Merthyr Valleys Homes Privacy Policy
Our contact details
Name: Merthyr Valleys Homes
Address: Ty Brychan, 22 Lansbury Road, Gellideg, Merthyr Tydfil, CF48 1HA
Phone Number: 0800 085 7843 OR 01685 727772
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The type of personal information we collect
We currently collect and process the following information:
Personal data
- Your address
- Household’s names
- Dates of birth, for everyone in the household
- Contact details, including home telephone number, mobile telephone number, and email address
- National Insurance number and
- Records of any transactions such as payments or requests for information
Special category data
- Race
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Religion or other beliefs
- Sexual orientation and
- Medical history
- Physical or mental health or disability status
- First language, or whether you need information in larger font, or braille. Criminal offence data
- Criminal convictions or offences.
How we get the personal information and why we have it
i) Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for the following reasons:
- When you fill in an application form for housing and bidding for one of our properties
- When you accept an offer of one of our properties
- When you request a move to another property
- When you request any of our services, and fill in any of our forms
- When you voluntarily complete our customer surveys
- When you provide feedback or make a complaint
- When you visit our website, contact us by email or phone our offices
- When you complete forms when you move into one of our community living schemes
- When you volunteer with us
- From CCTV cameras which are there for security, then prevention and detection of crime and for staff safety and monitoring purposes
- When your child(ren) attend Merthyr Valleys Homes’ youth club, or specific workshops, or day trips
ii) We also receive personal information indirectly, from the following sources in the following scenarios:
- The Local Authority, through the common allocations policy and common housing register, to enable us to house you.
- The Local Authority when you apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant, so that we are aware of any changes required to our property
- The housing benefit department at the local authority so we know how much rent we are going to get, and so that we can assist you with any claims
We use the information that you have given us in order to:
- Provide you with housing accommodation and to communicate and provide services which meet your needs.
- Monitor your compliance with the occupation contract
- Ensure that we meet all our legal and statutory duties such as those which apply under the Equality Act 2010.
- Help with crime prevention and the prosecution of offenders.
- Protect individuals from harm.
- Provide you with welfare services, including advice and appropriate support.
- Carry out research and to provide anonymised information to help improve our services and direct funds to the most appropriate areas.
- Manage repairs and alterations to our properties
- Contact next of kin in case of an emergency
We will only use information relating to criminal convictions and offences where the law allows us to do so, and to enable us to assess risk and suitability when we are housing tenants, and to deal with nuisance and antisocial behaviour complaints.
We are allowed to use your personal information in this way because it is in the public interest for us to do so. We may also use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We have an appropriate policy document in place, and there are safeguards in place, which we are required by law to maintain when processing this type of data.
We may share this information with:
- The Department of Work and Pensions, the local authority housing benefits department, to ensure that you are being paid the correct amount of benefit entitlement or the local authority council tax department, where we are legally required to do so.
- Our framework contractors and subcontractors that are undertaking work for us
- Utility companies, as required by regulation
- Where you live in a property which has been fitted with an IES Device and Smart Meter (or needs to be fitted with an IES Device/Smart Meter), in order to comply with our obligations to Welsh Government, we will share your key contact details with Welsh Government service providers as part of their initiatives (such as the optimised retrofit programme) in order to achieve ‘net zero’. The data collected by the IES device is about the property and will not be linked back to your personal data. The data will only be used to provide statistical information to Welsh Government.
Where sharing information is necessary, we are required to comply with all aspects of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018. We also require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:
(a) Your consent. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phoning us on 0800 085 7843 OR 01685 727772.
(b) We have a contractual obligation.
(c) We have a legal obligation.
(d) We have a vital interest.
(e) We need it to perform a public task.
(f) We have a legitimate interest.
How we store your personal information
Your information is securely stored.
We keep personal, special category and criminal offence data in accordance with the timescales identified in our Retention Schedule, which varies depending on the type of data. We will then dispose of your information by deleting it from our records, where it is held electronically, or through our confidential waster contractor, where it is held in hard copy format.
Your data protection rights
Under data protection law, you have rights including:
Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.
Please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or by phoning us on: 0800 085 7843 OR 01685 727772, or by writing to us at: Merthyr Valleys Homes, Ty Brychan, 22 Lansbury Road, Gellideg, Merthyr Tydfil, CF48 1HA, if you wish to make a request.
How to complain
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and address it for the attention of the Data Protection Manager.
You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.
You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Offfice at the adress provided below:-
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe HouseWater LaneWilmslowCheshireSK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 113
ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk
Changes to this privacy notice
We reserve the right to update this privacy policy at any time.
This Privacy notice was last updated on: 10 September 2024