Housing services (tenants and leaseholders) privacy notices

For tenants and leaseholders of Warwick District Council.

Housing Services hold certain information about you (“personal data”) which we need to manage your tenancy and lease. We have summarised some of the key ways in which we deal with this information below. Further information can be found in the main privacy notice.

Privacy notice to all tenants - collecting and retaining personal information

This information is required to maintain your tenancy with Warwick District Council.

Our data protection officer can be contacted at dpo@warwickdc.gov.uk.  

What we need 

The information we require from you, as our tenant, includes:

  • Name (and proof of your identity/photo ID)
  • Date of birth
  • Contact details (phone, email, or correspondence address)
  • Details of anyone authorised to act on your behalf if applicable
  • Basic details (name and date of birth) of all household residents including any children
  • Banking details if you pay your rent by Direct Debit
  • Proof of housing eligibility, any interest or equity in other property
  • Other personal information that will vary on a case-by-case basis to help us resolve breach of tenancy, alleged anti-social behaviour, or fraud, rent arrears
  • Other details - next of kin details and employment details
  • Equality, disabilities, or vulnerabilities. We use this information to tailor our service to better meet your circumstances and needs
  • Financial information. We may use this to help customers decide around affordability and resolve any housing debt/arrears and provide financial benefits, fuel, and debt advice as a free service to help customers budget and pay bills
  • Your health information - when we require this to make decisions on the property type customers may require and support requests made for adaptations to the property a customer is living in
  • National insurance number

We collect your personal information from you via a variety of sources, including when you apply for one of our properties or request a service, complete one of our forms, when you call, write, email, or meet with us or respond to a survey.

We may also take photographs and video footage at events we organise, or you take part in, at our properties and in our communities to use for general marketing and publicity. However, photographs of individuals will only be used for those purposes with your consent.

We may share information about you with other departments within Warwick District Council for purposes connected to your tenancy.

We may receive information about you from third parties including but not restricted to:

  • Prior landlords, agencies when you apply for housing
  • The police, your GP/health workers and welfare or support organisations dealing with you
  • Solicitors, councillors, MPs, or other representatives acting on your behalf/instruction, for example advocacy services, Shelter
  • Financial institutions when you apply for our services

Why we need your personal information - contractual purposes and legal obligation

We need to collect your personal information so that we can manage your tenancy. We will use your personal information to manage your tenancy and support you as a valued customer. This may include:

  • Receiving rent and service charges including arrears
  • Providing a repairs and maintenance service
  • Resolving anti-social behaviour disputes
  • Investigating complaints
  • Processing requests from third parties for example Council Tax
  • Monitoring and reporting performance to regulatory bodies
  • Issuing communications about your tenancy with us
  • For any other purposes consistent with the proper performance of your tenancy agreement

We are also under a legal obligation to process certain personal information relating to our tenants for the purposes of complying with our legal obligations under:

  • Data Protection Act 2018
  • Data Protection Act 1998
  • Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
  • Housing Act 1985
  • Local Authority social services Act 1970
  • Freedom of Information Act 2000
  • General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR)

If you do not provide the information we need, then we may not be able to provide all our services to you.

Why we need your personal information – public tasks and legal obligations

We process your personal information in pursuit of public tasks and legal obligations to:

  • Pursue any debts owed to us
  • Offer welfare benefits advice
  • Offer support services to you and those living with you
  • Target customers impacted by welfare reform
  • Issue communications to you regarding housing services, including letters, newsletters, emails, and texts
  • Contact you by way of telephone, letter, or text message to advise that you are in arrears of rent
  • Offer you access to our content’s insurance scheme
  • Prevent crime by sharing information with the Police
  • Undertake research and statistical analysis to help improve our business processes and the services offered to our customers, as well as to evaluate our performance against other benchmarks. Statistical information is anonymised or pseudonymised
  • We may also conduct surveys regularly and periodically relating to our services to gauge satisfaction and make improvements based on feedback

To pursue our public tasks and legal obligations, we may process other personal information which we have collated through the management of our housing services.

Where we process your personal information in pursuit of our public tasks, you have the right to object to us using your personal information for the above purposes.  If you wish to object to any of the above processing, please contact us on Housingservices@warwickdc.gov.uk    

Why we need your personal information – equality monitoring requirements

We are required to use your personal information relating to your health, racial or ethnic origin for equality monitoring purposes as required by government departments and agencies, Homes and Communities Agency Housing Regulator, with other organisations and agencies where we are legally allowed to do so.

We will process such personal information to identify and keep under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between groups of people within the same categories to promote or maintain equality within Warwick District Council.

Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from any accidental loss or alteration, inappropriate access, misuse, or theft.

As well as technical, physical and organisational controls, we recognise that a well-trained, informed and security alert workforce minimises privacy risks from human error and/or threats from malicious parties.

In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know.

More information

You can find out more information about how Warwick District Council uses your personal data, including your rights or how to complain to The ICO by viewing our main privacy notice.