How We Use Your Personal Information

UK GDPR Fair Processing Notice

Introduction

This notice explains what information we collect, when we collect it and how we use it. During the course of our activities we will process personal data (which may be held on paper, electronically, or otherwise) about you and we recognise the need to treat it in an appropriate and lawful manner. The purpose of this notice is to make you aware of how we will handle your information.

Who we are

East Lothian Housing Association is a Scottish Charity (Scottish Charity Number SC028900), a registered society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 with Registered Number 2266R(S) and having our Registered Office at 18-20 Market Street, Haddington, EH41 3JL (“We” or “us”). We take the issue of security and data protection very seriously and strictly adhere to guidelines published in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018 and any other applicable laws relating to privacy and the protection of personal data.

We are notified as a Data Controller with the Office of the Information Commissioner under registration number Z6072420 and we are the data controller of any personal data that you provide to us.

Our Data Protection Officer is Jackie Robinson, Service Manager, R3 Repairs Limited.

If you have any concerns or questions relating to this notice, our privacy practices or about how we look after your personal information please contact us by email to enquiries@elha.com or call us on 01620 825032.

How we collect information from you and what information we collect

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you.
When you apply for housing with us, become a tenant, request services or repairs, enter in to a factoring agreement with ourselves or otherwise provide us with your personal details.
When you apply to become a member.
From your use of our online services, whether to report any tenancy / factor related issues, make a complaint or otherwise.
From your arrangements to make payment to us (such as bank details, payment card numbers, employment details, benefit entitlement and any other income and expenditure related information).
Request marketing to be sent to you.
Give us feedback or contact us.
Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website or app, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
Third parties or publicly available sources. We will receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
Benefits information, including awards of Housing Benefit and Universal Credit;
Payments made by you to us;
Complaints or other communications regarding behaviour or other alleged breaches of the terms of your contract with us, including information obtained from Police Scotland;
Reports as to the conduct or condition of your tenancy, including references from previous tenancies, and complaints of anti-social behaviour.

We collect the following information about you:

Name;
Address;
Telephone number;
Emergency Contact Details;
E-mail address;
National Insurance Number;
Bank name, Bank account, payment frequency or other payment parameters and payment card details;
Details about payments to and from you;
Next of Kin and family members;
Information about your health and that of family members;
Information about your tenancy including any complaints made by or about you;
Information about your employment, income and any benefits you receive;
Technical data such as internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device, account ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website or app;
Usage data such as information about how you use our website, products and services;
Marketing and communication data such as your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

Why we need this information about you and how it will be used

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

To undertake and perform our obligations and duties to you in accordance with the terms of our contract with you;
To enable us to supply you with the services and information which you have requested;
To enable us to respond to any repair requests, housing applications and complaints made;
To analyse the information we collect so that we can administer, support and improve and develop our business and the services we offer;
To contact you in order to send you details of any changes to our products or services which may affect you;
For all other purposes consistent with the proper performance of our operations and business;
To contact you for your views on our products and services.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
For scientific research and statistical purposes – to train and deploy Artificial Intelligence speech recognition systems to help us develop and use technology to automate some of our systems, to help improve our efficiency and our tenants’ experience.

Sharing of Your Information

We may disclose your information to other third parties who act for us for the purposes set out in this notice or for purposes approved by you, including the following:

If we enter into a joint venture with or merge with another business entity, your information may be disclosed to our new business partners or owners;
If we instruct repair or maintenance works, your information may be disclosed to any contractor;
If we are investigating a complaint, information may be disclosed to Police Scotland, Local Authority departments, Scottish Fire & Rescue Service and others involved in any complaint, whether investigating the complaint or otherwise;
If we are updating tenancy details, your information may be disclosed to third parties (such as utility companies);
To East Lothian Council in relation to:
Any application you may make for Housing Benefit;
Council Tax - so that they can send your Council Tax Bill;
Antisocial behaviour either by or against you;
Re-housing Applications;
Child protection (Social Work Department);
Adult protection (Social Work Department);
Tenancy Support;
Criminal Justice.
If we are investigating payments made or otherwise, your information may be disclosed to payment processors, East Lothian Council and the Department of Work & Pensions;
To Payment Agencies such as your / our bank, and Allpay in connection with rent and other payments made to us;
With Experian to enable rent payments to count towards your credit rating;
If we are conducting a survey of our products and / or our service, sending information about our products and services, or are using our online help service, your information may be disclosed to third parties assisting in the compilation and analysis of the survey results, managing e-mail preferences, sending postal mailings or storing online chat records;
To Welfare Rights or advice services to enable them to offer you help;
To Support providers so that we can help you access support you may need to maintain your tenancy;
If we need to collect money owed to us (such as debt collectors);
In the event that we need to take action against you for breach of your tenancy agreement (such as our solicitor);
To other Landlords to provide tenancy references or when negotiating mutual exchanges or other re-housing options.
With Wyser Limited, who provide a software system to us that uses speech recognition help us transcribe telephone calls to our service desk and Artificial Intelligence to help us automate some of our systems, to help improve our efficiency and our tenants’ experience.

Unless required to do so by law, we will not otherwise share, sell or distribute any of the information you provide to us without your consent.

Transfers outside the UK and Europe

The majority of personal information is stored on systems in the UK. Where information is transferred outside the UK or EEA we ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place to protect your information in accordance with this notice, including the following:

Survey Monkey, Used to collect survey information
Live Person, Used for online chat records
Mail Chimp, Used to send e-mails to multiple addresses

Security

When you give us information we take steps to make sure that your personal information is kept secure and safe. Further information can be found in our Privacy Policy.

How long we will keep your information

We review our data retention periods regularly and will only hold your personal data for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as required by law (we may be legally required to hold some types of information), or as set out in any relevant contract we have with you.

Our full retention schedule can be obtained on request by email to enquiries@elha.com or from our offices at 18-20 Market Street, Haddington, EH41 3JL.

Your Legal Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right at any time to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it (although most tenants can view all the data we hold in relation to their tenancy at any time by logging into their My Home account).
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your requested personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.
Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you would like to exercise any of your rights above please contact us [by sending an email to enquiries@elha.com] or sending a letter to our registered office address at 18-20 Market Street, Haddington, EH41 3JL

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

The Information Commissioner’s contact details are noted below:

The Information Commissioner’s Office – Scotland
Queen Elizabeth House, Sibbald Walk, Edinburgh, EH8 8FT
Telephone: 0303 123 1115
Email: Scotland@ico.org.uk

The accuracy of your information is important to us - please help us keep our records updated by informing us of any changes to your email address and other contact details or by correcting the information in your My Home account.