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Complaint form

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Before you lodge your complaint, please take a moment to read our Data protection notice and go through the complaints checklist.

An asterisk (*) denotes mandatory items. Not replying to mandatory items in the form may mean that the EDPS is unable to properly investigate the complaint and may render your complaint inadmissible.

What is your complaint about?

1. Are you:

Please note that if you are not employed by an EU institution, body, office or agency, you can still alert the EDPS about a data protection issue within an EU institution by sending an email to supervision@edps.europa.eu. The EDPS will analyse the information and decide how to follow-up, but cannot handle it as a complaint, which means that you will not be informed of the outcome of a potential investigation or audit. 

2. Which EU institution, body, office or agency do you wish to complain about?
Please note that the EDPS is only competent for dealing with complaints concerning the processing of personal data by EU institutions, bodies, offices or agencies.
Please keep your complaint concise. In exceptional cases, where a complaint needs to be longer than the allowed maximum number of words in the form, please include the full complaint as an attachment, and write a summary in the complaint form.
Please do not provide the EDPS with personal data of third parties unless the personal data is necessary to enable the EDPS to handle the complaint.
Please note that the EDPS will not investigate complaints relating to facts that you learned about more than two years ago.
Please only provide documents or information to the EDPS that are necessary to understand the complaint. Please ensure that any documents attached as evidence (for example, correspondence) are numbered and named (for example, 1-Letter from xx-date, 2-Email to xx-date ...).

The maximum file size is 3 MB per file and you can provide three files at most.
Allowed types: pdf, doc, docx, odt, ppt, pptx, odp, xls, xlsx, ods.
If you want to submit additional documents, please let us know.
If your supporting documentations adds up to more than 40 pages, please provide a summary.

Which other steps have you already taken?

7. Have you already contacted the EU institution, body, office or agency you want to complain about concerning the alleged violation?

If you have not yet contacted the institution (the controller), we recommend that you do so before submitting your complaint. Each EU institution, body, office or agency has a Data Protection Officer (DPO), who may be in a better position to assist you in resolving the issue. As DPOs are closer to the institutions, they may be able to help you more quickly. For the exercise of your rights (right of access, rectification, erasure, etc.), please always contact the controller first.

8. Have you submitted the same matter to other bodies (Court of Justice, European Ombudsman, etc.)?
The EDPS cannot investigate a case where the issue is the subject of legal proceedings or subject of the proceedings before the European Ombudsman

Contact information

9. Your Name

Please note:
If you are a lawyer acting on behalf of a client, please enter your client's name here, not yours - please enter your details under "contact information" below and attach a power of attorney.
If you are a not-for-profit body, organisation or association, please enter your client name here, not yours - please enter your details under "contact information" below and attach a mandate from the individual.

please include country information

Confidential treatment

The EDPS treats all complaints confidentially. However, the investigation of your complaint may require disclosing your identity and the allegations you made to the EU institution, body, office, or agency against which you complained. If necessary for the investigation, the identity of the third parties involved, including national data protection authorities may be disclosed. The EDPS will also copy the Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the EU institution, body, office or agency concerned into all correspondence between the EDPS and the EU institution, body, office or agency concerned. Any public summaries of cases (e.g. in the Annual Reports of the EDPS) will be completely anonymous.

12. Do you accept this standard confidential treatment of your complaint?
13. Do you agree that your complaint may be passed to another institution, body, office or agency (European or national), if the EDPS is not competent?
14. I acknowledge having read and understood the Data protection notice.
Link to Data protection notice