Legal - Wales & West Housing Association

We at Wales & West Housing Association are registered as a ‘data controller’ under the Data Protection Act. We collect, hold and process a considerable amount of information, including personal information about you that allows us to provide goods and services effectively.

Your information is important to us and we take our responsibilities seriously and we ensure that any personal information we collect about you and use is done so proportionately, correctly and safely and the information below tells you a little more about what we do with your information and how we look after it.

How will Wales & West Housing process information they collect about me?

We will use your personal data for a limited number of purposes within the rules set out in the Data Protection Bill. We will process personal data:

For the purpose for which you provided the information and to monitor our performance in responding to your request.
To allow us to be able to communicate and provide services appropriate to your needs.
To contact you by post, email or telephone to update you with any additional information or reminders or for you to participate in surveys/questionnaires to help us improve things.
To ensure that we meet our legal requirements, including obligations imposed under the Race Relations Act and Health and Safety Acts.
For law enforcement where we are legally obliged to undertake such processing.
To process financial transactions including grants, payments and benefits involving us or third parties or where we are acting on behalf of other government bodies, for example the Department for Works and Pensions.
Where you have consented to the processing.
Where necessary to protect individuals from harm or injury.
Where otherwise permitted under the Data Protection Bill. (For further information on the Data Protection Act refer to the Information Commissioner’s website.)
We may also use and publish your personal data, after it has been anonymised, to allow the statistical analysis of data to allow us to effectively plan the provision of goods and services.

At no time will your information be passed to organisations external to the Association for marketing or sales purposes.

Using your personal data

In deciding what personal data to collect hold and use we have committed to ensuring that we will:

Recognise we have responsibility for any personal data handled by us.
Adopt and maintain high standards in respect of the handling and use of that personal data.
Only collect, hold and use personal data where it is necessary and proportionate to do so.
Securely delete any personal data when no longer needed.
Keep your personal data safe and secure.
Consider and address privacy first when planning to use or hold personal information in new ways, such as when introducing new systems.
Be open with you about how we use your information and who we give it to.
Make it easy for you to access and correct your personal information.
Ensure that there are effective safeguards and systems in place to make sure your personal information is kept securely and does not fall into the wrong hands.
Provide training to staff who handle personal information.
Put appropriate financial and human resources into looking after your personal information to make sure we can live up to our promises.

We may disclose personal data to third parties, this may include our contractors, but only where it is necessary, either to comply with a legal obligation, or where permitted under the Data Protection Act, for example where the disclosure is necessary to allow a third party working for or on our behalf to provide a service.

We will strive to ensure that any personal data in our care will be kept safe and where your information is disclosed to a third party we will seek to ensure that the third party has sufficient systems and procedures in place to prevent the loss of personal data.

Where we seek to disclose sensitive personal data, such as medical details, to third parties, we will do so only with your prior express consent or where we are legally required to do.

What about Cookies

Cookies are files which are sent to your computer or other access device from a web site which can be accessed at a later time by the same web site. Cookies do not contain any personal information about you and cannot be used to identify an individual user. We use cookies to provide us with anonymous information on how people use our website and to help us to know what they find interesting and useful on our website.

Most web browsers accept cookies by default. However, if you are uncomfortable with cookies, you may be able to set your web browser to refuse all cookies or to let you know when a cookie is sent to your computer – you can then choose whether to accept the cookie, or not.

Information to improve our website

We collect and store only the following information that is automatically recognised: the date and time, the originating IP, the type of browser and operating system used the URL of the referring page, the object requested, and the completion status of the request. Visitors to our website remain anonymous as none of the data collected is linked to any personal information. The information only allows us to diagnose problems with our server, and assess the popularity of the pages on the website so that we can continually improve our site.

Detection and Prevention of crime, fraud and data matching

We are required by law to protect the funds we administer. We process and share the information provided to us to prevent and/or detect potential fraud and crime, by both conducting our own data matching as well as sharing this information with other public bodies, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, Local Authorities, HM Revenue & Customs, the National Fraud Initiative, the police, as well as utility companies, credit reference agencies, service providers, contractors and/or partner bodies, where the disclosure of such information is either:

a) Necessary for the purposes of the prevention and/or detection of crime; and/or,
b) Is otherwise necessary to comply with any other legal obligation.
c) Assisting in emergency response management.

Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body to see how far they match. This is usually personal information.

CCTV

We have installed CCTV systems in some of our locations used by staff, residents and members of the public, for the purposes of public and staff safety, crime prevention and detection and business related functions. In all locations, signs are displayed notifying you that CCTV is in operation and providing details of who to contact for further information about the scheme.

We will only disclose CCTV images to others who intend to use the images for the above described purposes. CCTV images will not be released to the media for entertainment purposes or placed on the internet. Images captured by CCTV will not be kept for longer than necessary. However, on occasions there may be a need to keep images for longer, for example where a crime is being investigated. You have the right to see CCTV images of yourself and be provided with a copy of the images (please see ‘Your Rights’ of how to access CCTV images).

Your rights

You have the right to request that we cease processing your personal data in relation to any of our services. Where possible, we will seek to comply with your request but there may be some situations where we will not legally be able to do this. However, ceasing to process this data may cause delays or hinder our ability to provide services to you.

You are legally entitled to request access to and receive a copy of any information that we hold about you. We will seek to comply with your request but there may be some situations where it will not be able to do this in full, for example where information held was given in confidence, this may include information given to us by a third party.

For further information about either requesting access to your personal data or to cease processing personal data please contact us.

We try to ensure that any personal data we hold about you is correct but there may be situations where the information we hold is no longer accurate. If this is the case, please contact the department holding the information so that any errors can be investigated and corrected. If you are unsure which department to contact, please contact the Corporate Information Manager: CorporateInformationManager@wwha.co.uk

We may monitor and record electronic transactions (website, email and telephone conversations). This will be used, for example, to help improve our service to you, to prevent or detect a crime, or investigate or detect the unauthorised use of the telecommunications system and only as permitted by the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 or for related business purposes.

Changes to the Privacy Notice

We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our services and feedback from service users, as well as to comply with changes in the law.

Further Information

We will comply with the legal requirements set out by the Data Protection Bill in relation to the collection, holding and processing of personal data. If you would like to know more or have any concerns about how your information is being processed please contact us on 0800 052 02526 or email us on: CorporateInformationManager@wwha.co.uk

If you require general information about the data protection act, information is available on the Information Commissioner Website

Insurance policy details/Portal ID

For Employers Liability our insurer is NIG, policy number 006241418 via Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance Brokers Ltd and the portal compensator ID AJGallagher G00315.

For Public Liability our insurer is NIG, policy number 006241418 via Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance Brokers Ltd and the portal compensator ID AJGallagher G00315.