Tees Valley - Welcome to Compass

Compass Privacy Notice

The Data Protection Legislation

We will comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) which states that the personal information we hold about you must be:

1.    Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.

2.    Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.

3.    Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.

4.    Accurate and kept up to date.

5.    Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.

6.    Kept securely.

No personal information held by us will be processed unless the requirements of the Data Protection legislation for fair and lawful processing can be met.

This notice sets out the privacy policy for data that is collected by the Compass partners which is made up of the five Tees Valley local authorities and registered provider partners that either own or manage the housing stock.  The following local authorities and their partner organisations have all signed up to the Compass Sub-Regional CBL scheme and have agreed to let their vacant properties in accordance with its policy:

 

• Darlington Borough Council

• Hartlepool Borough Council

• Middlesbrough Council

• Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council

• Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

• Beyond Housing

• Home Group

• North Star Housing

These are the joint Data Controllers which means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. The DPA 2018 requires Data Controllers to be transparent with data subjects about how we use your data and this is set out in this privacy notice. This privacy notice is issued in accordance with the DPA 2018. It describes how we collect and use personal information about you for the administration and management of the housing register and the allocation of social housing within Tees Valley via Choice Based Lettings (CBL). 

This notice applies to information we hold about you.

We may update this notice at any time.

 

What we use information for

We process data regarding your housing application to identify and assess:

• Eligibility for housing
• Whether you qualify for housing under the Sub Regional allocations policy

• Housing need

• Suitable properties

• Areas of demand in Tees Valley

• Size and type of property in demand

• Who we are rehousing

   

What kind of information we hold

We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

• Contact details such as address, telephone numbers, email addresses

• Date of Birth

• Details of your housing application including:

  • Proof of identity

  • Address history

  • Financial information

  • Information about your current home and household

  • Your housing preferences

  • Medical details (where these are relevant in consideration for priority for housing and the type of housing to be allocated)

  • Any anti-social behaviour, rent arrears or evictions

  • Any relevant criminal record you have

 

Special Category Data

We only collect information categorised as sensitive (under section 9 of the DPA 2018) for the purposes of administration and management of the housing register via Compass with your permission. Questions about race, ethnic origin, religion, health and sexual orientation can be left blank or marked ‘prefer not to answer’. If you choose to answer these questions we will save this information if you give us consent when you submit an application with us. We will get your permission by:

 

• Online declaration (at the end of an online submission), or

• A hand-signed declaration on a paper form

You have the right to withdraw your consent to the use of this special category data at any time. You can remove this information by editing your online application or by contacting one of the Compass partners.

In addition, if you have given your consent for us to use your personal information and wish to withdraw this consent please contact one of the Compass partners.

 

How we will use the information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. We will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

• where the processing is necessary for a contract we have with you, or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract, namely for the allocation of a property to you.

• where the processing is necessary for us to perform the task of administering the legal duty  to allocate housing under part 6 of the Housing Act 1996 (as amended by the Localism Act 2011)

The Data Protection Act 2018 provides a basis for processing criminal offence data. This includes housing.

 

Data Sharing

By registering with Compass you are sharing your information with:

• All the full Compass partners who are part of the administration of the allocations service (Darlington Borough Council, Hartlepool Borough Council, Middlesbrough Borough Council, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, Stockton Borough Council, Beyond Housing, Home Group, North Star Housing)
• Former landlords, registered providers (such as Bernicia, Clarion Housing, Karbon Homes), private landlords, housing benefits, council tax, department for work and pensions, credit reference agencies, prison and probation service, police, social services and health organisations. This list is not exhaustive.

At no time will your information be passed to organisations external to us and our partners for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consen

The information that you provide is processed using the Compass Partnership’s secure IT system owned by Civica.

Your personal information will be used for the administration and management of the housing register and the allocation of social housing within Tees Valley via CBL. It will also be used to identify and protect fraud by matching data sets with other data sets collected by other local authorities and registered providers. We will also share your information with your family or advocates but only if you have asked us to do so.

 

Data Retention

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

If your application form is made active on the housing register we will keep your information until:

• you are housed, and then we will keep it for a further 7 years1];
• your form is closed (and you have not been housed through Compass), then we will keep your information for 7 years.

Your rights

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Data Protection Officer in writing.

For further information on your rights you can contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) or representative of the Compass partners.

Organisation	DPO	Contact Details
Darlington Borough Council	Lee Downey	[email protected]
Hartlepool Borough Council	Laura Stones	[email protected]
Middlesbrough Borough Council	-	[email protected]
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council	Sue Bridges	[email protected]
Stockton Borough Council	Mr Ian Coxon	[email protected]
Beyond Housing	Joanna Caton	[email protected]
Home Group	James Trinder	[email protected]
North Star Housing	Brian Darby	[email protected]

 

Should you require any further information please visit www.ico.org.uk

 

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[1] In line with common practice acording to the Local Government Data Retention Guidelines