Subject Access Request to the Ministry of Defence

The Ministry of Defence is one controller with several separate record routes, and they are not the same request. Which one you need depends on what you are asking for and which service you were in. If you want a military service record, use the free official route first: get a copy of military records of service on GOV.UK. There is no fee, and it is the same request the MOD treats as a subject access request. The MOD says of those applications that "It can take up to a year for your application to be processed", warns of a significant backlog, and asks people not to submit more than 5 applications every month. That is far longer than the statutory month, so it is worth reading what to do when a response is late before you start chasing. The MOD is transferring around 9.3 million service records to The National Archives, a move it expects to complete in 2027, so an older record may no longer be held by the department at all. Currently serving personnel cannot use the online service. The MOD tells them to complete MOD Form 1694 and email it or hand it in to their local unit. Health records for serving personnel go to the clinical facility where you are registered for care, and discharged personnel are directed to a separate Royal Navy or Army medical disclosure address on the same form. Care you received after leaving the forces will normally sit with the NHS or another health provider rather than with the MOD. The MOD publishes no single subject access email address. Form 1694 lists a different destination for each branch, and the entry for a member of the public is the only one on the list with a postal address and no email at all. cio-dpa@mod.gov.uk is the MOD Data Protection Officer's inbox for complaints about how a request was handled, not an address for making one. None of the MOD's forms is mandatory. It says it will accept requests made in other ways, so if your request does not fit the online service you can write it yourself. Requests about someone who has died are not subject access requests, because data protection rights end at death. The MOD handles those under the Freedom of Information Act, and there is a separate free service to apply for a deceased person's military record. The Ministry of Defence Police is a separate force with its own records and its own contact details, and is not covered by this page. A request about a policing matter goes to a police force rather than to the department.

Made under UK GDPR Article 15, subject to the exemptions in Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018

Central government departments hold large, long-lived files, and requests to them are usually tied to a decision the person is challenging: an immigration application, a benefit decision, a tax assessment. Naming the decision, the date and any reference number substantially improves what comes back.

Departments also have exemptions available to them that most organisations do not. Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018 lets them restrict access where complying would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, or the assessment or collection of a tax or duty. HMRC relies on the last of these. Separately, an immigration exemption lets the Home Office restrict access where complying would be likely to prejudice effective immigration control. Both are limited to the extent of the prejudice — neither is a blanket refusal, and a department has to justify withholding rather than assert it.

The immigration exemption in particular has been narrowed by litigation. The Court of Appeal found it incompatible with the UK GDPR twice, in 2021 and again in December 2023, and it was amended after each judgment. Since the amendments in force on 8 March 2024 the Home Office must decide case by case, separately for each right, and afresh each time, must show a substantial risk that outweighs the risk to your interests, must record its reasons, and must tell you it has applied the exemption unless saying so would itself be prejudicial.

Departments run their own subject access routes rather than one central one, and several also publish a faster self-service channel that answers the same question for free. Using the wrong one is the most common cause of delay: a request sent to a general enquiry address gets rerouted, and a request for information already sitting in an online account gets refused as unnecessary.

• Immigration and visa application files
• Benefit claim records and decision notes
• Tax records and correspondence
• Records of a decision you are appealing
• Internal notes and assessments about you

Deadline. An organisation must respond without undue delay and within one month. It may extend by up to two further months where the request is complex or you have made a number of requests, but it must tell you within the first month that it is doing so, and why.

Cost. There is normally no fee. A reasonable fee may only be charged where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, or where you ask for further copies.

Proving who you are. An organisation may ask you to verify your identity, but only where it has reasonable doubts about who you are, and it should ask for the minimum needed. Where it needs further information to deal with your request, the one-month clock pauses until you provide it.

How hard they have to look. An organisation has to carry out a reasonable and proportionate search — not an exhaustive one. What counts as reasonable depends on the volume of information, the difficulty of locating it, and the size and resources of the organisation. This is a common reason for a partial response, and it is worth being specific about what you want.

If they ignore you. Complain to the organisation first. Since 19 June 2026 every organisation has had a legal duty to give you a clear way to raise a data protection complaint, to acknowledge it within 30 days, to look into it properly and to tell you the outcome. If it does not, or the answer is incomplete, you can then complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.