Housing and Homelessness - Privacy notice
Who we are and what we do
The Council is a data controller under the Data Protection Legislation as we collect and process personal information about you in order to provide Housing and Homelessness Services and meet our statutory and regulatory obligations.
This notice explains why we ask for your personal information, how that information will be used and how you can access your records.
Any questions regarding our privacy practices should be sent to:
Data Protection Officer (DPO)
Cotswold District Council
Trinity Road, Cirencester, GL7 1PX
Email: data.protection@cotswold.gov.uk
Tel: 01993 861194
Why we need your information and how we use it
The Council has to collect personal information from individuals to enable us to fulfil our statutory obligations in terms of
- Providing Housing and Homelessness Services to the residents, landlords and tenants of the District;
- Identifying housing needs and managing the Housing Register;
- Determining whether the Council has a Homelessness Duty and providing emergency accommodation; and
- Administering grant applications e.g. Disability Facility Grants
We have a statutory obligation to provide these services in accordance with the following legislations, the list is not exhaustive:
- Housing Acts 1985, 1988, 1996
- Homelessness Act 2002
- Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2012
- Right to Rent Act 2015
- Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
- Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996
What type of information is collected from you
In order to administer our services we collect the following information from you:
- name
- address
- date of birth
- contact details (email, telephone number etc)
- National Insurance Number
- bank details and statements
- health records
- passport details
- driving licence
- photographs
- racial or ethnic information
- religious or philosophical beliefs
- criminal convictions
- sexual orientation
We will only ask for personal information that is appropriate to enable us to deliver our services. In some cases, you can refuse to provide your details if you deem a request to be inappropriate. However, you should note that this may impact on our ability to provide some services to you.
Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)
Information may be shared with other services at our partner Authorities, such as Housing Benefit, for the express purpose of processing your application.
Your information may also be shared with other organisations in accordance with prevailing Data Protection Legislation for the detection and prevention of fraud and crime and reporting the number of homes in our area that have been empty for more than 6 months and have been brought subsequently back into use:
- government departments
- registered social landlords
- private sector landlords
- support agencies
- other Local Authorities
- other Council Services
How long we keep your information (retention period)
Data is only held as long as is necessary, unless superseded by statutory regulation, and disposed of securely when it is no longer needed.
How we protect your Information
We will not transfer your personal data outside the EU without your consent.
We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personal data from loss, misuse, or unauthorised alteration or destruction.
Please note however that where you are transmitting information to us over the internet this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.
For any payments which we take from you online we will use a recognised online secure payment system.
We will notify you promptly in the event of any breach of your personal data which might expose you to serious risk.
Your rights
You have rights under the Data Protection Legislations:
- to access your personal data
- to be provided with information about how your personal data is processed
- to have your personal data corrected
- to have your personal data erased in certain circumstances
- to object to or restrict how your personal data is processed
- to have your personal data transferred to yourself or to another business in certain circumstances
- you have the right to be told if we have made a mistake whilst processing your data and we will self report breaches to the Commissioner.
How you can access, update or correct your information
The Data Protection Legislation allows you to find out what information is held about you, on paper and computer records. This is known as ‘right of subject access’ and applies to your Housing and Homelessness Services data along with all other personal records.
If you wish to see a copy of your records you should contact the Data Protection Officer. You are entitled to receive a copy of our records free of charge, within a month.
In certain circumstances access to your records may be limited, for example, if the records you have asked for contain information relating to another person.
The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. We are working to make our record keeping more efficient. In the meantime, if you change your address or email address, or if any of your circumstances change or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date please email us or write to us at:
Housing and Homelessness Services
Cotswold District Council
Trinity Road, Cirencester, GL7 1PX
Contact us
Further information
If you would like to know more about how we use your information, or if for any reason you do not wish to have your information used in any of the ways described here, please tell us. Contact the Data Protection Officer.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner: https://ico.org.uk
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.