Protecting personal information
Protecting personal information
We need to collect, hold and use personal information about you or your household to:
- Provide you with a rented home or garage
- Comply with UK law including housing regulation
- Arrange repairs and provide other services to you
- Collect rent, service or other charges
- Improve the housing and services we provide
Keeping it safe
Whenever we store personal information we will:
- Keep and use only the information we need for the above purposes
- Make sure it’s correct and up to date
- Keep it in a safe place where it won’t be lost, stolen or accidentally destroyed
- Not show or share it with anyone, or pass it on without your permission (unless it’s for the prevention or investigation of crime, or someone would be at risk of harm if we didn’t)
- Only keep it for as long as we need it
When you contact us
If you contact us, we need to make sure we are talking to you and not someone pretending to be you. We do this by asking security questions, or by using passwords.
If you ask somebody to contact us on your behalf, we’ll always make sure you’ve given us your written permission for us to deal with them. We might ask for some information from them to confirm this. We do this to protect you and make sure nobody has access to information they don’t have a right to.
Sharing information with other companies
Sometimes we use other companies to provide services to you. For example, we’ll give our heating contractor some of your personal information to arrange your yearly heating service with you.
What personal information we share and who with depends on what they’ll be doing for us and you. It could include providing information to:
- Local authority departments such as social services, environmental health and benefit agencies
- National government agencies such as the Police, the Department of Work & Pensions, the Probation Service, HM Revenue and Customs, and agencies working in line with the National Fraud Initiative
- Third-party organisations providing services on our behalf such as companies that; carry out repairs, maintenance or improvement work, process our large mailings like customer rent statements, carry out customer satisfaction surveys, and contact former tenants with debts
- Utility companies and council tax departments to ensure billing details are correct
Before we agree to work with another company and provide your information to them, they need to show us that they will treat your information the same way we do.
We don’t allow them to pass on or sell any of the information we provide to them.
Your rights
You can ask to see, change or move the information we hold about you or members of your household.
For more information, please read our cookies and privacy notice.
If you have any questions about how we manage your information, you can contact us at dpo@settlegroup.org.uk.