Privacy statement

‘Personal Data’ means any information from which someone can be identified either directly or indirectly. For example, you can be identified by your name or an online identifier.

‘Special Category Personal Data’ is more sensitive Personal Data and includes information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of uniquely identifying someone, data concerning physical or mental health or data concerning someone’s sex life or sexual orientation. 

We aim to offer a great service. To allow us to do this effectively, we sometimes need to know details about you and your personal situation. This helps us to deliver solutions which are right for you.

Sometimes we need to collect and hold information about you which is very private or sensitive. For example, details about your financial situation, ethnicity, religion or health and medical issues.

You can be sure we’ll keep your personal information confidential and use it with care. We very rarely share your information, and only ever with trusted and vetted 3rd parties, but if we do, we will ask you for your consent.

We collect most of the Personal Data directly from you in person, by telephone, text, live chat, email and/or via our website.

However, we may also collect your Personal Data from third parties such others to whom you have provided consent

We are committed to making sure we protect your privacy. This means we will:

• collect information about you fairly
• only collect information about you that we need
• tell you why what we will be doing with the information
• use it only for our business and to comply with the law
• make sure the information we hold is accurate
• not keep it for longer than we need to and keep it securely
• share it only with companies and organisations who’ll keep it secure
• not send it out of the UK without ensuring its security
• to deal with administration

• to contact you with details of changes to services you are receiving
• for business analysis, and research and testing to ensure the integrity of our systems
• for marketing, about products and services we think might be suitable for you unless you tell us not to send you information
• to comply with the law, this may include sharing your information with our regulator
• to identify you if you need to contact us

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, we must tell you who’s responsible for deciding how your personal information is used. Peaks & Plains Housing Trust is the data controller.

We use your information in a few different ways but to summarise these are:

• to help us maintain and provide you with our services
• to deal with administration
• to contact you with details of changes to services you are receiving
• for business analysis, and research and testing to ensure the integrity of our systems
• for marketing, about products and services we think might be suitable for you unless you tell us not to send you information
• to comply with the law, this may include sharing your information with our regulator
• to identify you if you need to contact us

The information you provided will be used by us to send you communications in the form of; post, email, SMS text and/or WhatsApp.  The information sent can be in relation to your tenancy, or other general communications from the Trust.

We record some telephone calls so we can check we’ve acted on your instructions correctly and to make sure that we provide the very best service. We may also monitor calls for security and training purposes. All recordings are kept for 12 months then securely deleted.

We use cookies to:

• Remember you when you visit this website to keep track of your browsing patterns and to build up a profile of how you and other users use the website
• Make our website work as efficiently as possible
• Administer services to you and to advertisers such as online forms and Google translate

Most browsers allow you to turn off cookies. To do this look at the "help" menu on your browser. Switching off cookies may restrict your use of the website and/or delay or affect the way in which it operates.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is an industry body that provides in depth information about cookies. For further information visit https://www.aboutcookies.org website.

The information you give us will be added to any other details we hold about you. Other services managed by Peaks & Plains Housing Trust may also have access to your information (e.g. our contractors).

This is to make sure we can:

• set up and administer your account correctly
• give you a high standard of service
• understand your needs and preferences
• offer you relevant products and services unless you tell us not to
• design new products and services which we think will appeal to you and people like you

These subsidiaries may contact you (by mail, email, telephone or other appropriate means) to tell you about carefully selected products, services or offers that they believe might interest you. The products and services may not be related to your housing needs.

You can ask us not to contact you in this way by telling us when you apply for a product or by writing to us at any time. This won’t end your relationship with Peaks & Plains Housing Trust.

If we were unfortunate to lose you as a customer and you apply for another property with a different landlord, we may have to pass information on to help your move happen as smoothly as possible. The information we share in this case is your payment history, any anti-social behaviour and how long you have been in your property.

The office of the Information Commissioner is the government appointed office with responsibility for data protection. They can assist with any complaints or questions you may have.

The ICO can be contacted online at: Contact us | ICO or by telephone on 0303 123 1113.

By post:

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 We will retain your Personal Data for as long as is necessary to provide you with our services and for a reasonable period thereafter to enable us to meet our contractual and legal obligations and to deal with complaints and claims.

At the end of the retention period, your Personal Data will be securely deleted or anonymised so that it can be used for statistical analysis and business planning.

You have certain rights under the Data Protection Act 2018. These include the right to:

• ask for a copy of the information we hold about you
• stop us sending you marketing material about products and services
• have information that is wrong, put right
• prevent processing where it may cause damage or distress
• object to automatic decision making
• claim compensation for damage and distress caused by our failure to comply with the terms of the Act.

If you wish to exercise your rights, please email trust@peaksplains.org

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity before we can process a request from you to exercise any of the above rights. This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

To help us prevent fraud or money laundering, your details may be passed to other companies, local authorities or other public bodies including the police. You can ask for more details about the information sharing agreements that Peaks & Plains Housing Trust has in place by emailing privacy@peaksplains.org.

Former employee data is kept for a period of six years from the date of leaving and is therefore cleansed following this period. Data submitted in relation to an online application for an advertised role will be held on the system for three months. After this time it will be cleansed. We process this information in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations 2018.

If you want more information about how we keep your information safe, how we use it or if you need to complain please get in touch.

privacy@peaksplains.org

The Data Protection Officer
Peaks & Plains Housing Trust
Ropewalks
Newton Street
Macclesfield
SK11 6QJ