Sunderland housing service privacy notice

Your Personal Information and how we use it

Sunderland Housing Service needs to collect information about you to help us provide you with the best possible service, and to ensure your wellbeing. We will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

We will not use any information we hold about you for any purpose other than that for which it was collected, unless we can demonstrate the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose.

What information do we collect?

We collect information about current, former and potential customers, who live in our properties or access our support and other services. This could also include information about their family and people associated with them (including children).

We collect information about anyone who makes a complaint or enquiry, and visitors to our website, social media sites, offices or drop-in sessions.

The categories of customer information that we collect, process, hold and share include:

• Personal contact details such as names, addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers
• Other personal information such as date of birth, national insurance number, proof of identity
• Proof of eligibility for housing, any interest or equity in other property
• Medical or health-related information
• Offences (including alleged offences)
• Criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences
• Indicators of anti-social behaviour
• Sounds and visual images e.g. CCTV images
• Family and household information
• References
• Data collected at the registration of a birth or death
• Sensitive categories of data, such as racial or ethnic origin, sexual life.
• Safeguarding information or vulnerabilities
• Financial details, such as household income or benefits, bank details if you pay by direct debit or standing order. We do not store bank card details.
• Employment details • Information about family and social circumstances
• Information relating to health and safety
• Emergency contacts
• Persons nominated to act on a customer's behalf.

If you apply to become a Sunderland Housing Service tenant, we request certain information from you. We hold on file any references necessary to assess your application, such as information from other landlords, the Police, the Probation Service, support services, Social Services, and health services.

It is important that the data that we hold about you is correct. You should advise us as soon as possible if you need us to make any changes.

We will only process information that is provided by you, or someone who you have formally nominated to act on your behalf or to send us information relating to you. We may therefore ask you to verify your identity in providing your information or if you have contact with us. Where you nominate someone to contact us on your behalf, we will require formal notification from you and identification of this nomination. We may decline or challenge such contact and we will discuss this with you if we have any concerns.

We will normally communicate with you in ways nominated by and provided by you, unless there are exceptional reasons as to why we cannot comply with your preferred method of communication. We will use these methods to communicate with you where you provide this to us. We will not use these contact details for any purpose other than for your housing applications, management of your tenancy, and your property, under the terms of this privacy notice, unless you give us permission to do so.

How is the information we collect used?

We use this information to:

• Manage allocation and letting of the properties
• Provide housing advice
• Manage tenancies and leasehold properties
• Manage your account charges and payments, including rent and service charges and arrears
• Provide a repairs and maintenance service
• Ensure the wellbeing and safety of customers
• Offer welfare advice
• Support customers impacted by changes in the welfare system
• Provide customer support services
• Resolve anti-social behaviour disputes
• Tackle environmental anti-social behaviour
• Investigate complaints
• Ensure tenancy or leasehold conditions are complied with and facilitate prosecutions where customers have failed to meet their obligations
• Deliver our investment and maintenance programmes
• Engage with customers to get feedback on our services
• Meet our customer engagement regulatory requirements
• Provide education, employment and training advice and opportunities
• Process requests from third parties
• Process requests for information access under data protection, insurance or other legislation
• Inform the development of our policies and procedures
• Meet our statutory equality monitoring and reporting requirements
• Respond effectively in an emergency situation and ensure your health and safety
• Ensure that our premises and systems are secure
• Undertake our financial and accounting duties
• Prevent and detect fraud, error and/or legal activities.
• Carry out our statutory and public duties and comply with relevant legislation and regulation
• Ensure the health and safety of our workforce

Sunderland Housing Service conducts research and statistical analysis to help improve our business processes and the services offered to our customers, as well as to evaluate our performance against other benchmarks. Wherever possible, statistical information is anonymised or pseudonymised. Sunderland Housing Service conducts additional voluntary services including organising community events, providing debt advice, and gathering information to improve our services. Where your personal information is needed we will always notify you about the service being offered, explain the service and obtain your consent to proceed, usually by way of a consent form or sign up form for that service. Much of the information contained in this privacy notice is still relevant for these additional services

Do we share information about you with anyone?

There are times when it will be appropriate for us to share relevant information with other agencies to help us work together for your benefit. We may share your information with, but not limited to. the following partners, and they may share it with us to support your care:

• Housing Associations
• Private Landlords
• Supported Housing Providers / Hostel Providers
• Health Professionals
• Law Enforcement e.g.: Police / Probation
• Government Departments including HMRC and Department for Work and Pensions and Cabinet Office (as part of the National Fraud Initiative)
• Housing Ombudsman and other regulatory authorities and auditors
• Courts
• Utility providers
• Emergency Services e.g. Fire and Rescue Service
• Contractors for emergency/routine repairs

We do not share information about you with anyone without your consent unless the law requires or allows us to do so. We will always seek your positive consent to share information if there is no other legal basis to share.

In all cases where we must pass on information, we will only share the minimum amount of information required and will use the most secure method to transfer; wherever possible data will be pseudonymised (i.e. does not identify you personally) or encrypted.

The lawful basis on which we use this information

We process information under Article 6 (1) (b) of the GDPR, relating to the tenancy agreement between you and Sunderland Housing Service that you receive after you sign-up for a property. This also enables us to process information relating to applications for a tenancy.

We process information to meet our statutory and legal requirements under Article 6 (c) of the GDPR. We may process information to prevent and detect fraud, error and/or other illegal activities e.g. National Fraud Initiative.

We process information under Article 6 (e) of the GDPR in relation to carrying out our public duties and exercising the official authority vested in us.

We process special category data, such as relevant health conditions, under Article 9 (2) (g) of the GDPR, for reasons of public interest in relation to the provision of housing and other related services as defined in this notice.

On occasion, we may process personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences under Article 10 of the GDPR.

How we look after your information

All information is held securely with physical, organisational and electronic access controls to ensure it is secure both at rest and when in transit.

Paper-based, non-computerised, information is stored securely within accesscontrolled storage, and is only processed by staff with a need to do so.

Electronic, computerised, information is stored securely on servers managed by Sunderland City Council.

Sunderland City Council has Data Protection and Information Security procedures and policies to ensure that data is handled appropriately and protected from accidental loss or misuse. The Council seeks to comply and align its policies with all parts of the Information Security Standards ISO 27001. Access to information is only permitted to trained, accredited staff where there is a legitimate reason.

How long we will look after your information

We will keep information in line with Sunderland City Council's Retention Schedule for Sunderland Housing Service, and we will only keep it as long as we need it. When we no longer need your information it will be destroyed securely by deletion of electronic records and shredding of paper files.

Requesting access to your personal data

You can find out if we hold any personal information about you by making a 'subject access request' under the General Data Protection Regulation.

In addition, you have the right to request the rectification or erasure of your personal data, and to object to, or request restriction of, processing your data.

If you have any concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal information, we request that you raise your concern with us in the first instance.

Alternatively, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office at

https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Further information

https://www.sunderland.gov.uk/data-protection

Contact Us

Data Protection Officer, Sunderland City Council, City Hall, Plater Way, Sunderland, SR1 3AA

Email: Data.Protection@sunderland.gov.uk or Tel: 0191 520 5555