What this privacy notice is for

Our core data protection obligations and commitments are set out in the council’s primary privacy notice at:

• Data Protection

This notice provides additional privacy information for:

• Applicants to the council’s housing register
• People who are homeless, or at risk of homelessness, and seeking assistance from a service commissioned by Oldham Council to prevent or relieve homelessness

Updating our privacy notices

We may update or revise our privacy notices at any time so please refer to the version published on our website for the most up-to-date details.

What do we use your information for?

We collect or obtain your personal information for the following purpose(s):

• To ensure that the statutory duties in relation to homelessness are being fulfilled
• To find out how you have become homeless, or threatened with homelessness, and the sort of things that you need help with so that we can identify what services we need to provide for people in Oldham.

What categories of personal information do we use?

Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when linked with other information, allows a person to be uniquely identified. For example, this could be your name and contact details.

The law treats some types of personal information as ‘special’ because the information requires more protection due to its sensitivity. This information consists of:

• Racial or ethnic origin
• Sexuality and sexual life
• Religious or philosophical beliefs
• Trade union membership
• Political opinions
• Genetic and bio-metric data
• Physical or mental health
• Criminal convictions and offences

In order to carry out these purposes we collect and obtain the following personal information.

Legal basis for processing

The legal basis for processing and or sharing your personal information is dependent on what we use your information for, these may include, but are not limited to where:

• You, or your legal representative, have given consent
• It is necessary to perform our statutory duties in relation to housing and homelessness. Examples of legislation that support this are listed below:
  • The Housing Act 1996
  • The Equality Act 2010
  • The Care Act 2014
  • The Immigration Act 2016
  • The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
  • The Children Act 2004
• It is necessary to protect you or others from harm
• It is required by law
• It is necessary to protect public health
• It is necessary to deliver health and social care services
• It is necessary for exercising or defending legal rights
• It is necessary for fraud prevention and the protection of public funds
• You consent to participate in consultation or research
• Marketing purposes: where we have asked, and you have consented to receive electronic marketing information about our services (you may withdraw your consent at any time)

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to assist you in accessing the services that you require, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations in relation to homelessness or your housing situation.

Information sharing/recipients

Information may be shared in the following circumstances:

• To undertake our statutory functions in relation to housing and homelessness
• To gain a better understanding of your housing needs
• When you have requested that we share your information
• When you have given us permission to share your information so that you can access services
• When it is necessary to prevent you or others from harm
• Safeguarding, if something you tell us raises a safeguarding concern
• You raise a specific personal issue or concern that requires addressing
• You ask us to share your personal details
• To undertake our statutory functions in relation to housing and homelessness
• To gain a better understanding of your housing needs
• When you have requested that we share your information
• When you have given us permission to share your information so that you can access services
• When it is necessary to prevent you or others from harm

We may share personal aggregated data for statistical purposes with the following:

• Other parts of Oldham Council
• Healthcare, Social and Welfare organisations
• Providers of goods and services
• Service providers
• Survey and research organisations
• Local and central government

Identifiable Personal Information could be shared under the following circumstances:

• Safeguarding, if something you tell us raises a safeguarding concern
• You raise a specific personal issue or concern that requires addressing
• You ask us to share your personal details

As well as information collected directly from you, we also obtain or receive information from:

• Local authority services, Schools and Health Services, as per the safeguarding purposes outlined above and, in the government’s, inter-agency statutory guidance
• Ministry for Housing, Communities, and Local Government for the purposes of contract monitoring requirements under our statutory obligations.

Data Transfers beyond the European Economic Area

We do not transfer any of your personal information outside the European Economic Area (‘EEA’).

Automated Decisions

All the decisions we make about you involve human intervention.

How long do we keep your data?

We will only keep your personal information for as long as the law specifies or where the law does not specify this, for the length of time determined by our business requirements.

This ranges from three to six years depending on the nature of the data collected and our requirements to retain this information.

Where can I get advice?

More information on how to seek advice in order to exercise your rights, raise a concern or complain about the handling of your personal information by the council can be found in the council’s privacy notice which can be found at:

• Data Protection