The Council is committed to protecting your privacy and being transparent about how we use your personal data whilst you are accessing services within North Ayrshire.

At all times we will retain control over any data we hold about you and abide by the requirements of data protection law and protect any personal or confidential information and ensure it is only accessible by our employees on a need to know basis.

Housing Services provide a range of services and will ensure that when using your personal data that we meet our obligations about the use of your data to manage the Council’s Social Housing stock in the way that the law says that we must.

The personal information we hold about you about the provision of Housing services is collected in a variety of ways. We will collect information from you in paper and online forms, by telephone, email, CCTV and in conversation with a member of our staff. We will also collect information from one or more of our partner agencies such as Police Scotland, the Scottish Court Service and NHS Ayrshire & Arran and Voluntary Sector organisations working with the Council.

It is important that we hold accurate and up to date information. If details about you have changed, or change in the future, you should inform us as soon as possible so that records can be updated.

Housing Services will collect, store and use information about you to:

• process applications for social housing
• manage social housing tenancies, including processing of rent, payment, understanding of repairs and provision of tenants support
• provision of temporary accommodation, advice and support to homelessness applicants

Additionally we may use your data to create statistics and management reports to measure our performance and use this anonymised data to improve our services.

The Data Protection Act 2018 sets out the lawful basis for processing personal data. In this case the Council as a public authority gathers and process information necessary to allow us to undertake our legal duties in line with our public task and statutory functions, when required to do so by law, to safeguard public safety and where there is a risk of harm or in emergency situations.

When consent is required to process your personal data we will ask you for this.

For us to deliver services to you it may be necessary to share your personal information with other Council Services areas and additionally we may further share with agencies such as Department for Work and Pensions, Police, NHS, Scottish Fire and Rescue.

In certain circumstances, and where you may wish to seek services from other agencies and organisations, it may necessary to seek your consent especially where the data is of a sensitive and confidential nature. The Council is required by law to protect the public funds it administers. It may share information provided to it with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds in order to prevent and detect crime or fraud.

We will not keep your information for any longer than it is needed, and will dispose of both paper and electronic records in a secure way. The length of time we need to keep information collected for providing Housing Services varies will depend on the purpose for which it is collected. The Council has a Record Retention Schedule which sets out how long we keep records and the reason why.

North Ayrshire Council are a registered Controller in accordance with Data Protection Act 2018 and your data will be handled in accordance with the legislation. You have the right to request access to information that the Council holds about you. You have the right to:

• object to processing of personal data that is likely to cause , or is causing damage or distress
• prevent processing for the purposes of direct marketing
• object to decisions being taken by automated means; and in certain circumstances, have inaccurate personal date rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed

For further information about your information rights and how to contact our Data Protection Officer, should you have a concern, can be found within our Privacy Policy.