Processing of complaints

The Ministry of Immigration and Integration collects and processes personal data in order to be able to deal with complaints. This may include complaints over specific decisions and complaints over case administration times.

Your complaint will include personal data about you, and personal data will typically also be obtained from the authority with which your complaint is concerned.

Purpose and legal basis

The purpose of the processing of personal data in complaints cases is to be able to deal with the cases and make decisions in them.

The legal basis for processing the personal data is based on a legal obligation, see Article 6(1)(c) and Article 9(2)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation, and section 8 of the Data Protection Act in relation to the performance of the Ministry's tasks.

As part of our exercise of official authority, we are legally obliged to process your personal data under either Part 8 of the Aliens Act, royal orders on the entry into force of the Aliens Act for the Faroe Islands and Greenland, the Repatriation Act, the Nationality Act, the Integration Act, the Act on Danish Courses for Adult Foreign Nationals and Others, the Public Administration Act, or the principles of good administration.

Data being processed

We process both general and sensitive personal data about the person with whom the complaint is concerned, and we may also receive information about any criminal convictions or offences.

We may also process information about your name and address, but also about your ethnic origin and religious beliefs. 

Recipients of personal data

Depending on the circumstances, we may disclose personal data to other public authorities, including:

The Immigration Service, the Immigration Appeals Board, the Refugee Appeals Board, other ministries and subordinate authorities, local authorities, police authorities, Danish missions abroad (embassies, etc.), the Danish Parliament, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the Legal Adviser to the Danish Government, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, the Danish National ID Centre, the Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, and other EU Member States.

When the Ministry finalises a complaints case, we will – as part of giving notice of the outcome of the complaints case – disclose personal data about you to the authority which made the decision in the first instance over which you filed the complaint.

Storage of your data

Complaints are registered with a reference number in our electronic case and document management system. We file documents with personal data in accordance with the rules set out in the Access to Public Administration Files Act, and we hand them over to the state archival authorities in accordance with the rules set out in the legislation on archives (approximately every five years). After this, we will make a specific assessment of whether we need to retain a copy of the cases. This assessment will take into account whether the complaint may be likely to form part of future cases, such as in connection with requests for renewed consideration, etc. If the Ministry does not have an administrative need to retain a copy of the cases, they will be erased.