Website Privacy Policy

Our website is a place for you to find out more about us, you neighborhood and the services available to you.

When you visit our website, we collect personal information about you when you:

• pay your rent using the options provided;
• report a repair;
• apply to make alterations or improvements to your home,. sublet, take in a lodger. assign your tenancy or keep a pet;
• request an adaption to your home
• notifiy us of any changes to your tenancy, including adding a joint tenant and changes to your household members;
• inform us of any changes to your contact details;
• complete a survey, including new tenat survey and satisfaction with repairs survey;
• provide us with a notice to end your tenancy;
• apply for a garden waste permit;
• submit an enquiry aout applying for housing with us;
• express an interest in getting involved as a tenant, owner. member or Committee member;
• make contact with our Tenancy Support Officer or Fyne HEAT advisors
• Complete and submit a "contact us" membership or tenant reward scheme application to us;
• make a complaint, report anti-social behaviour, notify us of estate management issues or otherwise provide your comments on the standard or service tha tyou have received from us; and
• complete and submit an "information request" form to us.

We use such personal information to:

• provide you with the information and services that you have requested from us;
• communicate with you, including in response to any of your enquiries or requests;
• improve our services and respond to changing needs;
• process your rent payments;
• carry out repairs to your property;
• handle and resolve complaints made by / against you;
• keep the personal information that we hold about you and members of your household accurate and up-to-date (if you provide any new personal information to us via the website); and
• arrange an appointment with our Tenancy Support Officers or Fyne HEAT advisors, who can provide you with benefits and debt and / or energy savings advice and support.

We may not be able to provide the above services to you if you do not provide us with sufficient personal information to allow us to do so.

We may also collect personal information about you through the use of cookies on our website. For further information on cookies, please see our Cookie Policy

Data protection laws require us to have a legal reason for collecting, holding and using your personal information.

Our legal reasons for holding and using your personal information are

• performance and management of any agreement between us;
• legal and regulatory obligations which apply to us as a registered social landlord;
• protection of your vital interests; and
• our legitimate interests – while you have a legitimate interest in the protection of your personal information, we also have an overriding legitimate interest in handling and using your personal information, including sharing it with our service providers (listed in section 3 of this policy), for the purposes described in section 1 of this policy.

We may share your personal information with the following organisations for the purposes described in section 1 of this policy:

• our contractors to undertake repairs, works and maintenance;
• our IT service providers, including the providers of our document management and housing management systems;
• organisations providing benefits advice and support;
• Police Scotland and the Argyll and Bute Council anti-social behaviour department in relation to complaints involving anti-social or other criminal behaviour, and
• Home Argyll and its member organisations (if you apply for housing)

We will only keep your personal information for as long as we need to for the purposes described in section 1 of this policy, including to meet any legal, accounting, reporting or regulatory requirements. More information is contained in our data retention policy which is available by contacting our Data Protection Officer (DPO).

The security of your personal information is important to us and we use technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal information.

However, while we will use reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal information, the use of the Internet is not entirely secure and, for this reason, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal information that is transferred by or to you via the Internet. If you have any concerns about the security of your personal information, please contact our DPO for more information.

We understand that there may be situations where you provide us with personal information about somebody else. In those situations, you confirm that:

• the other individual has consented to you acting for them and to your use of their personal information;
• you have informed the other individual of our identity and the contents of this policy, including the purposes for which we will use that individual’s personal information described in section 1 of this policy; and
• the other individual has explicitly consented to our use of that individual’s personal information for the purposes described in section 1 of this policy.

This policy will apply to our collection, handling and use of the other individual’s personal information in the same way that it applies to your personal information.

Our servers are located in the United Kingdom and the information that we collect directly from you will be stored in these servers.

Some of the organisations we share your personal information with (listed in section 3 of this policy) may be based or may make use of data storage facilities that are located outside the United Kingdom. Their handling and use of your personal information will involve us and / or them transferring it outside the United Kingdom. When we and / or they do this, we will ensure similar protection is afforded to it by:

• only transferring it or permitting its transfer to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information under data protection laws; or
• using specific contracts with such organisations, which are approved for use in the United Kingdom, and which give your personal information the same protection it has in the United Kingdom after it is transferred.

Please contact our DPO for further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal information outside the United Kingdom.

• • A copy of your personal information and to check that we are holding and using it in accordance with legal requirements.
  • Correction of any incomplete or inaccurate personal information that we hold and use about you.
  • Deletion of your personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to hold and use it. You also have the right to ask us to do this where you object to us holding and using your personal information (details below).
  • Temporarily suspend the use of your personal information, for example, if you want us to check that it is correct or the reason for processing it.
  • The transfer of your personal information to another organisation.

You can also object to us holding and using your personal information where our legal basis is a legitimate interest (either our legitimate interests or those of a third party).

Please contact our DPO if you wish to make any of the above requests. When you make a request, we may ask you for specific information to help us confirm your identity for security reasons. You will not need to pay a fee when you make any of the above requests, but we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to comply if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive.

We welcome your feedback on how we hold and use your personal information, and this can be sent to our DPO.

You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, the UK regulator for data protection, about how we hold and use your personal information. The Information Commissioner’s website is https://ico.org.uk/ and complaints can be made here.

If you would like to receive this policy in alternative format, for example, audio, large print or braille, please contact our DPO.

We may update this policy at any time, and you should check our website occasionally to ensure you are aware of the most recent version that will apply each time you access our website.

Last updated: March 2024