Our Privacy Policy
Our promise
Homefinder UK is a service provided by Home Connections, a boutique software enterprise at the forefront of the latest technology innovations within the social housing sector. We promise to keep your data safe and secure.
Here is all you need to know about the data we hold about you and how we use it.
- We will only use your data to improve your experience with us.
- We will protect the data we hold about you.
- You decide what we send you and how often.
- We will only ask for data we need to help you find a new property and will delete it once we no longer need it.
Protecting your privacy
At Homefinder UK/Home Connections, we are 100% committed to protecting the privacy and security of our customers and site visitors.
In this Privacy Policy "Personal Data" refers to information that can be used to identify you, directly or indirectly, alone or together with other information. This includes things such as your full name, email address, telephone number, precise location, device IDs, IP address, certain cookie and network identifiers.
To help you with your housing application, we may also need to collect “Special Category Data” about you. Special Category data includes things like your gender, medical conditions, whether you are subject to domestic abuse etc.
The processing of your personal data will always be in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and in accordance with any country-specific data protection regulations applicable to Homefinder UK/Home Connections.
The data controller, the company that’s responsible for your privacy, for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), other data protection laws applicable in member states of the European Union and other provisions related to data protection is:
Homefinder UK/Home Connections
United House, North Road, N7 9DP
Phone: 0207 619 9705
Website: https://homefinderuk.org/
If you have any questions about how we Protect Your Privacy, drop us a line at [email protected]. Any data subject may, at any time, contact our Data Protection Officer directly with any questions and suggestions concerning data protection.
The legal bases we rely on
There are a number of different reasons for which we may collect and process your personal data, including:
Consent
We may collect and process your data with your consent. For example, when you tick a box to say you are happy to continue (or when you sign a paper copy of the application form). You can withdraw your consent at any time. Please note however that if you withdraw your consent we may not be able to continue to help you find a new property.
Contractual Obligations
We may collect and process your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations.
Legal Compliance
We may collect and process your personal data to comply with our legal obligations. This could include, for example, data about people involved in fraud or other criminal activity.
Vital Interest
If you are subject to domestic or other abuse, the law says we can process your data as it is in your vital interests that we do so to protect you from harm.
Legitimate Interest
We may collect and process your personal data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business. This does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.
When we collect and process personal data
- When you create an account or interact with our website.
- When you communicate with us via email, online, telephone, instant message or social media.
- When you sign up for promotional materials or email newsletters.
- When we collect data from third parties or publicly available sources.
- When we leverage and/or collect cookies, device IDs, Location, data from the environment, and other tracking technologies.
- When you are referred to us by a third-party agency, perhaps your GP, your housing adviser or your local Citizens Advice Bureau.
How we use your information
We have listed below in detail the information we collect from you, how we use it and why.
Your name, address, telephone number and email address
We may collect and process your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations.
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How we use this information |
Why? |
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Send you service messages via email or text such as order updates, delivery tracking. |
So that we can fulfil our contract with you. |
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Send you our email newsletter. |
We only do this with your permission to keep you updated and show you products that may interest you. |
Special Category data – for example any medical conditions, or whether you are a victim of domestic abuse
We may collect and process special category data to enable us to comply with our contractual obligations.
|
How we use this information |
Why? |
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To ensure we process your application with the necessary urgency and to ensure any accommodation we suggest to you can meet your needs |
So that we can fulfil our contract with you and provide you with the best possible choices to suit your circumstances |
Information about your phone or laptop, and how you use our website
This information includes your IP address and device type and, if you choose to share it with us, your location data, demographic data, gender as well as how you use our website.
|
How we use this information |
Why? |
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Improve our website and set default options for you |
To give you the best possible experience |
Your contact history with us
This includes emails, telephone calls, feedback, reviews, instant chat or social media messages.
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How we use this information |
Why? |
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Provide you customer service and support |
We have to do this to be able to fulfil our contract with you. We want to give you the best experience possible. |
|
Staff training |
To make sure we provide our customers the best possible customer service. |
You don’t have to give us this personal information or special category information but if you decide not to, you may not be able to receive our optimal experience and customer service.
We also anonymise and aggregate personal information (so that it does not identify you) and use it for purposes including testing our IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site and app, and developing new products and services. We also share this information with third parties.
Sharing your information
We may share your information with local authorities and other social landlords in order to provide you with the best accommodation to meet your requirements. We do not, and will not, sell any of your personal data to any third party – including your name, address, email address or telephone number.
Our policy we apply to companies we share your information with
We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services. They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them. We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times. If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.
Marketing Communications: How to stop receiving marketing messages from Homefinder UK/Home Connections
If you have opted to receive Homefinder UK/Home Connections' marketing (newsletters or other communications), you can stop receiving marketing messages from us at any time by:
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By clicking ‘unsubscribe’ from any email you received from us (this will only stop email communications)
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By contacting our customer service team
Stopping marketing messages will not stop service messages (such as updates on your application for housing).
Keeping your information
We retain your information as long as your account is active or as long as it is needed to be able to provide the services to you or for as long as we are required to by law unless you request deletion of our information.
At the end of the retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.
How we protect your personal data
We secure access to all transactional areas of our website using ‘https’ technology. Access to your personal data is password-protected, and sensitive data (such as payment card information) is secured by SSL encryption. We also regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities. In case of a personal data breach affecting your data we will notify you of a breach within 72 hours of becoming aware of it.
Your rights
You have a lot of rights relating to your personal information:
- The right to be informed about how your personal information is being used
- The right to access the personal information Homefinder UK holds about you
- The right to request the correction of inaccurate personal information we hold about you (you can also do this through My Account)
- The right to request that we stop processing it or collecting your data
- The right to request erasure of your data (right to be forgotten). We will always respect this request unless we are required to retain the information for legal reasons
- The right to stop direct marketing messages (you can do this through My Account), and to withdraw consent for other consent-based processing at any time
- The right to request that we transfer your data either to you or another service provider
- The right to contact the regulator
If you have any complaints with regard to how Homefinder UK/Home Connections handles your personal data you can contact the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), call 0303 123 1113 or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns. However, we would ask that you please contact us in the first instance via [email protected] so that we can hopefully respond to your complaint in a way that is satisfactory to you.
Changes to how we Protect Your Privacy
If we make significant changes to this policy, we will make these clear on the Homefinder UK website. You should always check the date the policy was last updated.
Date this policy was last updated
This policy was last updated on 15th July 2021.
Cookies
We use cookies on our website. Our website uses cookies in order to provide added functionality and enhance your browsing experience. Cookies are harmless text files, used by all web browsers in order to provide a more tailored web browsing experience. If you would prefer not to receive cookies from Homefinder UK please refer to your browser privacy settings. Please note that preventing cookies may render parts of the website inoperable and/or prevent certain content from appearing on pages viewed.
Cookies on our website are used for the following purposes:
- To enable you to create an account.
- Cookies may be used for personalised and non-personalised advertising according to your consent notice.
- To analyse the use of our website through Analytics software such as Google Analytics.
The cookies our website uses do not collect any sensitive information such as your name, address, email address, or any other contact details. The cookies this website uses are:
Strictly Necessary cookies
Performance cookies
Targeting cookies
Functionality cookies
Unclassified cookies
You can find full details of Google’s privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the https://www.aboutcookies.org/legal-notices/privacy/site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.
To fully disable cookies on our website, you will need to change the settings in your website browser. Full instructions for all browsers can be found here.
Get in touch
We are always happy to hear from you. You can speak to one of our helpful and experienced Customer Services team with any questions regarding this policy, your rights or any complaints.
Call us: 0207 619 9705 (Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm)
Email us: [email protected]
You can also contact our privacy team on [email protected].