Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) Licence - Privacy notice
Who we are and what we do
Cotswold District Council is the data controller and collects your personal data in order to assess your Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) Licence application. We will only collect the personal data from you we need in order to make this assessment and provide this service to you.
This notice explains why we ask for your personal information, how that information will be used and how you can access your records.
Any questions regarding our privacy practices should be sent to:
Data Protection Officer (DPO)
Cotswold District Council
Council Offices, Cirencester, GL7 1PX
Email: data.protection@cotswold.gov.uk
Tel: 01993 861194
Why we need your information and how we use it
The legal basis we rely on to process your personal data is article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation we are subject to – see below:
- Housing Act 2004
- Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006.
- Licensing and Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Additional Provisions) (England) Regulations 2007.
- The Licensing and Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Mandatory Conditions of Licences)(England) Regulations 2018
We will not be able to assess and process your HMO Licence application without the personal data you provide us with.
What type of information is collected from you
In order to administer our services we collect the following information from you:
- Licence holder name
- Licence manager
- property address
- telephone number
- Descriptions of the property e.g. number of rooms
We will only ask for personal information that is appropriate to enable us to deliver our services. In some cases, you can refuse to provide your details if you deem a request to be inappropriate. However, you should note that this may impact on our ability to provide some services to you.
Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)
We may share some information with other organisations.
The information below will be held on a public register as prescribed by the Licensing and Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation and Other Houses (Misc Provisions) (England) Regulations 2006
We may disclose information to third parties where it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation.
Where we need to disclose sensitive information such as medical details to a third party, we will only do so once we have obtained your explicit consent, or where we are legally required to. We may disclose information when necessary to prevent risk of harm to an individual.
The council is required by law to protect the public funds they administer. We may use any of the information you provided for the prevention and detection of fraud.
We may also share information with other bodies that are responsible for auditing or administering public funds, including the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office requires councils to participate in data matching exercises to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud.
How long we keep your information (retention period)
The information will be retained for the duration of the licence (usually 5 years).
We securely destroy all information once we have used it and no longer need it.
How we protect your Information
We will not transfer your personal data outside the EU without your consent.
We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personal data from loss, misuse, or unauthorised alteration or destruction.
Please note however that where you are transmitting information to us over the internet this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.
For any payments which we take from you online we will use a recognised online secure payment system.
We will notify you promptly in the event of any breach of your personal data which might expose you to serious risk.
Your rights
You have rights under the Data Protection Legislations:
- to access your personal data
- to be provided with information about how your personal data is processed
- to have your personal data corrected
- to have your personal data erased in certain circumstances
- to object to or restrict how your personal data is processed
- to have your personal data transferred to yourself or to another business in certain circumstances
- you have the right to be told if we have made a mistake whilst processing your data and we will self report breaches to the Commissioner.
How you can access, update or correct your information
The Data Protection Legislation allows you to find out what information is held about you, on paper and computer records. This is known as ‘right of subject access’ and applies to your Environmental Regulatory Services data along with all other personal records.
If you wish to see a copy of your records you should contact the Data Protection Officer. You are entitled to receive a copy of our records free of charge, within a month.
In certain circumstances access to your records may be limited, for example, if the records you have asked for contain information relating to another person.
The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. We are working to make our record keeping more efficient. In the meantime, if you change your address or email address, or if any of your circumstances change or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date please email us or write to us at:
Operational Services
Environmental & Regulatory Services
Cotswold District Council
Council Offices, Cirencester, GL7 1PX
Contact us
Further information
If you would like to know more about how we use your information, or if for any reason you do not wish to have your information used in any of the ways described here, please tell us. Contact the Data Protection Officer.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner: https://ico.org.uk
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.