Privacy policy

About Zen

Zen Housing is the group name for Zen Housing Limited, Zen Housing 2 Limited and Zen Rented Limited. Each is a separate company and each is the controller of the personal data it holds about its own residents. This notice covers all three.

It tells you what personal information we hold about you, why we hold it, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do with it.

What information we collect

Most of what we hold comes from you, when you apply for a home, sign a tenancy or lease, contact us or use our services. Some comes from other organisations, such as a local authority that nominates you for a home, or the managing agent who looks after your home day to day.

Who you are and how to reach you: your name, address, telephone number, email address and date of birth.
Who lives with you, so that we know the household in the home.
Your tenancy or lease, your rent account and your payments.
Repairs you have reported and work we have carried out in your home.
Letters, emails, messages and notes of conversations between us.
Information about a complaint, an anti-social behaviour report or a safeguarding concern, where there is one.

Some of what we hold is more sensitive. We may hold information about your health where it affects the home you need or the way we should contact you, and information about your ethnicity, religion or other characteristics where it is given to us for equality monitoring. We hold this only where we have a clear reason to.

Why we use it, and our legal basis

The law requires us to have a reason, called a lawful basis, for every use we make of your information. Ours are these.

To carry out our agreement with you: letting your home, collecting rent, carrying out repairs and providing the services in your tenancy or lease.
To meet our legal duties: as a registered provider of social housing we have obligations on safety, safeguarding, equality and reporting to the Regulator of Social Housing.
For our legitimate interests: managing our homes and neighbourhoods, improving our services, and preventing and detecting fraud. We use this basis only where it does not override your rights.
To protect someone: in an emergency, where there is a risk to a person’s life or safety.
With your consent: where we ask for it, such as an optional survey. Where we rely on consent you can withdraw it at any time.

For the more sensitive information we also rely on the law that allows it where there is a substantial public interest, such as safeguarding and equality of opportunity, or on your explicit consent.

We do not sell your information and we do not use it for advertising. We share it only where we need to.

Pinnacle Group, our managing agent, who look after your home and handle your repairs and enquiries on our behalf.
Contractors who carry out work in your home, who are given only what they need to do the job.
Local authorities, the Regulator of Social Housing, the Housing Ombudsman and other public bodies, where the law requires it or where you have asked one of them to act for you.
The police, and other agencies, where we are required to help prevent or detect crime or to protect someone from harm.

When you send us a message through a form on this website, the message is received and stored by Netlify, the company that hosts this website, before it reaches us. Netlify’s servers are outside the United Kingdom, and it handles the message under a written agreement that requires it to protect your information and to use it only to pass the message to us.

Anyone who handles your information on our behalf does so under a written agreement, can use it only for what we have asked them to do, and has to keep it secure.

How long we keep it

We keep your information only for as long as we need it. How long that is depends on what it is for: rent records and tenancy papers are kept for a period after a tenancy ends, because a question about them can arise later, while a one-off enquiry is kept for much less time. When we no longer need information, we delete it or remove anything that identifies you.

Your rights

The law gives you rights over the information we hold about you. You can ask us to:

give you a copy of it, which is explained below;
correct it, if it is wrong or incomplete;
delete it, where we no longer have a reason to hold it;
stop using it for a while, if you have questioned whether we should hold it;
stop using it altogether, where we are relying on our legitimate interests and you object;
hand it to you or another organisation in a machine-readable form, where we hold it because you consented or because of a contract with you;
stop using it for direct marketing, which we will do straight away.

Not every right applies to every piece of information. If one does not apply we will tell you why. Using any of them is free, and asking will never affect the service you get from us.

Asking for a copy of your data

UK GDPR allows you to find out what information about you is held on computer and in some paper records. This is called the right of subject access, and it includes facts and opinions expressed about you.

You can make a request in any format, but before we can start processing it we must have received proof of your identity. Please be as specific as you can about the information you want access to.

In person: we need to see the original of one form of photographic identification.
By email or post: we need two forms of identification, so that we release your data to the right person. One photographic form to identify you, and a recent utility bill showing your full name and address.

Photographic identification we accept includes the pages of a passport that identify you, or a driving licence. If you are making a request on behalf of someone else, you will also need to provide a signed letter of consent from them and proof of their identity.

Send your request to info@zenhousinguk.com, marked for the attention of Data Protection.

What we will do

We will acknowledge your request and set out our deadline for responding, which will be within 30 calendar days of receiving it. We may ask you for further information or clarification if we need it, and in that case the 30 days start from the date we receive it.

The data may take the form of photocopies, printouts, transcripts, or a combination, depending on what is most appropriate. If we hold no data about you, we will tell you that.

Exemptions

We may withhold information we hold about you where the law allows. The main exemptions are where information is held in order to prevent or detect crime, or to apprehend or prosecute offenders, and disclosing it would prejudice that work or harm you. If information is already published or available elsewhere, we do not need to repeat it.

If you are unhappy

Please contact the Data Protection Team first, at info@zenhousinguk.com, to see whether your concerns can be resolved informally. That is usually quicker than a formal complaint.

If you are still dissatisfied, you can complain to us under our complaints procedure.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, at the address below.

Information CommissionerWycliffe HouseWater LaneWilmslowCheshire SK9 5AF

How to contact us

Our Data Protection Officer is responsible for how we look after personal information, and is the person to ask about anything on this page. Write to info@zenhousinguk.com and your message will reach them.

Keeping this notice up to date

We review this notice at least once a year, and sooner if the way we use your information changes. When we change it we publish the new version here.