Privacy notice – Lowther commercial tenants collecting and retaining personal information
Privacy notice to all Lowther commercial tenants – collecting and retaining personal information
Lowther will be the 'data controllers' of the personal information that you provide to us about you as a tenant of one of our commercial properties. This information is required to maintain your tenancy with us as more fully described in this privacy notice.
Lowther is part of Wheatley Group – Scotland’s leading housing, care and property management group.
Our Data Protection Officer is Ranald Brown who can be contacted on #wheatleydataprotectionofficer@wheatley-group.com.
What we need
The information we require from you, as tenant of one of our commercial properties, includes:
- your full name (and proof of your identity/photo ID);
- your date of birth;
- your contact details (phone, email or correspondence address);
- details of anyone authorised to act on your behalf if applicable;
- bank account details; and
- financial information (credit checks, references, etc.)
The information we may collect from you includes:
- disabilities or vulnerabilities. We use this information to tailor our service to better meet your particular circumstances and needs. We may use this information for safeguarding of staff
- financial information. We may use this to help resolve arrears payments and optionally to provide welfare, benefits and debt advice as a free service to help you budget and pay your bills
- your national insurance number.
How we collect your personal information
We collect your personal information from you via a variety of sources, including:
- From you directly as part of the process of applying for a commercial tenancy;
- From third parties as part of the process of becoming a commercial tenant (such as credit checks, references, etc.); and
- Information obtained about you in the course of your tenancy.
Our landline phone calls to our Customer First Centre (CFC) and to our Group Debt Recovery Team (GDRT) are recorded for training and monitoring purposes and our recordings are usually held for a period of one month.
We operate a CCTV system at our office premises and at various locations within the vicinity of our properties for the detection and prevention of crime, to fulfil our legal obligations to keep our staff safe and in pursuit of our legitimate interest to keep our properties safe and secure. Our CCTV cameras operate continuously and recordings are held for one month.
We may transfer information about you to other Wheatley Group subsidiaries for purposes connected to your tenancy or the management of the company’s business.
Why we need your personal information – Contractual purposes and legal obligation
We need to collect your personal information so that we can manage your commercial tenancy. We will use your personal information to manage your tenancy and support you as a valued customer. This may include:
- receiving rent and service charges including arrears;
- providing a repairs and maintenance service;
- resolving anti-social behaviour disputes;
- investigating complaints;
- processing requests from third parties;
- monitoring and reporting performance to regulatory bodies;
- issuing communications about your tenancy with us;
- providing factoring services, if applicable; and
- for any other purposes consistent with the proper performance of your commercial tenancy agreement.
We are also under a legal obligation to process certain personal information relating to our commercial tenants for the purposes of complying with our legal obligations under:
- Housing (Scotland) Acts 1987, 2001, 2006, 2010 & 2014
- Data Protection Act 2018
- General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR).
If you do not provide the information we need then we may not be able to provide all our services to you, and ultimately you may not be able to hold a commercial tenancy with us.
Why we need your personal information – legitimate purposes
We also process your personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests to:
- deliver our Investment Programme;
- pursue any debts owed to us;
- issue communications to you regarding services, including letters, newsletters, emails and texts;
- contact you by way of telephone, letter or text message to advise that you are in arrears of rent;
- provide you with outsourced services;
- Keep out properties safe and secure by operating CCTV;
- Prevent crime by sharing information with the Police;
- Train staff and monitor quality of service by recording incoming calls to our CFC and GDRT;
- Undertake research and statistical analysis to help improve our business processes and the services offered to our customers, as well as to evaluate our performance against other benchmarks. Where possible, statistical information is anonymised or pseudonymised;
- Develop new products; and
- We may also conduct surveys regularly and periodically relating to our services in order to gauge satisfaction and make improvements based on feedback.
In order to pursue our legitimate interests, we may process other personal information which we have collated through the management of our housing services.
Where we process your personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests, you have the right to object to us using your personal information for the above purposes. If you wish to object to any of the above processing, please contact us on InformationRequests@wheatley-group.com. If we agree and comply with your objection, this may affect our ability to undertake the tasks above for your benefit.
Other uses of your personal information
We may ask you if we can process your personal information for additional purposes.
Where we do so, we will provide you with an additional privacy notice with information on how we will use your information for these additional purposes.
How we will communicate with you
As our tenant we need to communicate with you. This will usually be in writing or by telephone, but is more commonly becoming electronic and paperless. We are moving many of our services on-line as this is usually more convenient for you and more efficient for us.
We will only discuss or communicate your tenancy details with those named on the agreement or those authorised (temporarily or permanently) by you.
How we protect your personal information
Your personal information is stored on our paper and IT filing systems which may be copied for testing, backup, archiving and disaster recovery purposes. Access to your information is limited to those who require it to provide services to you. All data is held within the European Union (EU).
If any of your personal information is transferred out with the EU or the European Economic Area by any of our contractors, we will ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place to protect your personal information in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations and applicable UK Data Protection Legislation.
How long we keep your personal information
We will only keep your personal information for as long as necessary to provide you with housing and/or related services and to safeguard us in the event of any claims, complaints, litigation, enquiries or investigations during or following the termination of your tenancy. Unless you ask us not to, we will review and possibly delete your personal information where your tenancy has been terminated for seven years.
We will keep certain personal information of members for longer in order to confirm how long you were a tenant. We need to do this to in the event of a claim against us.
Unless deleted or moved to Wheatley Group systems by a Wheatley staff member, emails sent and received by Wheatley staff are automatically deleted after 6 months. Any emails which are relevant to a customer’s file are added or summarised within Wheatley Group systems (e.g. our Group Housing Management system).
Emails which are uploaded to Wheatley Group systems are held in accordance with the relevant section of the Wheatley Group’s retention schedules.
We have a data retention schedules that set out the periods for retaining and reviewing all information that we hold. These set out different retention periods for all information we hold about your tenancy. You can request a copy by contacting us at InformationRequests@wheatley-group.com.
Your rights
You can exercise any of the following rights by writing to us at InformationRequests@wheatley-group.com
Your rights in relation to your personal information are:
- you have a right to request access to the personal information that we hold about you by making a Subject Access Request;
- if you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate or incomplete, you have a right to request that we correct or complete your personal information;
- you have a right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information for specific purposes; and
- if you wish us to delete your personal information, you may request that we do so.
Any requests received by us will be considered under applicable UK Data Protection Legislation. If you remain dissatisfied, you have a right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office.
We seek to ensure that our information collection and processing is always proportionate. The accuracy of our information is important to us - please help us keep our records updated by informing us of any changes to your personal information.
Changes to our privacy notice
Our Privacy Notice is regularly kept up to date and this version was updated on 5 December 2024.