Choose & Move - whg

CHOOSE AND MOVE APPLICATION FORM – PRIVACY NOTICE

To process your application for housing we need to ask you to share some information about yourself and your circumstances.  Some of this information is personal data; this means it can be used to identify you.  The law gives you rights around what happens to this personal information.  This Privacy Notice tells you who we are, what information we will collect, how we will use it, how we will keep it and who we will share it with in order to deal with your application.

 

Who we are

 

“whg” means Walsall Housing Group Limited, a registered provider of social housing. 

 

More information about the group can be found on our website at www.whg.uk.com or please ask one of our team.  

 

What information we collect and why

 

When we process applications for housing, we need to collect information about you and your household or update the information we already hold if you are an existing customer.

This is what information we need to collect or update and how we will use it:

 

Your name and contact details (address, phone numbers, email address)	To keep in touch with you. To confirm where you are living at the moment.
Details of  members of your household, including ages	To provide you and your household with the right type/size of accommodation.
Dates of birth	To make sure that we can identify you correctly if we have more than one customer with your name To confirm ages because that could affect your application
National Insurance Number	To ensure you have the right to rent a home from us, To detect and prevent fraud.
Nationality/ethnic origin*	To monitor whether we are letting our homes to a diverse range of customers.
Ethnic origin and sexuality*	You don’t have to provide this information if you don’t want to but we use it to monitor whether we are letting our homes to a diverse range of customers
Physical / mental health issues or mobility problems*	You don’t have to provide this information if you don’t want to but we need it to make sure we provide you with the kind of home and the support that you need.  The information may support your application. We also use it to monitor whether we are letting our homes to a diverse range of customers
Whether you or a member of the household is pregnant	To provide you and your household with the right type/size of accommodation.
Employment status / financial circumstances	To find out if you need to claim Housing Benefit or Universal Credit so that we can help you if necessary To make sure you are eligible to live in a whg property
Eligibility questions e.g. rent arrears, previous evictions, criminal convictions etc.	To make sure you are eligible to live in a whg property
Reasons for moving	To find out if you are eligible for a whg property or a move. To make sure we provide you with the kind of home and the support that you need
Local connection	To determine your priority for housing with whg
Details of current home, landlord name and contact details	To find out if you are eligible for a whg property or a move. To determine your priority for rehousing To contact your current landlord for a reference.
Connections	To make sure that any whg colleague that you are related to is not involved in processing your application To ensure your connection does not influence your application
Proof that you are entitled to live in the UK e.g. passport, biometric residence permit card, national identity card, immigration status letter etc.	To confirm that you have the Right to Rent in this country

 

* Some of the above information that we collect is sensitive in nature i.e. your health and support needs, disability, ethnic origin and sexuality.

 

Keeping your information

 

We will keep this information for:

 

• Six years after you accept an offer of housing
• 12 months if we decide that we cannot house you because you are not eligible

 

We will keep copies of the documents that prove that you have the Right to Rent in this country for the period of your tenancy plus one year.  This is a Home Office requirement. 

 

When we offer you a property, we will run a credit check on you.  We will keep this securely for two months and then delete it. 

 

We will store your information securely in a computer system and will dispose securely of all information when it is no longer necessary for the purposes of your application or tenancy if we house you. 

 

 

Who we will share your information with

 

In order to process your application, we will share some or all of the information collected on this form with:

 

• Your current landlord, to get a reference and check your circumstances
• The Council in your area, if you are on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit
• Colleagues in other teams, for example our Lettings team
• If we offer you a property, we will share your data with a credit reference agency to run a credit check on you
• Other housing providers (via the Data Warehouse) to detect any tenancy or Council Tax fraud
• We provide anonymous statistics to the government on all our lettings

 

If you bid for a property owned by another housing provider, that organisation will be able to access all the information you have provided to whg in connection with your application.

 

We may receive information about you from a credit agency, your previous landlord, your local council or your doctor, or anyone else that provides information to support your housing application.

 

The Customer Privacy Notice on our website sets out more fully the ways in which we use and share your information if you become a whg customer.

 

Please note that we may use your information for the prevention and detection of crime, including social housing fraud and benefit fraud.

 

If you agree, we will use your contact details to offer you other services that we think you might benefit from. 

 

We won’t sell your personal data.

 

Lawful basis for collecting and processing your information

 

The law says that we have to meet a legal condition under data protection law before we can collect, process or share your personal data.  The conditions which will apply for the information collected on this form are:

 

• To enter into a contract with you: to deal with your application for housing.  

 

• Our legitimate interests: this allows us to collect your non-sensitive information (name, contact details, employment status) and where necessary share it with our partners for our own administrative purposes and to keep in contact with you

 

• Legal requirement: we ask for your nationality and ID documents to confirm your Right to Rent a property in the UK and check that you are eligible to be housed by us.

 

• The information is necessary in the substantial public interest and in relation to the requirements set by our regulator: this enables us to ask you for information relating to criminal offences 

 

• To monitor equality of opportunity or treatment: we ask for information about your ethnic origin, sexuality and health issues/disabilities to meet equality and diversity requirements.

 

• Explicit consent: we are asking you for your consent for the collection and sharing of your sensitive information relating to health/support needs and disabilities so that we can provide tailored support for you, to make sure you are eligible for a property and that we find you the right kind of home.

 

Your rights

 

You have rights set out in law concerning your personal information:

• a right of access to a copy of the personal information we collect and keep about you;

• a right to object to processing of your personal data, in certain circumstances;
• a right to prevent processing for direct marketing;
• a right in certain circumstances to have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed;
• a right to claim compensation for damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection Act; and
• a right to withdraw your consent for us to use or share your personal information where you have previously given us your consent for this.  (Please note that where you do withdraw your consent it may mean that we may not be able to support you effectively).

 

Questions and concerns

 

If you have any questions about the way in which we collect, process and store your information you can ask to speak with a member of the team or the Data Protection Officer for whg.

 

The Data Protection Officer is Helen Lane and you can contact her on 0300 555 6666 or helen.lane@whgrp.co.uk

 

If you have concerns about the way in which whg has handled your information you can speak to the Independent Information Commissioner's Office.  Go to https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ for more details.