Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF |
VA4U Virtual Assisting is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZC161819. You can verify this at ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/what-we-do/register-of-fee-payers/.
We want this process to be accessible to everyone. If you need this notice in a different format, or if you would like to speak to someone directly rather than communicate in writing, please let us know and we will do our best to help.
Contact us at: hello@va4uvirtualassisting.co.uk
Have a concern about your data? We're always happy to help.
hello@va4uvirtualassisting.co.uk