This privacy notice relates to our Housing Service. It provides additional information that specifically relates to this particular service and should be read together with our Corporate privacy notice, which provides more detail.
We aim to make our privacy notices easy to access and understand, to ensure all residents understand what we do with their data.
What personal information does this service use?
Whenever you get in touch with us either in person, by phone or online, we’ll usually need your basic contact details: name, address, telephone number, email address etc, together with enough information about your enquiry to be able to help you quickly and effectively.
If you are a Social Housing Tenant of Manchester City Council, we will hold a tenancy record about you. This is stored in an electronic database, and we may also hold some paper based information about you.
Your record will contain some or all the following:
- Basic details about you such as your name, address and date of birth.
- The names and contact details of your close relatives and/or carers, where these have been provided to us.
- Financial information relating to your rent account and any financial support you are accessing.
- Information you have told us about your physical and mental health and wellbeing, any restrictions you have in terms of mobility in the home and any other relevant health data which is provided during your application and/or during the term of your tenancy.
- Letters, notes and reports we share with you, about the help / services you need from your landlord.
- Things that other organisations (such as health or care services) tell us about your situation to help us to better understand your needs.
Some of the information we hold in your tenancy record / application form will be more sensitive personal details about you, such as your race or ethnic origin, sex and sexual orientation, religious beliefs, your physical and mental health etc. This is known as Special Categories of Personal Data.
It is important for us to know this information, for example, if you have a disability or language issue, as this may influence the way our services need to be delivered to meet your needs. We also use this information for equalities monitoring purposes, so we can be sure that we’re reaching and responding to all sectors of the community, inclusive of ethnicity, age and disability.
We use your personal data for the following reasons:
- To maintain records of the services we provide.
- To monitor the quality of the services we provide and check how our services are performing overall, for example by requesting your feedback.
- To plan repairs and improvements to your home and minimise any inconvenience and disruption to you and your neighbours.
- To assess you or a family member’s needs and identify appropriate services or support.
- To provide financial support to you, such as money advice, debt advice, income maximisation or arrears support.
- To prevent crime, anti-social behaviour, meet our legal responsibilities and protect the health and safety of our staff and the wider community.
- To log and respond to any complaints about our services.
To improve our service delivery, we may use personal information to create statistics, extrapolate data trends or gain insight. This helps us to see how our services are being used, and how they compare within the sector, when benchmarked.
We are the Data Controller. This means we decide how to use the personal information we hold about you. We hold your personal information in an electronic system which is accessible by our staff, as well as our Repairs and Maintenance Contractor, who are commissioned to deliver services on our behalf.
We will only use your personal data where it is necessary in order to perform our public tasks and duties as a Local Authority under Article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”).
We also use your data to ensure we meet our statutory obligations under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Housing Ombudsman’s Statutory Code of Practice 2024.
In some cases, we may be required to share your information by law (Art 6(1)(c) of the UK GDPR) or where it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency (Art 6(1)(d) of the UK GDPR).
We will only use any special categories of personal data where it is necessary to deliver Housing related services (Art 9(2)(h) of the UK GDPR), and where there is a substantial public interest (such as to carry out our statutory or legal duties, for the prevention of crime) (Art 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR).
We may also need to use special category data:
- where it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency (Art 9(2)(c) of the UK GDPR)
- where it is necessary for legal cases (Art 9(2)(f) of the UK GDPR)
- where it is necessary for employment purposes (Art 9(2)(b) of the UK GDPR)
- where it is necessary for archiving, research or statistical purposes (Art 9(2)(j) of the UK GDPR)
When you make an application to Manchester Move for housing, you are required to provide us with personal information about yourself and your household.
Once you become a tenant this information will be transferred to your tenancy record.
In addition, personal information is collected when you use our website, social channels, customer portal or app - or when you contact us by phone or in person.
We may also receive personal data from your family members, nominated carers, advocates, external third-sector organisations and/or other landlords.
In order to provide our services, or to comply with legal obligations, we may request and receive information from other organisations and services, for example:
- The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)
- Manchester City Council Revenues and Benefits Service
- National Probation Service
- Housing Providers, including Registered Social Landlords
- Cheshire and Greater Manchester Community Rehabilitation Company
- Greater Manchester Police
- Your General Practitioner (GP) and Health Authority
- Other Local Authorities
- Your current Landlord
Your personal data may be shared securely to other departments within the Council, only where it is both necessary and appropriate to do so.
To provide our services to you, we may occasionally need to securely share your personal information to other organisations outside the Council. For example, we may share your data with:
- Contractors who are delivering a service on our behalf
- NHS Bodies and Health Agencies
- Police
- Schools and other education providers
- Government Agencies
- Housing Agencies
- Third Sector/Voluntary Agencies
With your legal representative if you have made a claim for disrepair
Where this information is shared, your confidentiality and privacy will be protected. To make sure this takes place, there are clear rules in our own procedures as well as national legislation.
In most situations, other people must have your permission before we can give them information about you. However, there are some circumstances when we are obliged to share information without your permission, for example:
- To protect you or another person in an emergency (for example with the police, NHS or with Immigration/Border Control)
- For the administration of justice (such as providing information to Court)
- To meet other legal obligations, such as:
- where we are required to share safeguarding information by law to other agencies and other Councils
- where we are required to provide information to an auditor or standards body such as the Building Safety Regulator, or as part of any formal inquiry or investigation
Where the law allows, the information collected about you can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual tenancy, for instance to help with:
- improving the quality and standards of service in the Social Housing sector
- research and development
- identifying emerging trends and social need
- monitoring safety
- planning services
We have a Records Retention Schedule which sets out how long we keep different types of information, before it is deleted and destroyed confidentially. This is to comply with our legal obligations and to protect ours or your interests.
If you would like to know exactly how long we keep specific types of information, please email us contact@mcchousingservices.co.uk for more information
You can find out more about your rights regarding the personal information used for this service. Your rights apply to the information held by the Council as a data controller, and the information we hold on behalf of the other data controllers.
We may change this privacy notice from time to time. Please see our Corporate Privacy Notice if you have any questions or concerns about how we use your personal information. You may also contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer via email: dpo@manchester.gov.uk.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you're unhappy about how we process your information.
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