Privacy Policy

Last Updated: April 2024

At Durham Aged Mineworkers Homes Association (DAMHA), we are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring the security of your personal information. This Privacy Statement outlines how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your information when you visit our website or interact with us online, in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018.

Personal information we hold:

Data protection legislation identifies:

• Personal data – as any information relating to a person who is or can be identified from that information; and
• Special category data – as any personal data relating to a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.

The information we may hold about you includes:

• Contact details – telephone number, address, and email address
• Name, date of birth, your residential status, marital/relationship status, national insurance number, employment status, benefit details and other information to access our services (for example to prove your identity and current address)
• Your ethnicity, language choice, gender, race, mental or physical health needs
• Your bank details and financial assessments such as your income and expenditure and financial transaction information
• Criminal offence/conviction information
• Information about your views on our services where you have provided these to us
• Information obtained using cookies when you visit our website
• Social media identifiers such as profile name, type of device and channel contacted, such as Facebook or X (formally Twitter).
• Any sensors that you have consented to be used in your home to collect data about the internal conditions, such as temperature, humidity, and air quality (this list is not exhaustive).

The extent and type of information we collect and hold about you will depend on our relationship with you.

Sometimes your information will have been provided to us by a third party because it is relevant to their, your or another person’s circumstances. For example, information may have been provided to us by a resident reporting antisocial behaviour.

How we use your personal information and our legal basis for doing so:

We will use your personal information to allocate, provide, manage, and develop social and affordable housing as well as to provide, manage and develop our other services.

For example, when we:

• let homes;
• provide safer neighbourhoods and tenancy management and tenancy sustainment services;
• collect rent/charges;
• carry out repairs;
• respond to your requests;
• ask you for feedback on our services;
• meet our legal obligations; and
• prevent

Data protection law says that we are allowed to use personal information only if we have a proper reason for doing so. The legal basis for processing your information will be one or more of the following:

• When you have given your consent;
• To fulfil a contract, we have with you or where you have asked us to take steps to enter a contract with you;
• When it is our legal duty to do so;
• To protect someone’s life;
• When it is in our (or a third party’s) legitimate interests except where those interests are overridden by your interests, rights, and freedoms. A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information;
• To carry out our obligations under employment, social security, or social protection law; and,
• To establish, exercise or defend legal claims or to comply with a court

Sharing your personal information:

We may share your personal information with:

• Contractors that we appoint to carry out work for For example, repairs contractors to enable them to arrange to replace new windows in your home;
• Research companies to carry out a survey to establish the quality of our services or work;
• Credit reference/debt collection agencies in relation to some housing applications and outstanding charges;
• Police and other stattory organisations, for example, to help sustain a tenancy or deal with safer neighbourhood issues;
• Where we enter a data-sharing arrangement with a third party for example, the Fire & Rescue Service where we have concerns about hoarding in our homes, for example;
• Police, HMRC, DWP (Department of Work and Pension), Durham County Council and others for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection, or prosecution of criminal offences. The collection of tax or duty, council tax reduction or assessment and payment of housing benefit;
• The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government in relation to social housing lettings and sales for statistical purposes;
• Utility companies and their representatives to ensure billing details are correct;
• Health authorities and social services;
• Professional advisers for example, our auditors to undertake internal and external audits; lawyers to provide us with legal advice; and
• Others, for example, to prevent and detect fraud.

This list is not exhaustive.

We will not sell your personal information.

If you do not give us your personal information

If you do not wish to provide us with your personal information, then this may mean that we are unable to provide services to you. We will let you know if that is the case.

Data Retention:

We will retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Statement unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. The specific duration for which we retain your data may vary depending on the type of information and the purposes for which it was collected. Once the data is no longer needed, we will securely delete or anonymise it in accordance with our data retention policies and procedures.

How We Protect Your Information:

We are committed to ensuring your personal information is secure and to prevent unauthorised access we implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction.

Your Rights and Choices:

Data protection legislation provides you with certain rights relating to the personal information we hold about you. None of these rights are absolute and are subject to exceptions and limitations. You can exercise these rights at any time by contacting us using our contact details below. We may need to validate your identity before we can respond to a request. Further information on these rights can be viewed on the Information Commissioner’s website www.ico.org.uk

Right of access: You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. You can request this either verbally or in writing and by any method deemed suitable, such as letter, email, telephone call, text, social media and face to face or we can provide you with a form to do so.

Right of rectification: If you believe any personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incorrect, or incomplete then you can ask us to correct it.

Right of erasure (Right to be forgotten): You can ask us to delete the personal information we hold about you when it is no longer required.

Right to restriction of processing: You can ask us to restrict or suppress your personal information.

Right to portability: This right allows you to ask us to port your data across different services from one IT environment into another.

Right to object: This right allows you to ask us to stop processing your personal information.

Rights in relation to consent: In appropriate circumstances where we have sought your consent to process your personal information then you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.

Our contact details:

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Statement or our privacy practices, please contact us at:

Durham Aged Mineworkers Homes Association [DAMHA] The Grove,

168 Front Street, Chester-Le-Street, Co Durham.

DH3 3YH

Tel: 0191 388 1111

Email: info@damha.org.uk

Website: www.durhamhomes.org.uk Name of Data Protection Coordinator: Josephine Stowe

Making a data protection complaint

If you are concerned about the use of your personal information, or the way we respond to your exercising your rights, then you can raise a complaint directly with us using the contact details above.

You may also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office whose details are: Information Commissioner’s Office,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire,

SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113

Website: www.ico.org.uk

Changes to This Privacy Statement:

We may update this Privacy Statement from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or applicable laws. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the updated Privacy Statement on our website with a new effective date indicated at the top.