Customer Privacy

Normally only Bristol Charities staff and volunteers will be able to see and process your personal information. However, there may be times when we share relevant information with third parties for the purposes as outlined in section two (2), or where we are legally required to do so. When sharing personal information, we will comply with all aspects of the Data Protection Act.

Sensitive information about health, sexual life, race, religion and criminal activity for example is subject to particularly stringent security and confidentiality measures.

Where necessary or required we may share your personal information as follows:

• We will share information on grant applications with Grant Committee members. We will also publish data on grant recipients for committees/groups/organisations (amounts/purpose) but we anonymise details for any individual grantees.
• We will provide information to HMRC on Gift Aided donations as we have a legal obligation to provide this information.
• With our contractors, in order to undertake repairs, maintenance or improvement works with third party service providers performed on our behalf. For example: where we use another company to carry out a resident satisfaction survey or if we use a mailing house to distribute our newsletters. Our relationships with such providers are governed by our contract with them which include strict data sharing and confidentiality protocols.
• With other housing providers and landlords in connection with tenancy/licence references and associated enquiries.
• With community partners in connection with the delivery of coordinated services.
• With utility companies (and their representatives) and Council Tax offices to ensure billing details are correct.
• With credit reference agencies and debt collection agencies in connection with some housing applications and in relation to any outstanding charges.
• With local authorities and government departments as necessary for administering justice, or for exercising statutory governmental, or other public functions.
• With police and other relevant authorities (e.g. Probation Service, Department of Work and Pensions, H.M Revenues and Customs) in relation to the prevention or detection of crime and fraud, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders and the assessment or collection of tax or duty.
• With other statutory organisations e.g. Social Services and Health Authorities, as necessary for exercising statutory functions.
• With our regulator, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA)O to comply with regulatory obligations.

This list is not exhaustive as there are other circumstances where we may also be required to share information for example:

• To meet our legal obligations
• In connection with legal proceedings (or where we are instructed to do so by court order)
• To protect the vital interests of an individual (in a life or death situation)

Under the Data Protection Act you have a right to ask us what personal information we hold about you and to request a copy of your information. This is known as a “subject access request” (SAR).

SAR’s need to be made in writing and we ask that your written request is accompanied by proof of identity.

If you are seeking to obtain specific information (e.g. about a particular matter or from a particular time period) it helps if you clarify the details of what you would like to receive in your written request.

If someone is requesting information on your behalf, they will need written confirmation from you to evidence your consent for us to release this and proof of I.D. (both yours and theirs).

We have 40 calendar days within which to provide you with the information you have asked for (although we will try to provide this to you as promptly as possible).

In response to SARs, we will provide you with a copy of the information we hold that relates to you. This will not generally include information about your property such as repair logs, details of contractor visits, or general property maintenance information as this is unlikely to be “personal information”.

If you need to correct any mistakes contained in the information we hold about you, you can do this by contacting us at: [email protected]

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) when transmitted normally over the internet cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Whilst we take all possible means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit electronically to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Once received we keep your data secure on our server with appropriate security mechanisms in place.

The law requires us to tell you the basis on which we process your data.

Some activities (for example sending you emails to tell you about the charity and its objectives) require your consent. If the law requires your consent to process data in a certain way, then we will obtain it before carrying out that activity.

Other activities are carried out to fulfil a contract or agreement e.g. providing support to individuals in their homes. This requires us to know who you are and to process your information in order to do the thing you have asked us to do. If a contract is in place, then we will process your data based on that contract.

In all other cases the law allows us to process your data if it is in legitimate interest to do so, but only as long as we need to and your “interests or your fundamental rights and freedoms are not overriding”. This means we carry out an exercise to check that we will not cause you harm by processing your data, that the processing is not overly intrusive and that we will only do so in a way which is described in this Privacy Notice.

We will keep data for as long as is needed to complete the task for which it was collected, and for a specific period after this according to our Retention Policy or to fulfil statutory obligations.