Privacy Notice for Housing Assistance and Housing Applicants

Why we are collecting your data

Chelmsford City Council is a data controller. This means we need to collect your personal data so that we can investigate and respond to your request for housing assistance. We will only collect the personal data from you that we need in order to deal with your housing application and request for assistance, in accordance with relevant statutory duties.

Information collected

Name
Address
Phone number
Email address
Age/date of birth
Relationship between household members
School/college history
Emergency contact name
Emergency contact phone number
Emergency contact address
Current employment and employment history
Spouse/partner employment history
Health and wellbeing including disability, mental health and drug/alcohol issues
Contact information relating to doctors, consultants, social workers, nurses, solicitors, health visitors, probation officers and support workers
Information about the need for support and treatment
Financial information including income/expenses and receipt of benefits
Current and previous addresses
Reasons for the loss of accommodation
Criminal convictions
Care history
Gender
Ethnicity
Religious beliefs
Sexual orientation

We collect name, address, phone number and relationship details for all family members living in the area.

The basis for the processing

We do this as a task carried out in the public interest. We will not be able to investigate your request to Chelmsford City Council for housing assistance without the personal data you provide us with.

Who we share your information with

Your information will initially be administered by the Council’s Customer Services Team and if necessary, will be sent to a member of staff within the Strategic Housing Service for further investigation, who may then contact you for further information. Your housing application and the assistance we provide requires us to share information within the Council and with statutory, voluntary and private organisations.

These include the following:

family, associates or representatives of the person whose personal data we are processing
criminal justice agencies
housing providers and their agents
education, health, social care and welfare organisations
advocates, charities and agencies providing housing-related support
agencies to help assess and discharge the Council’s statutory and corporate duties
government departments and their representatives who we are required to provide information to for monitoring and service development purposes

We will never sell your data. However, we may share some of your personal information with third parties to:

help prevent fraud. We may share your information with credit reference agencies and other companies for use in credit decisions. Credit agencies may record these searches, but that will not affect your credit standing.
pursue people or companies who owe us money. We may share your information with debt collection agencies.
help business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors to deliver any contract we enter with them or you.
help us if we need additional professional or legal advice on a matter relating to you.
improve and optimise the performance of our websites and social media accounts. Analytics and search engine providers that we use can collect your data when you interact with us online. However, they will aggregate and anonymise the information, meaning we can’t identify any individual personally.

Providing accurate information

We need to hold accurate and up to date information about you so that we can deliver appropriate services. If any of your details change, you need to tell us as soon as possible so that we can update your records.

We will not:

use your information for marketing or sales purposes without your prior explicit consent.
send or store your data abroad unless it meets the requirements of the Data Protection regulations.
make decisions about you based on automated processing.

How long will we hold your data for?

We keep all records relating to your housing application for 7 years. If you do not require Housing Services in the convening years then your information will be erased after 7 years.

Your rights

You have the right to access the personal information we hold about you. Any access requests are free of charge.

If the information we hold about you is inaccurate, you have a right to have this corrected and you have the right to request completion of incomplete data.

You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data in certain circumstances (‘right to be forgotten’).

You have the right to ask us to stop or restrict the processing of your personal data, in certain circumstances. Where possible, we will seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or process information to comply with a legal requirement.

You can make any of these requests by:

Emailing ir@chelmsford.gov.uk
Or sending a letter to:

Digital Services
Chelmsford City Council
Civic Centre
Duke Street
Chelmsford
CM1 1JE

If you are dissatisfied with how we have used your personal information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at casework@ico.org.uk

Identity of Data Protection Officer

Our designated Data Protection Officer is John Breen.

You can contact him by emailing ir@chelmsford.gov.uk

Contact details

Chelmsford City Council
Civic Centre
Duke Street
Chelmsford
CM1 1JE

Email: ir@chelmsford.gov.uk

Telephone: 01245 606606