Privacy Policy

Housing Access Support is committed to protecting your privacy. At all times we aim to  respect any personal information you share with us, or that we receive from other  organisations, and keep it safe. This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) sets out our data  processing practices and your rights and options regarding the ways in which your  personal information is collected and used. This Notice contains important information about your personal rights to privacy.  Please read it carefully to understand how we use your personal information.  The provision of your personal information to us is voluntary. However, without  providing us with your personal information, your use of our services or your  interaction with us may be impaired.

Housing Access Support Privacy Notice

Our service provides a service to support single homeless people into private rented accommodation and covers housing, benefits and client assessments to support people in all boroughs of London. We also provide support to individuals in sustaining their Tenancy to prevent them from becoming homeless and to help them support themselves independently.

For you to access our services, we need to collect personal information about you as well as make further enquiries about your personal circumstances so that we can assess whether Housing Access Support may be able to support you.

We are committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. This Privacy Notice explains how we use your personal information and how we protect your privacy in compliance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. By personal information, we mean information which, by itself or with other data (that is available to Housing Access Support) that can be used to identify you. This notice applies to any activity involving our use of your personal data, for example, collecting, storing, sharing, and destroying it.

What information we collect

When you contact us, or register with us, or use our services we collect personal information about you including some or all of the following:

Your contact details (your name, address, email address and telephone number)

Your personal details (your date of birth and gender)

Poof of your identity (e.g. your passport and driving licence)

Your national identifier (your National Insurance number)

Details about any arrears and/or debts, including your financial details (e.g. bank account details)

Details of your employment status, benefits and income including any savings/investments

Your qualifications

Details about your lifestyle, social and personal circumstances (including your household details)

Details about your health (for example, any disabilities, illnesses, mental-health problems, addictions/dependencies and any support you receive in relation to these)

Details about any criminal convictions and offences

Tenancy or contract information (if you are a leaseholder)

Details of your landlord and the amount of rent paid and any other information required to process an application under our service

Correspondence, emails, letters and notes of telephone conversations between you and our staff

We also collect information when you voluntarily complete customer surveys and provide feedback, including complaints

Without this information, we will not be able to process your application.

The majority of information provided by you is usually mandatory for the purposes specified in this notice. Some of it, however, is provided by you on a voluntary basis.  You do have a choice as to whether to provide information that is not mandatory because the service we provide is optional, your explicit consent will be requested. We will usually seek your consent when you give us your information. We will also seek to refresh your consent from time to time to ensure that you are still happy for us to use your data.

If you wish to withdraw your consent, please contact us by emailing info@housingaccesssuport.co.uk so we can deal with your request. This will only affect the way we use personal information when our reason for doing so is that we require your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. If this is the case, we will tell you.

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties for marketing or commercial purposes.

We do not make or use any automated (that is, without any human involvement) decision-making including profiling.

Why we collect your information

We use your data including but not limited to:

help you to apply for the correct services (e.g. claiming extra benefits to help towards meeting costs such as rent in advance, registration/service fees and administrative charges)

help you with debt advice and budgeting

assist with applications to third-sector organisations such as grants.

provide discretionary funds to eligible residents

prevent homelessness or if you are at risk of homelessness  

assist you with finding and/or moving to suitable and affordable accommodation

provide efficient and effective services

Who we share information with

We may share information about you to third parties to deliver our service effectively.

Other local authorities (e.g. housing, income and benefits)

government departments, agencies and other public bodies (e.g. DWP)

your landlord (previous and current)

private rental landlords and/or housing companies

estate agents and/or property management companies

housing associations

charities and community support organisations

third party service providers, e.g. accommodation providers and emergency accommodation for homeless households.

All organisations we pass your information to will have an information-sharing agreement to ensure they meet the standards of the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and will be covered by a legal basis allowing them to collect, use and share your personal information.

Storing this information

Personal data will not be retained for longer than necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected. There is usually a legal reason for keeping your personal information for a set period of time – this ranges from months for some records to years for more sensitive records.

We securely destroy all information once we have used it and no longer need it.

If you would like to know more about how we store your data, please contact us at info@housingaccesssupport.co.uk

Providing us with accurate information

It is very important that you provide us with accurate information to enable us to process your application more quickly. If any of your details have changed, or change in the future, please inform us as soon as possible so that we can update your records.

Requesting access to your personal data

Under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to request access to information that we hold about you. To make a request for your personal information, please contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) at info@housingaccesssupport.co.uk

Housing Access Support is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), registration number ZB318215. For advice about data protection issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at www.ico.org.uk.

We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Notice at any time and will keep it under review. If we do make any changes, we will post the current version to our website at this address.

Privacy & cookies

What cookies are

Like most websites, this site uses ‘cookies’. These are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your experience. This page describes:

the information they gather and download back to us

how we use the information, and

why we sometimes need to store these cookies.

For more general information on cookies see the Wikipedia article on HTTP Cookies.

How we use cookies

Forms – If you fill in one of our online forms, we may keep your user details so that we can get back to you.

Using your preferences – If you set up preferences about how our website runs when you use it, we will use cookies to remember this.

Third party cookies – In special cases, we may use cookies provided by a trusted other source.

We use Google Analytics to check how you use the website, to help us improve it. We may use cookies to track things like how long you spend on the site and which pages you visit. For more information, see the official Google Analytics page.

We may use content on our website that comes from somewhere else. For example, we might include a map from Google Maps. Check their websites for information about their use of cookies.

How you can disable cookies

You can choose to stop us from storing cookies with your information, by disabling them. You would just need to adjust the settings on your browser. Click ‘Help’ on your browser to find out more.

However, we recommend that you don’t do this, because it might completely disable the way you want to use this website.

Privacy

When completing forms on this site you may be asked for personal information. In providing this information you are giving your consent to Housing Access Support storing and processing this information.

Information may be collected:

to fulfil your request for information or services

as input to improving our site

as part of the process of consultation

Housing Access Support is the controller of personal information for the purposes of the GDPR. The data controller is responsible for deciding how your information is used and ensuring it is private and secure.

To contact the Data Protection Officer please email info@housingaccesssupport.co.uk