Privacy Notice
ABOUT US
Falcon Rural Housing Limited is the single “Data Controller” of all the personal data that you have provided to us, and we are required to keep your data safe and secure in line with the General Data Protection Regulations (EU Regulation 2016/679) (GDPR).
How We Use Your Information
The information we collect from you is required to enable us to carry out our role as a social housing provider (being your landlord), and there will be occasions when we need to share this information with other organisations in order to deliver a full range of services to you.
This privacy notice explains what information we collect and why, who we may share it with, how long we keep it, what your rights are in relation to it, and how you can contact us or the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) if you have any questions or complaints.
Information We Collect & Why
The majority of the information we collect is needed to help us meet our obligations as your landlord (we have a contract with you in the form of your tenancy agreement). We need this information to ensure we are able to provide a service to you, meet your accommodation needs and meet any individual needs you may have in terms of the way we communicate with you, etc. We will keep this information for the length of your tenancy, and for up to 6 years afterwards. This will include some, or all, of the following information:
- Personal information: name, address, date of birth.
- Contact details: home phone number, mobile phone number, email address.
- Further details: National Insurance Number, Housing Benefit Reference Number, etc.
- Sensitive personal information: gender, ethnicity, disability information, medical details, marital status.
- Household information: details of other family members who will be living in your home.
- Nationality / immigration status: visa conditions, asylum status, etc.
- Images: photographic identification.
- Employment status.
- Income information.
- Criminal record declaration.
- Bank account details.
We will record further, factual information during the course of your tenancy so that we have a record of our contacts with you. This may include:
- Records of visits, phone conversations, emails, letters, etc.
- Records of repairs carried out at your home.
- Audio recordings of your calls into our office (where you have been advised we are doing so).
- CCTV images, event photographs or video recordings.
- Complaints records.
- Anti-social behaviour reports, witness statements and risk assessments.
- Your rent payment history.
- Unacceptable behaviour warnings where we have evidence that you may pose a risk to our colleagues, contractors or neighbours.
- Survey data.
We realise that this sounds like a long list – but we do not collect any information that we do not actually need in order to provide you with a good service.
Other Reasons for Using Your Information
There may be occasions where we have to use your information because there is a legal obligation for us, as a social housing provider, to do so. This may include:
- Providing information to the Local Authority in relation to Council Tax
- Providing information to the benefits agencies in relation to any benefits you are accessing, or are entitled to
- Providing information to the Police in relation to criminal investigations
- Providing information to Social Services if we believe you, or a member of your household is at risk
- Providing information to the Home Office if we have good reason to believe that an illegal immigrant is living in one of our properties
There are a number of contractors who we will share your information with because they provide services on our behalf, and they will need to get in touch with you from time to time. Each of these contractors is subject to a contract which sets out our expectations in relation to them keeping your information safe.
In addition to our contractors, we have to let the government collect statistics on who we let our properties to, via their CORE website. They have their own privacy policy which can be accessed at www.cambridge.gov.uk/media/5627/core-privacy-notice.pdf
The final reason why we may use your information is to offer you services or opportunities that we believe are closely connected to our main purpose – and where we believe we have a legitimate interest in working with you and you have given us permission to share your data with them. This might include:
- Helping you to access employment or education opportunities
- Assisting you to access financial support or additional benefits that you may be entitled to
- Promoting community events in your area
- Sending you newsletters or leaflets to give you information about our services
Keeping Your Information Safe
When you contact our offices, you may be asked to verify yourself by answering some security questions – this is to make sure we don’t give your personal information to anyone else by accident. If you want a relative or a support worker to be able to talk to us on your behalf, we will need you to sign an advocate agreement which gives your consent for them to do so.
Your Rights
Under data protection law, you have a number of rights that you can exercise if you are unhappy with the way your data is being used, or wish to know more about the data we hold about you.
Where you contact us about one of the following rights in the table below, we will action your request within 1 calendar month unless the request is complicated or large scale – in which case we may contact you if we require an additional month to comply with your request. There is no charge associated with any of these rights.
Your Right | What this right involves and how to exercise it |
|---|---|
Right to withdraw consent | Where you have given your consent for your data to be processed, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. |
Right of Access | You have the right to request a copy of all your personal data that we process (listed above). This request can be made in writing, by email, in person or over the telephone. We will need to verify your identity before we process your request. |
Right to Rectification | You have the right to have any incorrect data that we hold about you corrected, or any incomplete data finalised. |
Right to Erasure | If you believe that the data we are processing is no longer necessary, or we no longer have a good reason for processing it, you can request that your data be permanently erased. |
Right to Restriction of Processing | If you believe that the data we are processing is inaccurate, or that we are processing it unlawfully, you can request that we temporarily restrict the use of that data until we can establish whether it should be permanently rectified or erased. |
Right to Data Portability | You can request that your personal data is provided, via a commonly used, machine-readable format, to another data controller. |
Right to Object | If you feel that we do not have a legitimate lawful basis for processing your personal data, you can object to the processing which may result in us no longer processing specific categories of data. You also have a specific right to object to your personal data being processed for the purposes of direct marketing if you do not wish to receive marketing communication from the Data Controller. |
Rights in relation to Automated Decision Making | If a decision is made about you based solely on automated processing, you have the right to request a “human” review of the decision. |
If your personal data is being processed on our behalf by any third party companies, we will notify them if you exercise any of the rights above, to ensure that they comply with your request.
How to contact Falcon Rural Housing Limited
If you have any questions about our privacy policy or the information we hold about you, please contact us at:
Falcon House, 3a South Street, Wellington, Somerset. TA21 8NR
Tel: 01823 667343
Your Right to Lodge a Complaint
If you are unhappy with the way that we have processed your personal data, or you feel that we have breached the relevant legislation, you have the right to lodge a complaint with us, and/or with the Information Commissioners Office. The ICO can be contacted by:
Post:
Information Commissioners Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate)
Email: casework@ico.org.uk or Web Form: www.ico.org.uk