Privacy Notice

PRIVACY NOTICE

Personal data is information relating to a living individual, who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone, or together with that data and other associated information in the possession of, or likely to come into the possession of the Data Controller. This Privacy Notice explains our data collection practices and the reasons behind the personal information we gather about you. It provides the legal basis for this as well as your rights regarding the use of your information. We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. If we make any significant changes, we will advertise this on the website or contact you directly with the information.

WHO WE ARE?

Retired Ministers’ Housing Society (“RMHS”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is not only part of the United Reformed Church but is also a separate legal entity.

RMHS is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data. We are committed to being clear and transparent about how we collect and use that data and to meeting our data protection obligations.

For the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and any subsequent UK legislation covering data protection, RMHS is the Data Controller. This means that RMHS is responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

WHAT INFORMATION DO WE PROCESS?

RMHS processes a range of personal information about you. We will only process personal information when we need this. The type of information we need from you will vary, depending on our relationship with you. When we ask you for information, we will make it clear why we need it. We will also make it clear when you do not have to provide us with information and any consequences of not providing this. The personal information we process includes but is not limited to:

Identity and personal contact details, such as your name, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, national insurance number.
Background information such as employer details, next of kin, dependants and emergency contacts
Medical records
Bank account details, bank references and credit check results
Tenancy details, including joint tenants, other residents
Rent and utilities payment records
Recovery of arrears, claims or possession proceedings
Repair and health and safety records
Council tax and utilities records
Reference supplied by former employers and personal referees

WHY WE NEED YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We collect and use your personal data for the following purposes:

To verify the identity of a proposed tenant/resident
To decide on the suitability of a proposed tenant/resident
To assess the financial standing/suitability of a proposed tenant/resident
To enable us to consider appropriate housing for you and your family.
To collect rent and other payments
To enable us to provide you with an efficient and effective housing repairs and maintenance service.
To market, log interest and sell properties
To handle complaints
To address health and disability issues relating to tenants/residents
To enable us to comply with our statutory duties, e.g. meeting health and safety requirements, preventing tenancy fraud and illegal subletting.
To enable us to monitor, evaluate and review the quality of our services.
To contact next of kin, close relatives and appointed emergency contacts in case of emergency
To store of emails, records of calls and other communications
To bring and defend legal claims
To prevent, detect and investigate crime and anti-social behaviour
To consider your job application for advertised vacant positions
To enable us to process your donations, gift aids, bequests and legacies.

USE OF SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION

RMHS sometimes processes special category personal data about you. Special categories of personal data are:

racial or ethnic origin
political opinions
religious or philosophical beliefs
trade union membership
biometric data
health data
sex life or sexual orientation

Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, are processed to comply with legal obligations (for example, in relation to tenants/residents with disabilities and for health and safety purposes).

Where we process your sensitive personal information, we will do so:

with your expressed consent;
where we need to protect the vital interests (i.e. the health and safety) of you or another person;
where you have already made your personal information public;
where we or another person needs to bring or defend legal claims; and/or
substantial public interest grounds.

WHAT IS THE LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

The legal basis we rely upon for processing personal data about you falls into one of the following six categories:

To meet our obligations under a contract – your tenancy agreement or because you have asked us to do something with a view to entering into a contract with you;
In order to further RMHS’ (or a third party’s) legitimate interests. Our legitimate interests include: ensuring that we monitor, analyse, deliver and improve our services to you and your household members; to properly manage our business; and promoting our services. We will look to balance our interests with our legitimate interests where we rely on this category.
Where the processing is necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation;
For the performance of a task carried out in the public interest;
With your express consent (for example in relation to special category data); and/or
To protect the vital interests of you, your family or others.

HOW DO WE PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

RMHS will comply with data protection law. This means that the personal data we hold about you must be:

Used lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent way;
Collected only for valid purposes that we have explained to you clearly and not used in any way that is incompatible with these purposes;
Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited to those purposes only;
Accurate and kept up to date;
Kept only for such time as is necessary for the purposes we have told you about; and
Kept securely.

WHERE DID WE OBTAIN YOUR PERSONAL DATA FROM?

Although most of your personal data comes directly to us by you; there are some elements of your personal data which we obtain from:

URC Synods
URC Ministers’ Pension Fund

WHO THE INFORMATION MAY BE SHARED WITH

All your personal data is treated as strictly confidential and mainly processed by our staff at Church House. For the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance, your personal data is also located and backed up onto our servers, which are within the UK. No third parties (apart from those specified in this notice) have access to your personal data unless the law allows them to do so.

Depending on whether you are a stipendiary minister/pensioner, where required we share your personal data for the purposes we have specified in this notice with the following third parties. Where “sharing” is in our legitimate interest, we will share your information with:

URC Synods
URC Ministers’ Pension Fund
Our contractors to facilitate repairs, maintenance or improvement works
Utility companies (and their representatives) and Council Tax departments to ensure billing details are correct
Healthcare, social and welfare organisations
The Housing Ombudsmen and regulatory authorities

Not all organisations with whom we share your personal data are explicitly stated in this list; only those which we share date with on a frequent basis.

HOW LONG IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA KEPT?

For more information on how long we keep your personal data and to obtain copies of our record retention schedule please contact the Records Manager

You can also write to the Records Manager at United Reformed Church, 86 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9RT.

HOW WILL WE PROTECT INFORMATION ABOUT YOU?

RMHS takes the security of your personal data seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to prevent your personal data being lost, accidentally destroyed, misused, or disclosed. Details of these measures are available on request.

When we engage third parties to process personal data on our behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.

FURTHER PROCESSING

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Data Privacy Notice, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions.

TRANSFERS OF PERSONAL DATA

We do not transfer your personal data outside of the UK/European Union.

WHAT ARE YOUR RIGHTS?

Unless subject to an exemption under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

Request to access a copy of your personal data, which we hold about you.
Request to rectify your personal data if you find it to be inaccurate or out of date.
Request to have your personal data erased where it is no longer necessary for us to retain such data.
Request to have a restriction placed on further processing of your personal data when there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data.
Request to obtain a copy of your personal data in a common machine-readable format and transmit that data directly to another organisation.
Withdraw consent to the processing of your personal data at any time. Please note if you withdraw consent then we will no longer be able to provide you with some of our services.

WHO CAN I CONTACT?

If you have any questions about how your personal data is being used please contact us on rmh@urc.org.uk. You can also write to us at United Reformed Church Retired Ministers Housing Society, 86 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9RT.

HOW DO I COMPLAIN?

If you are not satisfied with the way your personal data is being handled, or with the response received from us, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.

THE USE OF COOKIES ON OUR WEBSITE

A cookie is a small text file which is placed on your computer by your browser.

Cookies allow web sites and applications to respond to you as an individual. The web site can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

They can also help us build an analytical picture of the site and how it is performing.

We use session cookies to manage your movement between pages, handle logins and to help with site searches. These are removed when you leave the site and are essential to the running of the site. These typically have the site web address as their name.

We use analytical cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and general visitor behaviour on our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and it does not contain any personally identifiable information and in no way gives us access to any files on your computer. These usually have names such as UTMA, UTMB, UTMC, UTMZ

You can choose to delete individual cookies or block them entirely at any time by going to the settings in your browser. There is a guide on how to manage cookies here. Note that if you disable cookies altogether then this may cause functionality issues on this and other websites.

We do not use cookies to store personal data nor do we link non-personal information stored in cookies with personal data about specific individuals.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Privacy Notice

Last Updated: July 2024