Two days before Christmas we had a call to the helpline about a Subject Access Request. A company had received a request and the requestor had said that they had 14 days to respond and provide the information. Obviously with all the Christmas and New Year bank holidays, the company were panicking about responding within 14 days.
Firstly, the response time for a subject access request is one calendar month. The person making the request of this organisation had got it wrong.
If you receive a request on the 23rd December you have until the 23rd January to respond.
If there is no corresponding date in the following month, you have the last day of the month to respond. For example, if you receive a request on the 31st January, you have until 28 (or 29th in a leap year) of February to respond.
If the corresponding date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or Bank Holiday, you have until the following working day to respond.
For most individual rights requests, the response time is one calendar month. For some rights requests such as a subject access request, it is possible to have an extension of a further two months, making the total response time 3 months but you need to meet certain criteria to be able to use the extension.
If you are having difficulty with a subject access request, then please contact us here and we’ll help.