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London & Quadrant Housing Trust are committed to safeguarding the rights of individuals to confidentiality. Personal data is protected by the Data Protection Act 2018.
L&Q is a housing provider and registered charitable organisation. L&Q is controller of personal information for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018. Our contact details for data protection purposes are:
Data Protection Officer
London & Quadrant Housing Trust
West Ham Lane
Stratford
E15 4HN
Email: dpo@lqgroup.org.uk
This privacy statement explains how L&Q collect and use your personal information and who we share it with. It applies to any information about housing applications, residents, leaseholders, prospective purchasers and any other customers of L&Q. It explains why we use your personal data and the legal basis under which we process it. It also explains your rights and choices you have about the data we hold.
We collect most of our information directly from you, including when you apply for one of our properties or services, complete one of our forms, email or call us, or responding to a survey. We may also process data that you post on social media if it relates to a situation that we need to be made aware of or/and take action on.
We also collect information from other third parties, but only where it is relevant to our relationship with you. Those third parties can include:-
We use the information to manage your tenancy, leasehold or purchase. We need this information to deliver our services to you. We collect most of this information because it is necessary for the performance of a contract. You cannot opt-out of providing this type of information.
We may also process some of your data because it is in our legitimate interest to make sure that:
As a provider of L&Q Living care and support service’s we process information about your health and social care to deliver our services and to safely meet your assessed needs. We also process this information because it is necessary for the performance of a contract, to fulfil our legal regulatory obligations and because it is in our legitimate interests to do so.
Where we are providing care and support services as part of a local authority contract, we may share information with the commissioning local authority or NHS Health Trust or other partner organisations that we are working with to deliver the service. You cannot opt out of this data processing.
We process personal information that relates to your health and social care, to help us make reasonable changes to our properties and services, to make them fit for purpose and accessible for everyone. We also use this type of information to make sure we are protecting vulnerable individuals in our communities.
We do this to meet our legal and regulatory obligations, for example, the Equality Act 2010, and because there is substantial public interest for us to do so.
We process personal data to provide a peaceful and safe community environment, this can include information about anti-social behaviour, criminal activity/convictions. We process this to prevent/detect unlawful acts, because it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, and for reasons of substantial public interest.
We process information about safeguarding individuals, to fulfil our legal obligations and because it is in the public interest to do so.
We use your contact details (including telephone numbers and email addresses) to get in touch with you about issues relating to your tenancy, leasehold or purchase and to deal with any legal matters arising from them. This includes repairs and maintenance, rent collection, complaints and housing management issues, in the event of an emergency, or to enforce the terms of your tenancy or lease.
We may pass your details on to contractors that provide services on our behalf, so that they can contact you to carry out essential services related to your property. We do this because it is necessary for the performance of a contract. It is not possible to opt out of this type of data processing.
We are constantly working to improve our services. One of the ways we do this is by listening to our residents and asking for feedback via surveys. These surveys are carried out by contractors who are specialists in customer feedback. It is in our legitimate interests to pass your details and use them in this way, however you can opt out of these surveys if you do not wish to take part.
We may also use your contact details to keep you updated about L&Q services which may be of interest to you, such as access to training opportunities, energy efficiency, digital support. It is in our legitimate interest to use your details in this way, but you may opt out of these communications.
We may ask you to provide us with your diversity data (ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation). This information is not used to inform any decisions we make about you individually but is gathered for statistical purposes to help us understand who is living in our communities. It helps us to ensure fairness and equality in the services we provide and allows us to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations. You do not have to provide this information but it helps us if you choose to do so.
We process some personal data to guard against fraud and illegal subletting, for example proof of identity, data matching. Failure to provide any information we require in relation to this could put your application or tenancy at risk.
We process this type of information to fulfil our legal obligations and to prevent and detect unlawful acts. You are unable to object to this type of processing.
We use some of your personal information to create a profile of you so that we can identify relevant L&Q services that might be of interest and helpful to you. For example, if information suggests you might have some difficulties managing your finances, or we think you might have difficulties in the future, we can direct you to our free welfare benefits and money advice teams. Alternatively, if our information suggests you may be vulnerable because of your age or ill health, we may offer you an enhanced service.
We rely on legitimate interests to process information for these purposes. We do not use automated decision making or automated profiling to may any decisions on your application, tenancy or leasehold.
We may use your personal data to carry out internal research and analysis. We do this to develop and improve our services and to help us understand trends within the housing sector. We process this information based on our legitimate interests for those purposes.
We may record your telephone calls to our customer contact centre and retain webchat conversation transcripts, for training and monitoring purposes. Calls are only recorded in the customer contact centre. We process data in this way because it is in our legitimate interests to do so.
If you visit our website we collect your internet protocol address. This is logged for internal use only and helps us determine how well our services are working so that we can continually improve the quality and content of the website. The log is also important for security, audit and quality improvement.
When we share information, it is to organisations who carry out services on our behalf. This includes repairs and maintenance, managing agents, gas servicing, etc. We only share the information which is necessary for them to carry out the service they have been contracted to provide. All of our contractors operate under terms and conditions of a legally enforceable contract which includes particulars around using your information only for the service it has been provided.
We do this because it is necessary for the performance of a contract. It is also in L&Q’s legitimate interest in maintaining the property.
Occasionally, we may need to transfer your personal data outside of the UK to other contractors. For example, if we were to use a software system that is hosted on servers outside of the UK. Where this is the case, we take appropriate steps to ensure that we only contract with organisations that have the appropriate security measures in place.
How long we keep your personal information will depend on the type of information that it is. We have set retention periods for different categories of data. These are listed in our retention schedule, please contact dpo@lqgroup.org.uk if you would like a copy of the schedule. Tenancy files are retained for up to 6 years post tenancy. CCTV footage is kept for 31 days. Telephone recordings and webchat transcripts in our customer contact centres are retained for 3 months.
You have several rights which allow you to choose and control (where applicable) how we use your data. These rights are explained below. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact dpo@lqgroup.org.uk.
Transparency – You have the right to be informed about how we use your data.
Access – You have the right to ask us what personal data we hold about you, and to request a copy free of charge.
Objection – You can object to the processing of your data. You should note that this does not always apply in all circumstances, for example if you hold a current tenancy with L&Q.
Rectification – If you think that the personal data we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you have the right to request that it be rectified.
Erasure – You can ask us to delete your personal information where it is no longer necessary for us to use it.
Data portability – You can ask us to provide you, or a third party with some of the data that we hold about you, in a structured, commonly used electronic format so that it can be easily transferred.
Appeal – If you are not satisfied with the way we have dealt with your personal data, please let us know and we will try to resolve your concerns. If you are still not satisfied you have the right to appeal directly to the regulator – The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF www.ico.org.uk.
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