The London Borough of Hounslow is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Through this Privacy Notice we have sought to be as transparent as possible and fully explain how your personal data is held and processed.
This privacy notice applies to services provided by the Housing Adaptation Service when you apply for a disabled facilities grant (DFG) and tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or any concerns about how we process your data, please contact housingadaptationservices@hounslow.gov.uk. The privacy notice will continue to be monitored and updated. You are advised to check this page from time to time.
Our contact details
Housing Adaptation Service:
Email: housingadaptationservices@hounslow.gov.uk
Information Governance team and Data Protection Officer:
Address: Information Governance Team
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House,
7 Bath Road,
TW3 3EB
London Borough of Hounslow is registered as a controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
You can find us on the ICO website - our registration number is Z5761176.
What type of information we have
We currently collect and process the following information:
- title
- name
- address
- contact information (phone number and email address)
- age and date of birth
- marital status
- unique identification numbers (National Insurance number and NHS number)
As well as personal information where applicable, we may collect and share additional information known as ‘Special Categories of Personal Data’ where appropriate including:
- gender
- nationality
- racial or ethnic origin
- immigration status
- employment status
- family make up and dependents
- financial information (income, benefits received, savings, investments, valuable assets, bank account numbers including those of partners or persons living with you)
- other relevant information required to assess your situation that may reveal special category information (such as Property owner / landlord’s details)
- information relating to your physical and mental health, including whether you have a disability, medication, treatment you are receiving, health assessment and professional referrals.
How do we get your information?
Most of the personal information we process is provided to us for one or more of the following reasons:
- to provide assistance to carry out adaptations to a property for a disabled eligible occupant
- to process your application
- to communicate with you on an ongoing basis
We receive information directly, or indirectly, from the following sources:
- from you as an individual (through online forms, hard copy documents, emails, telephone conversations, or face-to-face discussions)
- London Borough of Hounslow Adult Social Care, Children’s Social Care and Council Tax and Housing teams
- London Borough of Hounslow Fraud teams
- registered housing providers
- your landlord
- Your carer, advocate or family member
- Health professionals such as your GP or those providing you with therapeutic or medical care
- General hospitals or other in-patient services
- Government Bodies such as the Department for Work and Pensions
- Other Local Authorities
- The emergency services
Our Lawful basis for processing your information
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful basis we rely on for processing the information is Article 6(1)(c) UK GDPR:
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We have a legal obligation – so that we comply with a common law or statutory obligation that has a clear basis in law.
Legal obligation
Our ‘legal obligation' we must carry out is found in:
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The Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (as amended by The Regulatory Reform (Housing Assistance) (England & Wales) Order 2002) Part 1.
Special category data
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful basis we rely on for processing the information is Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR:
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Reasons of substantial public interest – processing is necessary to meet statutory and government purposes.
You can read the guide to lawful basis for processing special category data on the Information Commissioner's Office website.
Who we share your information with
Information held by the Housing Adaptation Service may be shared with the following organisations:
- London Borough of Hounslow Adult Social Care
- London Borough of Hounslow Children’s Social Care
- NHS Foundation Trust - Community Team for People with Learning Disabilities
- registered housing providers
- other council departments (such as the Fraud team) as necessary to provide the service and protect public funds
- your landlord
- third party service providers; such as builders and architects, providers of IT systems
- internal auditors, or auditors commissioned by the council
- agency staff
- elected members - to resolve queries when acting on your behalf
- Local Government Ombudsman - in the process of resolving disputes
- The Cabinet Office - for the purposes of a data matching exercise called the National Fraud Initiative - the purpose of this exercise is to detect fraud and error and the council is legally required to participate
We share your information with these organisations in order to:
- assess eligibility for the service
- to process your application for the service
- to assist in the completion of required adaptations
How we store your personal information
Your information is securely stored on our Electronic Document Retention and Management System (Microsoft SharePoint EDRMS).
The retention of information will be dependent on the type of application and any agreements with the council. For Disabled Facilities Grants cases information is held for 10 years after final payment is made, or for as long as any legal grant conditions are in force.
We will then dispose of your information by securely destroying it.
Transfers to third countries
All the information you provide us is held within the UK & European Economic Area
Business Intelligence, Profiling and Analysis
We may analyze your personal information to improve the council’s services for the following purposes:
- undertake statutory functions efficiently and effectively
- service planning by understanding your needs and your community's needs and to provide the services that you or your community request
- understanding what we can do for you and your community and inform you of other relevant services and benefits
- help us to build up a picture of how we are performing at delivering services to you and what services the people of Hounslow need
- analysis of costs and spend of services we provide so that we can ensure better and efficient use of public funds
The council is committed to using pseudonymised or anonymised information where practical, and in many cases this will be the default position.
Pseudonymisation is a procedure by which the most identifying fields within a data record are replaced by one or more artificial identifiers, or pseudonyms. There can be a single pseudonym for a collection of replaced fields or a pseudonym per replaced field. An example of this is your National Insurance number or Council Tax Reference number.
Anonymisation is the process of removing identifying particulars or details. This means that the data cannot be linked back to identify you.
Data Matching and Auditing
We are required by law to protect the public funds we administer. We may use the information you provide to us for the prevention and detection of crime. We may also share this information with other bodies that are responsible for auditing or administering public funds including the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customers and the Police.
The council uses data matching as a way of processing large volumes of information. While this can be a useful way of detecting fraud, it also enables us to identify information that is inaccurate or out of date, helping us comply with Data Protection law, while improving service provision.
As part of the council’s fraud prevention and detection activities, the council participates in the National Fraud Initiative (NFI). The data matching exercise is run by the Cabinet Office. You can find more information about this at the link below:
National Fraud Initiative (NFI) | Data protection | London Borough of Hounslow
Your data protection rights
The rights available to you depend on our reason for processing your information. For further information about your data protection rights and how to make a request, please see Your rights | Data protection | London Borough of Hounslow
Your right to make a complaint
The Council tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.
If you want to make a complaint you can contact us on:
Complaints Team
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House,
7 Bath Road,
TW3 3EB
Data Protection Officer
The Council’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted on:
InformationGovernance@hounslow.gov.uk
Information Governance Team
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House,
7 Bath Road,
TW3 3EB
Information Commissioner’s Office
The Information Commissioner is the UK's independent body set up to uphold information rights.
If you would like to know more about your rights under the Data Protection law, and what you should expect, visit the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org.uk/
If you have any concerns regarding any privacy practices or about exercising your Data Protection rights, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745
Email: casework@ico.org.uk
A full list of what information we control and process and for what purposes is set out in our notification with the Information Commissioner's Register of Data Controllers. Our registration number is Z5761176. You can view our registration on the Information Commissioner's website.
