Contact Details for Data Protection Officer:
For any information regarding Data Protection please contact us.
By email: Please write "For the attention of the Data Protection Officer" and email enquiries@sixtownhousing.org.
In writing: Please address to the Data Protection Officer, Six Town Housing, 6 Knowsley Place, Angouleme Way, Bury, BL9 OEL
Six Town Housing are an Arm’s Length Management Organisation who manage the Council Housing Stock on behalf of Bury Council.
Six Town Housing is a data controller of your personal data. This means we are responsible for collecting and using information about you so that we can deliver services to you.
How we collect your data:
We provide a wide range of housing related services from rent collection, repairs and tenancy management through to money advice, supporting vulnerable customers and assisting people back into work.
We collect data from our customers in a variety of ways. You may provide information directly to us for example by completing a form or making a request for service provision. We may obtain information from you, for example during an interview or visit or by asking you to complete a survey. There are also occasions when we work in partnership with third parties to deliver joint services and information may be obtained that way.
What do we use your personal data for and what are our legal grounds for this?
● To manage your tenancy including pre-tenancy work, tenancy changes, mutual exchanges, and end of tenancy administration.
● To deliver repairs and other works to your home and any communal areas.
● To carry out improvement works as part of a planned programme.
● To take rent payments and manage your rent account.
● To take payments for any service charges and other non-rent services.
● To respond to any enquiries or complaints you contact us about.
● To deal with complaints of anti-social behaviour.
● If we identify through contact with you any additional support needs you have, we may share your information with other agencies to help you successfully maintain your tenancy.
● To provide housing support for customers in extra care, sheltered housing schemes and general needs properties, where applicable.
● To contact you and respond to contacts you make with us regarding your contract with us.
● To contact you to seek feedback on the contractual services we provide to you.
● To engage you in the delivery of our services.
● To take any action necessary for breach of tenancy.
● To recover any debt owed to us.
● To process any application from you to exercise your Right to Buy or Right to Acquire.
● We may capture your image on our CCTV systems if you visit Six Town Housing or other premises which is covered by this service. This information may be necessary for the purposes of public safety and crime prevention. We record calls to help us review our performance and investigate complaints or claims.
● We may use your image in photographs for publicity material, where we have your consent to do so. When we obtain your consent for this, we will tell you how you can withdraw your consent.
All of the above are necessary as part of our contract with you, to ensure the performance of the contract between you and us meets our legal obligations.
Our legal basis for processing all of the above is Public Task. This means ‘processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.’
What are your rights under data protection law?
By law you have rights over how your data is collected, processed and stored. These are:
● The right to be informed about how we use your personal information
● The right to ask for access to the personal information we hold about you
● The right to ask that your personal information is given to you, or another service provider of your choice, in a commonly used format
● The right to ask us to stop using or to delete your information
● The right to ask us to limit what we use your personal information for
● The right to ask us to change personal information you think is wrong
● The right to withdraw consent you have previously given us to use your personal information
● The right to object to automated decision making and profiling where this is used.
A list of these rights and more information about what they mean can be found at the Information Commissioner’s Office Website: https://ico.org.uk/
Sharing your information:
When we use your data for the purposes described above, this may include sharing your data with third parties. We will only share your data where we have a legal obligation to do so, where it is necessary for the performance of a contract between you and us.
The third parties we may share your data with include contractors, suppliers and service providers acting on our behalf to provide services to you. We may also share data with bodies such as the local authority, or other local authorities and Housing Associations, police, fire service, Department of Work and Pensions and utility companies. We may sometimes be required by law to share information with enforcement or other statutory agencies, for the purposes of for example:
● Crime prevention or detection or matters of national security
● Taxation/fraud reasons (including housing fraud)
How do we keep your data secure?
We hold all our data in a secure data centre and access to data is strictly controlled and monitored. Our systems are regularly audited and tested to make sure that we are following procedures and to detect and address potential security risks.
We only collect data that is necessary for us to do so and we securely delete/destroy data when it’s no longer required.
How long do we keep your information for?
We only keep your information for as long as it is needed. This is so that we can meet our operational needs and to meet any legal and regulatory requirements. We use guidance from Bury Council whose stock we manage to help us decide how long we should keep your information for.
What should you do if your personal information changes?
You should tell us so that we can update our records. You can do this from the Contact Us page on our website.
Use of Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is stored by your web browser. You can find out more about cookies on www.allaboutcookies.org. The use of cookies is subject to the provisions of The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
We do not use cookies for collecting user information from the site. Six Town Housing only monitor the IP addresses of visitors to assess which pages are the most popular. These IP addresses are not linked to any personal data so all visitors to our site remain anonymous.
Who can I complain to if I am unhappy about how my information is used?
You can complain directly to Six Town Housing’s Data Protection Officer at enquiries@sixtownhousing.org or in writing to: Data Protection Officer, 6 Knowsley Place. Angouleme Way. Bury. BL9 OEL
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office using the following details: The Information Commissioner's Office Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45 Website: www.ico.org.uk
Data Protection and Subject Access
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 individuals have rights of access to personal data held by Six Town Housing about them. Personal data includes data held on computer or paper, images and CCTV footage. You can find out if we hold any personal information by making a subject access request. These are known as subject access rights. A request for information is known as a subject access request (SAR). To submit a SAR please fill in the request form and return to enquiries@sixtownhousing.org or by post to:
Alison Leach
Six Town Housing
6 Knowsley Place
Angouleme Way
Bury
BL9 0EL
Six Town Housing may charge an adminstrative fee to facilitate the SAR if the request is very complex, or excessive.
We will ask you to provide identification to ensure that somebody else isn’t requesting your personal information.
Under the Act we must respond to your SAR within one month. However if not enough information is provided, the timescale starts from satisfactory confirmation being received.
More information on our approach to data protection can be found in our policy.
Credit/Debit Cards
We do not store credit or debit card details of customers, nor do we share financial details with any 3rd parties.