Housing Options Privacy Notice BCP

Please read our general privacy notice as well as this notice.

What we do

The council’s Housing Options and Partnerships service area assesses your housing situation, provides advice, information and support if you are homeless, threatened with homelessness or need housing assistance to access housing related support services. Support services could include emergency or temporary accommodation, private rented, supported housing, financial support or any other housing type or related support service.

The purposes we use your personal information for

We collect and process your personal information to provide these services to you. This will include:

  • assessing your housing eligibility and needs and agreeing the advice or support you need
  • managing your tenancy or temporary accommodation
  • assessing, maintaining and updating your Homelessness application or application to a housing related support service
  • allocating you or referring you to accommodation
  • referring you to housing related support services
  • compiling reports to assess demand for housing services
  • ensuring services provided on behalf of the Council are provided in line with contractual requirements and to a good standard.
  • investigating any worries or complaints about the services
  • understanding and projecting the need and demand for services, commissioning new services or altering current provision where necessary
  • for the prevention and detection of crime
  • data matching including the National Fraud initiative.

The personal information we collect and use

We only obtain and use the information we need to provide our services to you.

The law we use to process your personal information

Statutory legislation

The main legislation that provides us with the statutory basis to deliver our services is:

  • The Housing Acts 1985, 1988, 1996, 2002, 2004
  • The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
  • The Localism Act 2011
  • Protection from Eviction Act 1977
  • Local Government Act 1972
  • Care Act 2014
  • Childrens act 2004
  • Part 6 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.
  • Section 35 of the Digital Economy Act 2017.

The GDPR/DPA conditions we meet

The conditions that we use to process your personal information include:

  • Public task: the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law
  • Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for us to comply with the law
  • Vital interests: The processing may be necessary to protect someone’s life or protect them from significant harm
  • Contract: you have entered into a contract with us. (Provision of Accommodation with Support).

Special category personal information - We also use these additional conditions to process your special category personal information.

  • Health or social care: the processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and service
  • Employment, social security or social protection: the processing is necessary for the carrying out of obligations under employment, social security or social protection law
  • Public interest: the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

Who we may share your information with

  • other departments in BCP & Dorset Council, including Housing Benefit & Council Tax and Adult & Children’s services
  • Dorset Home Choice landlord partners
  • judicial agencies, for example, courts
  • police
  • the courts, law enforcement agencies and bodies undertaking the collection of debts
  • health agencies, for example, GP practices, Community Mental Health team, hospitals
  • education providers
  • suppliers of gas, water, electricity, digital communications, satellite TVs, mobile providers
  • money and debt advice agencies
  • other local authorities
  • immigration services
  • The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)
  • central and regional government departments
  • safeguarding boards
  • emergency accommodation providers, for example, bed and breakfast landlords
  • elected members and MPs (as your representative)
  • data reference and credit agencies
  • other landlords – housing associations, registered providers and private landlords
  • St Mungo's
  • our contracted housing and service providers, such as Pivotal, BCHA and Stonewater
  • those who we contract to carry out maintenance to your home
  • we may also share your personal information with service areas within the Council or other relevant organisations for purposes which may include law enforcement
  • The National Prison & Probation Service
  • Housing Related Support providers
  • Community Land Trusts.

How long we keep information about you

We will only keep this personal information for no longer than is necessary, and as set out within our retention schedules. 7 years from case closure where your application did not result in an allocation. Up to 20 years from the end of the tenancy where your application resulted in an allocation.

For enquiries regarding the conditions set out in this notice relating to how we will use your personal information please contact:

Housing Options and Partnerships
Housing
Town Hall
Bourne Ave
Bournemouth
BH2 6DY

Or email bournemouthhousing.calls@bcpcouncil.gov.uk.

Contracted Services

Some of the services provided by Housing Options and Partnerships are delivered by contractors on behalf of BCP Council.

To deliver these services in accordance with contractual requirements the contractor exercises the function of both Data Controller and Data Processor for the personal information you provide.

You should ensure you also familiarise yourself with their own privacy notice set out on their respective websites.

BCP Council’s housing Options Service will act as the data controller in these cases for performance monitoring and contract compliance purposes.

Additional Information

When logging into BCP Homechoice, the following also applies:

We may also collect anonymous preferences, interests and favourites.

As many of the ways in which you interact with us are through our website via electronic devices, we may automatically collect information about your device and the software on it. This information is capable of being personal data and can include unique identifiers such as your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This type of information is used for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of our website.