How MTVH collects, uses and protects your personal information. This covers information provided to us in person, online or via phone, email or letter.
This notice was last updated in December 2021.
Contact our data protection team
Name: Data Protection Officer
Address: Waterfront House, Beeston Business Park, Technology Drive, Nottingham, NG9 1LA
Phone: 0203 535 3535
Email: dataprotection@mtvh.co.uk
Privacy statement
Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association (MTVH) takes privacy and the protection of personal and sensitive information seriously. We have robust technical and organisational systems and measures in place to manage and protect all personal data. These measures include data encryption, up to date security software and controls to guard against unauthorised access, unlawful processing, accidental loss, damage or destruction.
Our Privacy Notice explains how we use and protect your personal information, to show that we are adhering to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. It also explains how we collect and use the personal information that you provide to us whether, in person, online or via phone, email, letter or via other correspondence. This includes data from our website and sets out how MTVH uses and protects any information that you give us.
Privacy notice
MTVH is committed to protecting your privacy and right to confidentiality. We comply with both the UK GDPR and DPA requirements concerning confidentiality and information security standards. This notice explains how we use any personal information we collect about you based on your relationship with MTVH, detailing how we collect, store, use and protect it.
How do MTVH collect information?
- We obtain personal information from you when you enquire about our housing availability, apply for housing, apply to work with us, send or receive an email or otherwise provide us with your personal information.
- Occasionally, we may obtain your personal information from third-party data suppliers only if they provide the appropriate evidence that you have agreed for your personal information to be shared with other organisations.
- We gather non-identifiable general information from our websites such as pages visited and sections of most interest. We use this information to improve our website and make it a better experience for everyone
- This information is also used by our affiliated entities and group companies, namely Metropolitan Housing Trust, Thames Valley Housing – see a full list of our group companies (in this notice, references to ‘we’ or ‘us’ mean MTVH and our group companies)
What information do MTVH collect?
Legitimate interest, Consent, Contract and Legal obligation currently constitute the lawful basis on which we collect and process personal information. The personal information we collect might include:
- Name, address, email address, telephone numbers, date of birth, bank account details and identity documents.
- We will typically collect sensitive data for employees and contractors as part of our statutory, contractual, and management responsibilities.
- If you stay at or visit any of our housing facilities, we may collect your image on CCTV.
How do MTVH use this information?
We may use your personal information to:
- Provide and personalise our property services.
- Manage your tenancy agreement with us.
- Deal with your enquiries requests and complaints.
- Process your applications.
- Provide you with information about our work, activities, and services.
- Comply with our legal obligations, policies, and procedures.
- Conduct market research, Training analysis, and management responsibilities.
Where will your information be held?
Information will be held on our systems, at our offices, those of our group companies, and third-party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above.
How will MTVH protect your information?
We have security measures in place to seek to ensure that there is appropriate security for information we hold such as:
- Limiting access on systems to only staff who need to access the information.
- Providing regular training for staff to make them aware of how to handle your data safely and in accordance with the data protection legislation.
- Having a clear desk policy and guidance about keeping sensitive data in locked places with limited access.
- Having clear policies and guidance for staff who take special data out of the building and a clear working at home guidance for all staff to follow.
- Encryption of sensitive electronic communications such as e-mails as well as an encryption of disks and memory sticks. Encryption is a means of ensuring that data can only be accessed by authorised users. This means that the information is hidden and cannot be read without a password.
- Regular testing of our IT equipment and keeping up to date with regular security updates.
How long can we keep your personal information for?
We do not keep your data for longer than is required by law or necessary for the purpose for which it was obtained and in line with our retention schedule.
What are your rights?
1. You can ask for access to the information we hold about you, known as a Subject Access Request (SAR)
You are entitled to request access to any records held by MTVH about yourself. MTVH will seek to comply with your request but there may be some situations where it will not be able to do this in full, e.g., where information held was given in confidence or when a professional thinks that it could cause serious harm to you or another’s physical or mental wellbeing if the information was given to you. Also, if we think that giving you the information may stop us from preventing a crime.
If you would like to request a copy of your personal information or have any questions regarding your rights, please contact us
2. You can ask to change information that is inaccurate
If you receive a copy of your information and you find that any information is inaccurate you have the right to ask us to correct the information. We may not always be able to change or remove the information, but we will correct factual inaccuracies and add supplemental comments.
In some cases, we may also record your comments to show that you disagree with information held about you. Whilst MTVH tries to ensure that any personal data it holds about you is correct, there may be situations where the information it holds is no longer accurate. If this is the case, please contact us so that any errors can be investigated and corrected. MTVH will try to make sure that all records are accurate and up to date.
If you find any inaccuracies, please contact us.
3. Right to Erasure – right to ask for your information to be deleted
You have the right to have personal data erased. This is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’. However, this only applies in certain circumstances such as:
- The personal data is no longer necessary for the purpose which MTVH originally collected or processed it for.
- Where MTHV’s only lawful basis for collecting your Data was consent and you have withdrawn this.
- MTVH is relying on legitimate interests as our basis for processing, and you object to the processing of your data, and there is no overriding legitimate interest for us to continue this processing.
- MTVH is processing your data for direct marketing purposes.
- MTVH have processed your personal data unlawfully (i.e., in breach of the lawfulness requirement of the 1st principle).
- MTVH have to process your personal data to comply with a legal obligation.
- If we have disclosed your personal data to others, we will contact each recipient and inform them of the erasure, unless this proves impossible or involves disproportionate effort, details of who we may have shared your data is detailed below in the schedule. If you would like to make this request, please contact us.
4. A right to request restriction of processing
You have the right to require us to stop processing your personal information. When processing is restricted, we can store the information, but cannot do anything with it. You can do this where:
- You challenge the accuracy of the information (we must restrict processing until we have verified its accuracy).
- You challenge whether we have a legitimate interest in using the information.
- The processing is a breach of the UK GDPR, DPA or otherwise unlawful.
- We no longer need the personal data, but you need the information to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
If we have disclosed your personal information to third parties, we must inform them about the restriction on processing, unless it is impossible or involves disproportionate effort to do so. We must inform you when we decide to remove the restriction giving the reasons why.
5. Right to object to the processing of data in certain circumstances
You have the right to object to MTVH processing (using) your personal data at any time. This effectively means that you can stop or prevent MTVH from using your data. However, it only applies in certain circumstances, and we may be able to reject your request providing we provide you with strong legitimate reasons as to why.
Please note that you can only object to MTVH using your data for the following purposes, for:
- A task carried out in the public interest.
- The exercise of official authority.
- Our legitimate interests.
- Scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes; or for direct marketing purposes.
6. Right to request portability of your data to another provider
The right to data portability gives you the right to receive personal data you have provided to a MTVH in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format. It also gives you the right to request that a MTVH transmits this data directly to another controller.
7. Rights in connection with automated decision-making, including profiling
Where a computer makes decisions about you which is known as automated decision making you can ask that these decisions are explained to you. E.g. your position on the Housing Register. This means that you can question decisions made about you by a computer unless it’s required for any contract that you have entered into, required by law, or you have given your agreement to this form of processing.
You also have the right to object if you are being profiled. This means that decisions are made about you based on certain things in your personal information. If you have any questions regarding automated decision making or profiling, please contact our Data Protection Team who will be happy to assist.
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us, purchased from us or if you provided us with your details.
- Customers who joined us before May 2018 will be asked to opt-in to marketing communications at the next available opportunity.
- Customers who join us after May 2018 will be asked to make their choice when they provide data to us.
- If you opted in to receiving marketing materials at one point, you may opt out of receiving these communications at any time. If you opt out of receiving marketing messages, this will not affect how we use your personal data for the administration of your tenancy or any other contract, service or other transaction with us. Please contact us if you wish to opt out.
- We do not share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.
Cookies on our website
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. Please see our Privacy policy.
Third-party links on our website
Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we originally collected them or purposes that are a natural extension of the original purpose.
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.
Your right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority
We expect to be able to resolve any complaints that you might have concerning our services or events. We therefore ask that you give us the opportunity to do so in the first instance. You, however, have the right to lodge a complaint or seek advice from a supervisory authority. If you wish to lodge a complaint or seek advice from a supervisory authority, please contact the Office of the Information Commissioner:
The Office of the Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House, Water Lane
Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Phone: 01625 545 745
Website: www.ico.org.uk
Keeping your personal information secure
MTVH have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way.
We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
Changes to the policy
This notice is correct as of December 2021. MTVH will regularly review this Privacy Notice and Data Protection Policy and update, modify, add or remove sections at our discretion and in response to relevant changes in legislation. We will notify you of any changes, either via e-mail or through an announcement on our website; your continued use of our website, any of our services and/or the continued provision of personal information after we have posted the changes to these terms, will be taken to mean you are in agreement with those changes.
How to complain
MTVH will endeavour to resolve any concerns you might have. If you have any concerns relating to MTVH’s use of your information, please contact us.