The Data Protection Act gives you the legal right to see information we hold about you.
It says that we must:
We receive information about you in two main ways:
If you apply for a home we use information you give us about your rehousing needs to decide what kind of home you need and how quickly you need to move there. When you become a tenant we use your personal information to help us manage your home and the surrounding neighbourhood, such as the kind of support and services you need.
We share your information with other agencies like the Council, or the police, but only when we need to - for example to prevent crime or provide extra support. We ask them to keep the information safe and remove it from their files when they no longer need it. They are not allowed to pass the information on to anyone else.
As part of the National Fraud Initiative, we may share information about our tenants with other public bodies to pinpoint any fraudulent activity and to stop fraud happening in the future. We are committed to making sure that no one is living in our homes who shouldn't be, and we're working with Manchester City Council to make sure that public money is spent properly. This work helps us to reduce the number of frauds in housing benefit and in tenancy agreements to make the system fairer. For further information, see www.manchester.gov.uk/datamatching.
We will also provide the Council with certain data about people who have been the subject of anti-social behaviour interventions. This is to enable those people to be considered for help under Manchester City Council's 'Complex Families' Programme. Click the link for more details.
You have the right to see any of the information we hold about you. To ask for the information, print out this request form, fill it in and return it to:
Head of Business Effectiveness & Communications
Northwards Housing
Freepost
NORTHWARDS HOUSING HQ
Manchester, M9 8GQ
If you need, you can ask someone else to fill in the form for you. We will acknowledge your request and send what you have asked for within 40 working days (eight weeks). The law says we must do this under the 'Data Protection Act'.
If you feel that the way we use or keep your information is causing you damage or distress you can write and ask us to stop using the information (see address above). We do not have to do that if: