500 Words 2025: Privacy Notice

Check out the Privacy notice for the 500 words competition.

Danny and Tom from McFly on stage, they are laughing.

What is a privacy notice?

Privacy Notice tells you what personal data the BBC collects about you, how we use it and your legal rights.

Personal data means any information that can be used to identify you, such as your name, address, or picture. This privacy notice is designed to be read by children and young people, but you might want to read it with your parent or guardian.

Why are we doing this and how can you take part?

The BBC is giving you the chance to enter this year’s ‘500 Words’ story competition!

There are two age categories for story submissions: 5–7-year-olds and 8–11-year-olds. In each category are loads of prizes to be won.

To enter, your application will need to be submitted by one of the following that will be referred to as a ‘Responsible Adult’ in this Privacy Notice:

  • Parent/Guardian;

  • Teacher;

  • Sport’s club leader; or

  • Community group leader

Your Responsible Adult should send us a story you wrote. It should be no longer than 500 words and should be submitted on the BBC’s ‘500 Words’ website.

If we use your story, or if you appear in one of our programmes or websites, this means it will be available online and/or on-demand. You or your story may be used again in a future broadcast. If you are successful, your name will be shown together with your story on our website or BBC social media.

Why do we collect and how do we use your personal data?

We will only collect your personal data when we need it to help us do our job or to follow the law. We collect it for this application so that we can select stories for ‘500 Words’ and to contact your teacher or parent/guardian about your story.

Your personal data

  • Name

  • Gender

  • Date of birth

  • Name of your story

  • Your story

 

Your Responsible Adult’s personal data

We will also collect some of your responsible adult’s personal data so we can contact them if we need to:

  • Name

  • Postcode

  • Region

  • Phone number

  • Email

  • Their relationship to you

  • Group name (if they use this)

  • Name and postcode of School

Who looks after your personal data?

The BBC is the data controllers of your personal data. A data controller is responsible for using the personal data collected about you. We have appointed a Data Protection Officer; this person makes sure we do everything the law says we should. If you want to ask any questions about the personal data we collect, please email our Data Protection Officer at DataProtection.Officer@bbc.co.uk

The rules we must follow when we collect your personal data

The BBC follows the data protection rules when we collect and use your personal data. The rule that we are using to collect your personal data for ‘500 Words’ is called “public task.” We use this rule because the purpose of the BBC is to inform, educate, and entertain, and campaigns like the one you are entering help us do that.

We also have a legal obligation to keep winner’s personal data so that we can prove the competition was ran fairly.

Will your personal data be shared?

When we are required to share your information with other people, we will only share it so we can do our job or when the law says that we must do it. When your personal data is shared with someone else, they must keep it safe and only use it in a way that the BBC tells them they can use it.

We will share your stories, gender, age bracket, school name and location with our partner Oxford University Press. They use this for research purposes but will not be used to identify anyone.

If your story is selected it will be shared with the judges to select the winners.

How long will we keep your personal data?

If what you sent us is used for broadcast or shown on our website, it will be kept forever in the BBC archive.

Your personal data will be held until the end of September 2026.

If your story is shortlisted or in the final, we might contact your Responsible Adult to ask you questions about what you liked or did not like about this year’s competition.

Your personal data will be stored in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA).

What are your rights?

You and your Responsible Adult have the right under data protection law to:

  • Be told how we use your personal data.

  • Ask to see the personal data we hold.

  • Ask us to change personal data you think is wrong.

  • Ask us to delete personal data when it is not needed anymore.

  • Ask us to only use your personal data in certain ways.

  • Tell us you do not want your personal data to be processed.

  • Ask us to send your personal data to you or any other organisation, in certain situations.

You can find out more about your data protection rights on our website.

More information

You can contact our Data Protection Officer.

If you have questions or want to find out more about your rights, the BBC’s Privacy and Cookies

Policy can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/privacy.

If you have a concern about the way the BBC has handled your personal data, you can complaint to the supervisory authority in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) https://ico.org.uk/.

Updating this privacy notice

We will update this privacy notice if there are changes to how we use your personal data.