Privacy notice: housing applications

About us

Great Yarmouth Borough Council (the Council) of Town Hall, Hall Plain, Great Yarmouth, NR30 2QF is the data controller for the purposes of 'Data Protection Legislation.' Data Protection Legislation means the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and all other applicable or amending legislation.

How will we use your data?

We will use your personal information to process your homeless or housing application. If you are offered a Council home, we may also use it for housing management purposes.

What is our lawful processing ground?

We process your data as part of our duty as a local authority. This is part of our public task defined under Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR and has a clear basis in law namely the Housing Act 1996 or Homeless Reduction Act 2017. Where you have identified specific medical or health needs this data is processed with your consent under Article 9(2)(b), any criminal record data is processed under Article 10 of the GDPR.

The Council uses automated decision making carried out under Article 22(2) of the UK GDPR to make decisions based on the information you provide through your application for housing, these decisions use the criteria set out in the Council's Housing Allocation Scheme and include whether your application is eligible and in relation to whether any of the disqualification criteria apply.  In some cases, automated decisions will be made on your level of priority. 

Will we share your data?

Your details will be shared between the Council's departments with other agencies where there is lawful authority to do so.  We will only share your information with other housing organisations (social housing providers called Registered Providers), your doctor, social worker, other agencies and other councils or government departments if it is relevant to either your housing application or an offer of accommodation.

Information in your application will be verified with other agencies and the Council may contact your current/previous landlord(s) and checks maybe undertaken with but not limited to Housing and Council Tax Benefit, Council Tax, Credit checks, Land Registry Search, Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs and the Electoral Register. The Council may also use information available in the Public Domain to complete its investigations. 

Information from your housing application form will be shared with a Registered Provider if you are being considered for or are offered a tenancy of one of their properties.

Your data will also be shared with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) as part of their Homelessness Data England project and for evaluation of the Covid-19 Everyone In initiative. The lawful basis for processing your personal data is Article 6(1)(e), Article 9(2)(g) and Article 10 of the GDPR, the conditions set out in Section 10(3) and 10(5) of the Data Protection Act 2018 are also met. Your data will also be shared with Norfolk County Council to enable the completion of a needs assessment as required by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The lawful processing grounds for this information is Article 6(1)(e) and Article 9(2)(g) of the GDPR, the conditions set out in Schedule 1, Part 2, Para's 10 and 18 of the Data Protection Act 2018 are met.

In addition, we will always use or share information for the prevention or detection of crime or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders.

How long do we keep your data?

Your information will be kept strictly confidential. It will be stored securely on the Council's computer system and will be kept for as long detailed on the Council's Retention schedule. After this time, we will delete your data securely. We will review dates for keeping personal data in the future and if necessary update these privacy notices.

Your rights

You may have the right to:

• see copies of all the data held about you
• ask for it to be corrected or deleted
• request the Council restricts what it does with your data in certain circumstances
• object to what the Council may do with your data
• request not to be subject to a decision based entirely on automated processing
• data portability

Please note that these rights are not absolute and there are circumstances where they do not apply or the Council may override these rights. However, if this is the case you will be informed of this.   

Further information

If you want more information or to exercise one of the above rights, you can review the Council's Data Protection Policy (available on our website) or contact the Council's Data Protection Officer by email at gdpr@great-yarmouth.gov.uk or telephone the Council on 01493 846325 and ask to speak to the Data Protection Officer. To make a request to have a human being review your application, please contact Housing Options on 01493 846140 or email housingoptions@great-yarmouth@gov.uk.

If you want more information you may contact the Council's Data Protection Officer If you are unhappy with the way your personal information is being handled you can contact the independent Information Commissioner at: https://ico.org.uk/.