Advanced search

Travel & living abroad

• Travel advice by country
• Find an Embassy
• Travel alerts
• Passports
• Staying safe and healthy
• Travel checklist
• LOCATE: register with us
• Travel Health
• Travel insurance advice
• Driving abroad
• Travel money
• Eat and drink safely
• Tropical cyclones
• Terrorism
• River and sea safety including piracy
• When things go wrong
• Your trip
• Be a responsible tourist
• Living overseas
• Births, deaths, marriages
• Know Before You Go campaign
• Our publications
• Consular feedback questionnaires
• Contact us

LOCATE: register with us

Use our LOCATE service to tell us where you’re travelling to so our embassy and crisis staff can provide better assistance in an emergency such as a tsunami or terrorist attack.

It only takes a few minutes to register your contact details and travel plans online and the local British embassy will know you’re coming. There's no need to contact them directly.

Going on another trip? Simply, login and update your LOCATE account and we’ll let the next British embassy know.

Register with LOCATE now using the online form.

Benefits of registering with LOCATE?

• If a major catastrophe occurs we’ll have an instant record of your details so we can contact you to make sure you’re OK and provide advice.
• If family and friends need to get in touch with you we can help them to find you.

We’re confident Locate will improve our ability to provide help in crisis situations and reduce delay and worry in times of stress for family and friends at home.

Who can register?

We’re encouraging all British Nationals travelling and living overseas to register with LOCATE, even for short trips.

How do I register with LOCATE?

Complete the short online registration form.

You only need to register for the service once and then update your account when you make a new trip abroad. You can even add planned trips abroad up to a year ahead.

What happens to my details if I register?

We are collecting this data for consular purposes, i.e. finding people who might be caught up in an incident overseas, or getting warnings or other important information to them. The name, address and contact details of those registered for more than 90 days will be passed on to carefully selected regional contacts in some countries where we have established networks of such people to help British nationals. In addition, during crises we may need to share some information with the UK police, the Ministry of Defence or with governments of other countries in certain restricted circumstances, e.g. in a crisis where we had to rely on another country to help affected British nationals leave a country. We are bound by existing legislation, the Data Protection Act (DPA).

The DPA recognises that there may be circumstances when compliance with one or more of the Act's data protection principles may prejudice other interests, e.g. national security; crime and taxation; and disclosures required by law or made in connection with legal proceedings. Under such circumstances, the FCO may be obliged or consider it necessary to share personal data with law enforcement/police, other government departments, agency or court concerned. However, any such release would comply with the remaining data protection principles.

Further information about such personal data and the DPA may be found on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

I've already subscribed to the Foreign Office's Online Services - is this the same thing?

No, you still need to register with LOCATE.

Will I get travel advice updates if I register with LOCATE?

No, but you can quickly subscribe for country travel advice email alerts.

Share this with:

• Delicious
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon

Registering for LOCATE

Online registration form

Consular feedback

We welcome your feedback.

What you say is very important in deciding where we take action.

We have two online questionnaires. Please complete the one that is relevant to the assistance you received.

Copyright 2009 Foreign & Commonwealth Office