This privacy notice tells you what to expect when Staff Residential Lettings (“Staff Residential Lettings”, “Lettings”, “we”, “us”) collects or processes personal information. All data is held in accordance with the guidelines set out in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and the Privacy of Electronic Communication Regulation (PECR).

It applies to information we collect about:

• people who use our service, including tenants, prospective tenants, guarantors
• users of our website
• people who give us feedback, make suggestions, complete questionnaires, polls or make complaints.

We use personal data to: 

• provide you with the services, products of information you asked for
• administer your tenancy or application – including employment checks, right to rent checks, and updating utility providers and local authorities where relevant
• provide you with information on relevant properties, where you have asked us to by registering with us
• keep a record of your relationship with us, which enables us to respond to queries and requests efficiently and accurately
• ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted
• understand how we can improve our services, products or information.

You should read this privacy notice before using our website or services to ensure you are aware of how we will use your personal data. Please also view the University’s staff fair processing notice for further information.

The data we collect

People who use our service

This includes prospective, current and past tenants from the last 6 years, as well as guarantors. Your personal data (any information which identifies you, or which can be identified as relating to you personally for example, name, address, phone number, email address) will be collected and used by us. We’ll only collect the personal data that we need. Where we process your data we will only do so where there is a legal basis to do this. This includes the following:

• Where there is a contract (or steps leading to a contract) - where you have asked us to provide a service and we need to process your data to fulfil our obligations. This is the case where you use our services as a tenant or prospective tenant.
• Where you give us consent - where you have told us you’d like us to send you direct updates on our properties, offers or news by registering with us on our website. We will always include information on how you can unsubscribe in emails sent to out properties mailing list.
• Where law requires it - we are obliged by various laws including the Housing Act, Contracts Act, Right to Rent legislation and employment law to process certain data. This might refer to information we are required to collect to administer your tenancy or contract with us, or any information we are required to hold if you apply for a job with us.

You might give us your personal data by filling in forms on our website using Microsoft forms, or by registering to use our service. Additionally, there is some information we may collect automatically when you use our website.

Where you apply for or arrange a tenancy through Staff Residential Lettings, we will ask you to provide the following information to enable us to fulfil our contractual obligations to you and minimise risk of fraud: 

• contact details (name, address, email, phone number)
• identification verification details and documents (ID, date of birth, home office share-code if applicable)
• financial information (HR resource code; payment/ card details will be requested when making payments using the University of Bristol online shop)
• where relevant, details relating to a guarantor (name, address, contact details, ID, bank details)
• employment information (employer, department and line manager, salary, job title, length of employment).

Users of our website

We may use and analyse the information we collect so that we can manage and improve the services on the website. Demographic and statistical information about user behaviour may be collected and used to analyse the popularity and effectiveness of the website. Any disclosure of this information will be in aggregate form and will not identify individual users.

Staff Residential Lettings will not (nor will it allow any third party to) use the statistical analytics tools to track or to collect personally identifiable information of visitors to this website. Staff Residential Lettings will not associate any data gathered with any personally identifying information from any source as part of our use of the statistical analytics tools.

How long we keep your data for

We will only hold your personal data as long as is strictly necessary. Generally, the following retention policies apply:

• where you register to receive our property updates - until you unsubscribe/withdraw consent. Information on how to do so is included in each email update.
• where the data relates to a tenancy application, current or previous tenancy - we will hold the data for 6 years after the tenancy has ended. This is to ensure we can comply with existing legislation and ensures we can provide you with rental references later should you require these.

How we keep your data safe and who has access to it

Personal data collected and processed by us will be shared with Staff Residential Lettings employees. Staff will only have permissions to access the information required for them to perform their role. Everyone who handles personal data is mandated to do so in line with UK Law. All staff are required to undertake mandatory training as part of their induction.

In order to administer tenancies and applications we will share your data with the following persons:

• Goodlord, who provide our tenancy admin software. Read their privacy policy to learn more about their data.
• StarRez and Planon, who provide our property maintenance support.

We only share data with these organisations to ensure we can fulfil our contractual obligations, and to minimise risk of fraud.

We may use third party companies as data processors to carry out certain administrative functions on behalf of Staff Residential Lettings. If so, a written agreement will be put in place to ensure that:

• any personal data disclosed is held under adequate security
• data will only be used for the purposes specified by Staff Residential Lettings
• there will be appropriate security measures in place.

Any data used for these purposes is destroyed in line with our retention policies. This includes using specialist software/databases to keep a record of your agreements and relationship with us.

We do not sell your personal information for other organisations to use.

Alongside these actors there may be some circumstances where we give access to personal data to the following:

• contractors
• advisors
• agents (including external agencies who may contact you to carry out research on our behalf)
• service provider partners.

When we allow access to your information, we will always have complete control of what they see, what they are allowed to do with it and how long they can see it. We do not sell your personal information for other organisations to use.

We undertake regular reviews of who has access to information that we hold to ensure that your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, agents and contractors.

We may need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.

We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.

How you can request your data or make changes

This section details your right to know what data we hold about you, make changes or ask us to stop using your data.

The University of Bristol staff fair processing notice includes further details on the rights you have over your data.

You have a right to ask us to stop processing your personal data, and if it’s not necessary for the purpose you provided it to us for (e.g. administering a tenancy, or holding data in compliance with legislation) we will do so. Contact staff-lettings@bristol.ac.uk if you have any concerns.

Alternatively, for further information on how the data is used or to exercise any data subject rights, please contact data-protection@bristol.ac.uk.

You have a right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. If there are any discrepancies in the information we provide, please let us know and we will correct them.

If you want to access your information, you must complete a subject access request form with a description of the information you want to see and the required proof of your identity by post to Staff Residential Lettings Office, Goldney House, Lower Clifton Hill, Bristol, BS8 1BH.

We do not accept these requests by email so that we can ensure that we only provide personal data to the right person. We will require you to have your ID verified, so that we can confirm your identity. You can do this at our office. We will have 30 days to respond to your request.

If you have any questions please send these to staff-lettings@bristol.ac.uk.

Changes to this notice

We may change this privacy notice from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please let us know by contacting staff-lettings@bristol.ac.uk or data-protection@bristol.ac.uk.