Unity Living Ltd, sub-brand Helpful Housemates, hereafter referred to as Helpful Housemates is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Unity Living is registered with the Information Commissioners Office in the UK under the UK Data Protection Act 1998.

Helpful Housemates is required to process relevant personal data regarding members of staff and clients (Data Subjects) as part of its operation and shall take all reasonable steps to do so in accordance with this Notice.

The Principles 

Helpful Housemates shall comply with the Data Protection Principles (the Principles) contained in the Data Protection Act and requirements of GDPR to ensure all data is:-

• Fairly and lawfully processed
• Processed for a lawful purpose
• Adequate, relevant and not excessive
• Accurate and up-to-date
• Not kept for longer than necessary
• Processed in accordance with the data subject’s rights
• Secure

Personal Data 

Personal data covers both facts and opinions about an individual where that data identifies an individual. For example, it includes information necessary for employment such as the member of staff’s name and address and details for payment of salary; and a Client’s information (i.e. Host or Housemate) including name, address, contact details, relatives’ details as well as an on-going record of communication. The personal data collected and held about our Clients may also include sensitive personal data as defined in the Act.

Processing of Personal Data 

Consent may be required for the processing of personal data, unless processing is necessary (such as for the performance of a contract of employment). Any information which falls under the definition of personal data and is not otherwise exempt, will remain confidential and will only be disclosed to third parties with appropriate consent.

Processing of Sensitive Personal Data 

Helpful Housemates is required to process sensitive personal data about clients for the purposes of matching and supporting homeshare arrangements. Sensitive personal data includes data relating to medical information, gender, religion, race, sexual orientation and criminal records and proceedings, credit ratings, ID documents. 

Rights of Access to Information 

Data subjects have the right of access to information held by Helpful Housemates, subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Any data subject wishing to access their personal data should put their request in writing to Helpful Housemates. Helpful Housemates will endeavour to respond to any such written requests as soon as is reasonably practicable and in any event, within 40 days for access to records and 21 days to provide a reply to an access to Data Protection Policy information request.

The information will be imparted to the data subject as soon as is reasonably possible after it has come to Helpful Housemate’s attention and in compliance with the relevant Acts.

Exemptions 

Certain data is exempted from the provisions of the Data Protection Act which includes the following:-

• National security and the prevention or detection of crime
• The assessment of any tax or duty
• Where the processing is necessary to exercise a right or obligation conferred or imposed by law upon Helpful Housemates, including Safeguarding and prevention of terrorism and radicalisation

The above are examples only of some of the exemptions under the Act. Any further information on exemptions should be sought from the DPC.

Accuracy 

Helpful Housemates will endeavour to ensure that all personal data held in relation to all data subjects is accurate. Data subjects must notify Unity Living of any changes to information held about them. Data subjects have the right in some circumstances to request that inaccurate information about them is erased. This does not apply in all cases for example, where records of mistakes or corrections are kept, or records which must be kept in the interests of all parties to which they apply.

Enforcement 

If an individual believes that Helpful Housemates has not complied with this Notice or acted otherwise than in accordance with the Data Protection Act, the individual should utilise Helpful Housemates grievance procedure in the first instance.

Data Security 

Helpful Housemates will take appropriate technical and organisational steps to ensure the security of personal data. All staff will be made aware of this Notice and given appropriate training with respect to their duties under the Act. All staff working at Helpful Housemates are DBS checked. Information will not be shared with any third party without consent.

Helpful Housemates and all its staff and clients are required to respect the personal data and privacy of others to ensure that appropriate protection and security measures are taken against unlawful or unauthorised processing of personal data, and against the accidental loss of, or damage to, all personal data. An appropriate level of data security will be deployed for the type of data and the data processing being performed. In most cases, personal data will be stored in appropriate systems. Only the minimum level of personal data will be provided to other parties to fit the requirement. Data subjects will have opted in to agree that this information can be shared for such purposes. Other personal data may be for publication, therefore having a lower requirement for data security.

External Processors 

Helpful Housemates will strive to ensure that data processed by external processors, for example, service providers, Cloud services including storage, web sites etc. are compliant with this Notice and the relevant legislation.

Secure Destruction 

When data held in accordance with this Notice is destroyed, it will be destroyed securely in accordance with best practice at the time of destruction.

Retention of Data 

Helpful Housemates may retain data for differing periods of time for different purposes as required by statute or best practices. Other statutory obligations, legal processes and enquiries may also necessitate the retention of certain data. When data is no longer required it will be destroyed securely.

The following criteria are used to determine data protection period for personal data:

– Retention in case of queries. We will retain this data as long as necessary in order to deal with the query and any follow-up.

– Retention of Client data, including enquiries. We will retain this information for as long as is necessary in order to carry out our services, including for the duration of a homeshare arrangement. We may keep some limited information for a longer time if we believe this is appropriate for historical, research or statistical purposes. Financial data will be retained as long as is required by the law.

– Retention in case of claims and legal and regulatory requirements. We will retain this data for as long as required in case of a legal claim or based on legal or regulatory requirements.

Website Privacy

We keep certain basic information when you visit our website and recognise the importance of keeping that information secure and letting you know what we will do with it.

This Notice only applies to our site. If you leave our site via a link or otherwise, you will be subject to the Notice of that website provider. We have no control over that Notice or the terms of the website and you should check their Notice before continuing to access the site.

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following data about you:

• Information that you provide by filling in forms on our site www.helpfulhousemates.co.uk(our site). This includes information provided at the time of enquiring about our services, through requesting information, a brochure or through an application.
• If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.

Data protection

• All information you provide to us will be held securely
• We will not pass or share your personal information to any third parties – except if you become a Client and we need to share your information, with your permission, for a specific Homeshare opportunity
• If you no longer wish to receive communication regarding our services, please inform us and we will delete your information
• We will not transfer data outside of the European Economic Union

Changes to this Privacy Notice

Helpful Housemates may update this Privacy Notice at any time and ideally you should check it regularly for updates. We won’t alert you to every little change, but if there are any really important changes to the Notice or how we use your information we’ll let you know and, where appropriate, ask for your consent.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this Privacy Notice are welcomed and should be addressed to: enquires@helpfulhousemates.co.uk