Privacy notices - Housing Tenants & Housing Applicants

When you apply for a house with The Highland Council, via the Highland Housing Register, and during the course of your tenancy, we will ask you for the following personal information:

• contact details – your name, address (including previous addresses), phone number, email address, National Insurance number, date of birth;
• details of members of your household, including children – their name, phone number, email address, National Insurance number, date of birth, gender;
• details of any support worker(s) – their name, address, phone number, email address;
• health information for you and your household – for example, pregnancy and any other health condition which may impact on the type of property you would be suited to, and any potential medical adaptations to your property
• criminal convictions data – including any members of your household who require to register under the Sex Offenders Act 2003, or who have been served an AntiSocial Behaviour Order;
• details of any current and previous tenancies – including details of any past rent arrears and/or evictions; property conditions and names and contact details of former landlords to act as references;
• details of your immigration status, where applicable;
• details of any member of council staff, or staff employed by the RSLs involved in Highland Housing Register, to whom you, or a member of your household, are related;
• equality information – your age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, and disability;
• income information for you and your household – employment status, income, benefit entitlement and receipt, and savings
• details of current and former membership of the UK Armed Forces other information which may result from your housing application/tenancy with the council – including information relating to any complaints or alleged anti-social behaviour.

How will we use the information

We need to collect your personal information so that we can assess your eligibility for housing, identify a property which appropriately meets your needs and, if successful, manage your tenancy and provide you with services to assist you with tenancy matters. We will use your personal information for these purposes to:

• manage and assess your application for housing, including the size and type and features of property you (and your household) are given priority for, in line with Highland Housing Register’s / The Highland Council policies and procedures. This will also include seeking references from your former landlords/other relevant parties;
• provide and manage your and your household's housing and residential services, including processing payments of rent and service charges;
• respond to problems reported by you e.g. repairs;
• monitor you and your household's compliance with your tenancy agreement conditions;
• carry out repairs and/or planned maintenance works/surveys to maintain the standard of your property;
• offer you enhanced management services to assist you maintain the standard of your home or remain living independently at home such as grass cutting, telehealth services, fire safety checks;
• offer you ‘tenant participation’ opportunities so that you can get involved in activities to improve / plans services or community engagement activities; maintain our accounts and records
• To provide you with access to the Housing Online service online user profile that allows tenants to view aspects of their tenancy.  

This may affect our ability to offer you and provide you with housing.  This may also affect our ability to provide services to benefit you with your tenancy and / or housing application.

Article 6(1)(c) - processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation. The council processes  personal information relating to our housing applicants and tenants for the purposes of complying with our obligations under:

• the housing legislation in Scotland that sets down obligations on social housing landlords to provide housing management services, including in relation to our core activities services to provide housing and comply with the regulatory requirements of the Scottish Housing Regulator;
• the Equality Act 2010, which requires us to process personal information to make reasonable adjustments where necessary;
• the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010, which requires us to report statistical data on our housing applicants and tenants to the Scottish Housing Regulator; and the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004, which requires us to disclose and share information regarding actual or alleged antisocial behaviour.

We also process you and your household’s personal information where it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the exercise of official authority vested in The Highland Council to:

• prevent instances of anti-social behaviour, resolve any reported instances of antisocial behaviour, and pass any such reports of anti-social behaviour to the relevant agencies;
•  carry out criminal record checks with the appropriate authorities relevant to your application and/or tenancy;
• prevent and detect crime;
• apprehend or prosecute offenders;
• prevent or detect unlawful acts;
• protect the public against dishonesty, malpractice or other seriously improper conduct; and
• prevent fraud (including data matching under local and national fraud initiatives and the Housing Benefit Matching Service).

View personal data

• Change personal data
• Restrict processing of personal data

Find out more about your rights

Your information will be shared with the Highland Housing Register partners including Albyn Housing Society, Caledonia Housing Association, Cairn Housing Association, Lochalsh & Skye Housing Association and Lochaber Housing Association for the purposes of assessing your application for housing and meeting your housing needs.

We may be required to share personal information with statutory or regulatory authorities and organisations to comply with statutory obligations (including the Department of Work and Pensions).
We may also share the information with:

• Registered Social Landlords and other Local Authorities for the purposes of: preventing homelessness and tackling anti-social behaviour; investigating and detecting potential tenancy and benefit fraud; assessing your application for housing and meeting your housing needs
• Scottish Fire & Rescue Service for the purpose of offering you fire safety advice
• Police Scotland for the purpose of tackling anti-social behaviour and any other suspected criminality
• NHS Highland / Medical Professionals (including doctors) for the purposes of assessing your need for housing or services
• other Highland Council services (including Environmental Health, Welfare Support) for the purposes of assisting you with: concerns about your welfare or housing; taking up your rights; preventing homelessness and assessing your application
• social care providers for the purposes of assisting you with concerns about your welfare or preventing homelessness or helping you sustain your tenancy;
• commissioned external services e.g. housing support providers for the purposes of preventing homelessness or helping you sustain your tenancy
• support organisations such as Citizens Advice and Highland Council Welfare Support for the purposes of preventing homelessness or helping you sustain your tenancy;
• your emergency contact (when there are concerns about your welfare);
• the Courts, in the event of any court case between you and The Highland Council 
• Sheriff Officers who are acting under an order issued by a court.
• We may also share personal information with our professional and legal advisors for the purposes of taking advice.
• The Highland Council also employs third party suppliers to provide services, as set out below. These suppliers may process personal information on our behalf as "processors" and are subject to written contractual conditions to only process that personal information under our instructions and protect it. In the event that we do share personal information with external third parties, we will only share such personal information strictly required for the specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure that recipients shall only process the disclosed personal information in accordance with those purposes. These third parties include:
• • our printing and mailing suppliers, so that we can provide you with information through the post relating to your tenancy, including tenant newsletters and rent statements;
• • our satisfaction survey providers, so that they can contact you to provide feedback on the service that the council provides;
• • our authorised repairs sub-contractors to enable them to carry out repairs to your home;
• • our planned maintenance contractors and surveyors, to enable them to carry out any necessary upgrade work to (or surveys of) your home;
• • our grass cutting service contractors, to enable them to provide services requested by you; and
• • tracing and debt collection agencies, in the event that you end your tenancy with a balance remaining due to the council.

We may also share your personal data (specifically your name, address and phone number) with a utility company when you move into a council property. This is because a landlord has a legitimate interest in making sure that utility charges are directed to those responsible. The utility company will then become the “controller” of your personal data. We will do this so that the utility company can take steps to enter into a contract with you for the supply of energy. Once your tenancy commences, you will be free to change your energy supplier at any point. We will tell you who this utility company is when you sign up for your tenancy so that you can check their privacy policy.
 

We will only keep personal information for as long as necessary to manage your application for housing, to provide you with housing and/or related services, and to safeguard in the event of any claims, complaints, litigation, enquiries or investigations during or following the termination of your application and/or tenancy.

Where you cancel an application for housing prior to being offered a tenancy, we will review and possibly delete personal information 1 year after the date of cancellation.

We may keep certain personal information of tenants (and household members) for longer in order to confirm your identity and how long you were a tenant. We need to do this in the event of a claim against the council.
We have a data retention schedule that sets out the periods for retaining and reviewing all information that we hold.

This sets out different retention periods and you can request a copy from us. In some circumstances, we may anonymise your personal information (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
 

The Council do not use profiling or automated decision-making processes.

The data controller is The Highland Council

Data Protection Officer
Highland Council Headquarters
Glenurquhart Road
Inverness
IV3 5NX
01463 702029   

dpo@highland.gov.uk

If you are unhappy with the way we have processed your personal information you can contact the Information Commissioner:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/