We ask that you read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event that you have a complaint.
Who we are
Housing Services collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.
The personal information we collect
Information collected by us
In the course of processing your application for an HMO licence it is necessary that we collect the following personal information from you:
- your name
- address
- telephone number
- email address
- the address of all rented HMO properties that you own
- your membership of any professional landlord bodies and details of any relevant unspent criminal convictions you may have
Information collected from other sources
We may receive information from other government agencies, other departments within Dorset Council and those parties who we may share your personal information with, as listed below.
How we use your personal information
We will store and process your personal information in order to determine your application for an HMO licence, in fulfilment of our statutory and other responsibilities and to deliver the highest quality service to you.
Who we share your personal information with
In order to determine your application for an HMO licence we may routinely share certain personal information with third party partners including:
- other housing providers
- our legal advisors
- organisations responsible for the delivery of essential services such as gas, electric, sewage and water
- local and national government agencies
- Lendology CIC (formerly Wessex CIC) and Healthy Homes Dorset.
We will only share personal information where it is essential to the delivery of the above services.
This data sharing enables us to ensure the best service is delivered. We do not anticipate that our data-transferring arrangements will involve a transfer outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).
On occasions we may be required to share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law. Where this occurs we will attempt to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place.
As a mandatory participant of the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), we sometimes share personal data with the NFI. The purpose of this data sharing is to detect and prevent fraud. The NFI may share the personal data we provide with other bodies or organisations including: HMRC, the Department for Work and Pensions and IT suppliers to the NFI.
Our legal basis for sharing the data is that the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. Where we share special category data, our additional legal basis is that the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department.
The personal data we provide will be used by the NFI to match records across different data sources in order to prevent and detect fraud. More information about how the NFI use personal data
We will not share your personal information with any other third party.
Whether information has to be provided by you, and if so why
The provision of the personal data (as set out above) is required from you to enable us to provide the best possible service to you. We will inform you at the point of collecting information from you, whether you are required to provide the information to us.
If you do not provide this information to us, we may not be able to provide a service to you, we may not be able to accept your licence application or it may delay our ability to provide a prompt and effective service.
How long your personal information will be kept
Records will be retained for a period of six years after the date your HMO licence has expired (if your application is successful), or such other period as we are required to retain such records under statute.
Reasons for collecting and using your personal information
We rely on ‘the performance of public task’ as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal data.
Your rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulation you have a number of important rights that may be exercised free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:
- fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your use personal information
- access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Notice is already designed to address
- require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold
- require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations
- receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations
- object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing
- object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information
- otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
For further information on each of those rights you can visit the Information Commissioner's Office. If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer.