Upon notification of an election agent’s name and address you must publish a notice setting out those details and the name of the candidate as soon as possible.
You should also include the full name of the candidate or party and you could add any commonly used name in brackets, for completeness.1
However, there is no legal requirement to use both their full name and commonly used name, and you can decide on the approach to take. Whichever approach is followed, you should ensure that you apply it consistently for all candidates on the notice.
The notice must be updated if any agent’s appointment is revoked, or the agent dies, and the new agent’s details published on the revised version. You must provide a copy of the notice to all CROs for them to publish locally.
Your privacy notice should make clear that you are required under electoral legislation to publish an election agent’s name and address information in the notice of election agents.
You will also need to consider whether it is appropriate or necessary for the notice to remain published, on your website or elsewhere, beyond the expiry of the petition period for that election. The notice serves a specific purpose, i.e. advising who will be a candidate’s election agent, so once the election is over, and the opportunity to question that election has passed, they serve no further purpose. Therefore, you should either remove the notice, or remove the personal data contained in the notice, once the petition deadline for the election has passed You can find more information in our guidance on Data Protection.