Privacy Statement for Dundee Housing Exchange Application Form

Last updated on Thu, 28/06/2018 - 14:13

Who we are:

Dundee City Council is a local authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Its head office is located at City Square, Dundee, DD1 3BY and you can contact our Data Protection Officer by post at this address, by email at: infogov@dundeecity.gov.uk, and by telephone on 01382 434206.

Why do we need your personal information and what do we do with it?

You are giving us your personal information to allow us to assess your need for housing with Dundee Housing Exchange Register. We also use your information to verify your identity where required, contact you by post, email or telephone and to maintain our records.

Legal basis for using your information:

We provide these services to you as part of our statutory function as your local authority. You can find more details of our role on our website at www.dundeecity.gov.uk/service-area/chief-executive/chief-executives-serv.... Processing your personal information is necessary for the performance of assessing your need for housing in the public interest by the council and its Common Housing Register Partners, as under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, and Asylum and Immigration Act 1999 councils are required to confirm whether a person qualifies for public assistance including housing, so we need to ask appropriate questions to establish whether a person is eligible public assistance, including housing and to assess your housing needs. It is also necessary for the performance of a contract with you sharing information with Housing Associations within Dundee and other relevant professionals associated with assessing your application for a housing exchange, which may lead to entering into a missive contract of let of a property. Necessary for compliance with the legal obligations to which the council is subject. On the basis of your consent. Necessary to protect the vital interests of you or another person, and the Legitimate interests of Dundee City Council and Registered Social Landlords and other relevant professionals with assessing your application for a house exchange.

If you do not provide us with the information we have asked for then we will not be able to provide this service to you.

We also need to process more sensitive personal information about you for reasons of substantial public interest as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018. It is necessary for us to process it to carry out key functions as set out in law as under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, Homeless (Scotland) Act 1987 as amended and Asylum and Immigration Act 1999 councils are required to confirm whether a person qualifies for public assistance including housing, so we need to ask appropriate questions to establish whether a person is eligible public assistance, including housing and to assess your housing needs.

Who do we share your information with?

We are legally obliged to safeguard public funds so we are required to verify and check your details internally for fraud prevention. We may share this information with other public bodies (and also receive information from these other bodies) for fraud checking purposes. We are also legally obliged to share certain data with other public bodies, such as HMRC and will do so where the law requires this. We will also generally comply with requests for specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate. Your information is also analysed internally to help us improve our services. This data sharing is in accordance with our Information Use and Privacy Policy and covered in our full privacy statement on our website. It also forms part of our requirements in line with our Records Management Plan approved in terms of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011. Your information will be shared with Housing Associations within Dundee and other relevant professionals associated with assessing your application for housing.

How long do we keep your information for?

We only keep your personal information for the minimum period amount of time necessary. Sometimes this time period is set out in the law, but in most cases it is based on the business need. We will maintain your records as long as you are a current applicant and retain permanently as a business requirement as Housing (Scotland) Act 2001(ASP Section 8)

Your rights under data protection law:

  • Access to your information – you have the right to access the information we hold on you. There are two ways to access your data:
    Subject Access Request: you have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you.
    Data Portability: you can ask us for a copy of your information so that you can re-use it and we will provide it in a machine-readable format. This is a qualified right, which means it only applies in certain circumstances and only relates to information you have given directly to us.
  • Correcting your information – we want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Therefore you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
  • Deletion of your information – you have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:
  1. you think that we no longer need to hold the information for the purposes for which it was originally obtained
  2. you have a genuine objection to our use of your personal information – see Objecting to how we may use your information below
  3. our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.

Objecting to how we may use your information – You have the right at any time to tell us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Restricting how we may use your information – in some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold about you or we are assessing the objection you have made to our use of your information. This right might also apply if we no longer have a basis for using your personal information but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right is realistically applied will mean that we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Please contact us as stated above if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

Information you have given us about other people:

If you have provided anyone else’s details on this form, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to Dundee City Council. We will only use this information to assess your housing needs. If they want any more information on how we will use their information they can visit our web site at https://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/service-area/chief-executive/chief-executi... or email infogov@dundeecity.gov.uk.

Complaints:

We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office, who can be contacted by post at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. By phone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745. Visit their website for more information at- https://ico.org.uk/concerns

More information:

For more details on how we process your personal information visit www.dundeecity.gov.uk/service-area/chief-executive/chief-executives-services/privacy-statement